Club Intrawest Fractionals/Co-branded Condo Hotels

Just wondering if anyone has purchased either a fractional or whole ownership unit(s) through Intrawest and would like to share their experience? Wondering if you've tried trading? Quality of accomodations? Quality of upkeep? Increases in mf's since purchase? Anything else that might be of interest.

Thanks in advance.

Hi There

What location are you considering? We have looked at it very seriously as well, and may go the fractional route (Quarter) sometime in the future. The best bang for the buck appears to be Tremblant. Level 3 resort in the Resort 2 Resort exchange program while being able to purchase a 2BR quarter in around the $130-$140K range. You could exchange a 5 weekday portion (Sun-Thur) for a full week at Blue!

Cheers,

Steve

Club Intrawest vs. High Country Club

I took a look at Club Intrawest when I was reviewing fractionals, residence clubs and destination clubs. I chose High Country Club. IMHO, the HCC properties are more luxurious, there are many more locations, the locations are better for me and the cost was lower (if I remember correctly). Also, the High Country Club people gave me a a better sense of what I was buying and their future plans.

Hey Travelguy,

Do you have a website. I thought the Resort 2 Resort exchange program was pretty good with lots of locations, including the new JW Marriott being built in Muskoka. i would love to see more on HCC.

Cheers,

OnMedic said:

Do you have a website. I thought the Resort 2 Resort exchange program was pretty good with lots of locations, including the new JW Marriott being built in Muskoka. i would love to see more on HCC.

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I also joined High Country Club and currently feel it is the best bang for the buck.

I posted three major threads on TUG regarding HCC.

You can simply choose the search option and type High Country Club in the box.

Here is the latest
http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=34947&highlight=high+country+club

I sent the Admin of TUG a request for a dedicated Destination Club forum and even volunteered to moderate. They are considering it, but the focus for TUG is timeshares, not destination clubs, etc.

I am happy to publically or privately (via PM) answer questions on High Country Club as I am their newest cheerleader....if you know what I mean.

FYI Intrawest and Club Intrawest are 2 seperate things. Intrawest is a huge real estate company which owns and developes ski areas and other recreation resorts. Club Intrawest is the TS company (founded by intrawest) with locations in several of the Intrawest developements.

The fractionals which were asked about are not associated with CI in any way but offered for sale by Intrawest.

Some past posters have stated that they bought Club Intrawest hoping to use it to visit Whistler for skiing. They have commented that they found it very difficult to book time at Club Intrawest for skiing, even during times when the resort was running promotions for people to stay at the resort and do the tour and sales presentation.

T_R_Oglodyte said:

Some past posters have stated that they bought Club Intrawest hoping to use it to visit Whistler for skiing. They have commented that they found it very difficult to book time at Club Intrawest for skiing, even during times when the resort was running promotions for people to stay at the resort and do the tour and sales presentation.

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As Bill mentioned above, Club Intrawest is separate from the Intrawest fractionals, so I'm not sure how that is relevant to this thread.

High Country Club web site

OnMedic said:

Hey Travelguy,

Do you have a website. I thought the Resort 2 Resort exchange program was pretty good with lots of locations, including the new JW Marriott being built in Muskoka. i would love to see more on HCC.

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Just in case you didn't get this from Steamboat Bill's post:

www.highcountryclub.com

I learned about High Country Club from previous posts on TUG and I'm glad I checked into it. Hope this helps.

tashamen said:

As Bill mentioned above, Club Intrawest is separate from the Intrawest fractionals, so I'm not sure how that is relevant to this thread.

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You're right. My bad.

I was looking at Blue Mountain, Tremblant and Whistler initially. I want full ownership rather than fractionals and no restrictions on use. Whistler is more difficult to justify right now due to the added travel costs but the real estate appreciation after 2010 should be significant. Blue is an easy drive and Tremblant isn't bad either.

I am putting together a buying group of likely 10-20 people who will put in around $125k or so with 5 weeks usage per and we'll add in my Grand Cayman property so we'll have 3 to start out with to ensure availability almost any time as well as real estate appreciation.

The Resort to Resort just adds a bit more flexibility into this mix.

Once we've established a core of investors we'll then add a few more and look at more Caribbean locations. Due to tax issues we may stay away from the US for the time being and use the Resort to Resort connection for travel to those resorts. Alternatively, I'm looking at establishing a non-profit org with share capital to hold the deeds in the US to avoid tax.

The condo-hotel piece with the co-branding with Westin is really attractive given their quality standards. I've seen the net revenue numbers from Blue and they almost cover the annual costs which is really nice plus they are waiving the strata and property taxes for the first two years.

caribbeansun said:

I am putting together a buying group of likely 10-20 people who will put in around $125k or so with 5 weeks usage per and we'll add in my Grand Cayman property so we'll have 3 to start out with to ensure availability almost any time as well as real estate appreciation.

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I am confused... $125K to buy into the group and get 5 weeks, or $130 or so w/ Intrawest's Playground on a resale and get 12 Weeks in a 2BR, while also having access to R2R?

$125K to buy into the group and get 5 weeks

The idea being that we'd avoid having to rely on a trading system for the most part by purchasing other properties that aren't part of the same network. Full ownership opens the entire year up for going to the locations but most importantly the participation in the real estate appreciation.

My personal opinion is that fractionals won't appreciate in value and are comparable to purchasing a block of timeshare weeks. I believe that the market for purchasers of a full ownership property are much greater and you should see appreciation comparable to second homes.

caribbeansun said:

My personal opinion is that fractionals won't appreciate in value and are comparable to purchasing a block of timeshare weeks. I believe that the market for purchasers of a full ownership property are much greater and you should see appreciation comparable to second homes.

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FYI...the value of second homes has been declining for the past 12 months.

For investment purposes you would do much better in T-Bills.

JMHO

Duke

In the US that may be true, however, in other countries it is not the case at this point in time. By purchasing in more than one market it provides diversification against significant cyclical changes.

While T-bills may be attractive today IMO they would be a viable long-term investment option depending upon a person's age ie. the shorter your investment time horizon and the greater the need for stability the more appropriate T-bills would be.

We own IntraWest's Honua Kai in Maui

We bought a 1BR at the Honua Kai in Maui - an IntraWest (Playground) whole ownership property. We bought in Dec of 2005 and our unit will be ready Feb of 2009. This is a condo-hotel where you actually own the condo and land.

The folks there indicate that there is an internal exchange system where we can put up a 1BR week in Maui and get any week in their exchange system. I don't know if this is true but I'd like to exchange into Whistler for snowboarding.

If anyone has details how this internal exchange system works, I'd like to hear about it.

All units are sold out, but the developer was going to buy a wing of the second building - that seems to be not happening so more units will be up for sale. Our unit, which has not been built, is up 15% since we bought in.

Link: http://www.honuakai.com/

P.S.
Since the Maui Westin timeshares are right next door, IntraWest is not branding the Westin name on the project - they have enough Canadians and Europeans on their rental lists to fill the place - we save 15% on rental income since we don't pay for the Westin name.

P.P.S.
Here is a link to what our 1BR will look like - it's the same as the model they built: http://www.honuakai.com/condo_suite.html#embed

Perry,

The trading they are talking about isn't thru Club Intrawest but thru another company which Intrawest corp is involved. (The name escapes me) That company does have several cabins/townhouses in Whistler. They are mostly near the creakside gondola which isn't in the village of Whistler.

Bill4728 said:

Perry,

The trading they are talking about isn't thru Club Intrawest but thru another company which Intrawest corp is involved. (The name escapes me) That company does have several cabins/townhouses in Whistler. They are mostly near the creakside gondola which isn't in the village of Whistler.

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Sorry, that's the organization "Playground" that we will be exchanging thru. Anyone here exchange thru Playground? It's not affiliated with Club IntraWest or II.

P.S.
Here's the link to Playground: http://www.playground.com/en/usa/portfolio/snapshot_honua_kai.asp

PerryM said:

We bought a 1BR at the Honua Kai in Maui - an IntraWest (Playground) whole ownership property. We bought in Dec of 2005 and our unit will be ready Feb of 2009.

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3.5 years....you are very patient!

3.5 years is just right

Steamboat Bill said:

3.5 years....you are very patient!

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Bill,

3.5 years is fantastic – for a condo hotel.

The whole idea is to get in on a project that has a 3 – 4 year build cycle. Let’s say the average 1BR in Ka’anapali $1 M. You put 20% down and hold for 3.5 years. You pay nothing during those 3.5 years.

The average 35 year appreciation for Ka’anapali is 9%. In the last 15 years it’s about 15%. You buy your $1 M condo-hotel and put down $200k. at the end of 3.5 years that condo has a real estate value of $1.42 M.

You made $220,000 on a $200,000 investment in 3.5 years.

If the appreciation is closer to Ka’anapali’s in the last 10 years of 20% then you made $384,000 on $200,000.

This is exactly why the fist building sold 300 condos in 8 hours and the second sold 200 in 8 hours. The remaining 100 condos hopefully will be put up soon. The first building had 1,400 folks who each put down $20k to get in on the sales event. We lucked out and got the cheapest 1BR with an ocean view - exactly what we wanted. 1,100 remaining folks got their $20k back with no sale.

PerryM said:

This is exactly why the fist building sold 300 condos in 8 hours and the second sold 200 in 8 hours. The remaining 100 condos hopefully will be put up soon. The first building had 1,400 folks who each put down $20k to get in on the sales event. We lucked out and got the cheapest 1BR with an ocean view - exactly what we wanted. 1,100 remaining folks got their $20k back with no sale.

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You call it luck.....I would refer to it as your skill...perhaps we should call you PerryM (aka Jedi timeshare master).

It took hard work

Steamboat Bill said:

You call it luck.....I would refer to it as your skill...perhaps we should call you PerryM (aka Jedi timeshare master).

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Thanks!

I did work very hard - I kept in touch with our sales rep - I was the first person to contact Intrawest, about the Maui project, and I brought 2 other folks to the table too - they did not get a unit unfortunately.

Normally this is just a lottery - why they took this approach makes no sense at all to me - but I play the game according to the rules.

Perry - the Playground properties of Intrawest trade through the Intrawest mini-system Resort to Resort . This system is only for their fractional and whole ownership properties as their TS properties trade through II. Trades are strictly on point values BTW.

Thanks!

caribbeansun said:

Perry - the Playground properties of Intrawest trade through the Intrawest mini-system Resort to Resort . This system is only for their fractional and whole ownership properties as their TS properties trade through II. Trades are strictly on point values BTW.

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Thanks! I guess this is what we will be exchanging thru.

Assuming we don't just flip the condo on day one.

I'll read about it and try to understand their point system.

P.S.
In just the 60 seconds I spend looking at their Point System I love it. I can already tell that this is a fair system and that outrageous upgrades are not built into the system - you get a currency for your unit and length of deposit - if there isn't an oversupply already. I love that - no depositing units/weeks if there already is a glut!!!

P.P.S.
This is just fantastic! We can use our condo-hotel:
1) Use the week (no time limits in Hawaii, 365 days a year if we want)
2) Place the unit into the inhouse rental program
3) Use Resort2Resort (R2) to exchange in a 1st class set of comparable units world wide

I'm really impressed with R2R from just 2 minutes of viewing - anyone here actually use it?

Thanks

Are you sure about the no limitations on use AND deposit into rental pool?

I was at an Intrawest event last night and I was told that if you want your unit in the rental pool they limit your use to 10 days a month, in the co-branded Westin property it's even less usage. They also use these usage limitations to determine what you can deposit with R2R.

Bottom-line was that you were either in the rental pool and live with the restrictions or you were out of the rental pool and then they had no restrictions other than you cannot rent the unit yourself so no incoming cash flow.

This was sufficient enough of a constraint that I walked away from the project. They suggested that this was the same for most of their projects although I doubt the sales person actually knew the answer.