I'm looking at purchasing a hotel managed property in Whistler at the Westin. These properties are referred to as Phase 2.
You buy the room like you would a condo, and you are restricted to using it 56 days a year. On the days you're not using it, you collect rental income from your share of the hotels revenues.
The rooms net anywhere from $3k-$10k per year, and that's after all expenses including strata, property taxes and other fees.
Does anyone have any experience with owning a Phase 2 property and would you be able to share how things have gone?
Thanks!
From your post, I surmise that you are thinking of buying an entire unit at the Westin, not just a a timeshare week. I'll throw in a few thoughts, from the few pieces of information that I have.
re the 56 days of personal use per year. I don't know the specific details for this property, but I do understand that in general most of the condo developments in Whistler have restrictions of this type. And I think it is for the better.
When Intrawest was heavily involved in developing Whistler they looked at a number of other resorts. One problem they noted was that in many places many of the units that were close to the lifts were owned by owners who only used their units a few weeks per year, with the units sitting vacant most of the time. Meanwhile there were people who wanted to rent but there weren't units to rent. So Intrawest created strata (condo) agreements that limited the number of days an owner could use a unit and required that units be put into a rental pool. This had the effect of increasing the rental market, while also increasing the number of people actually staying in the village, which was good for the Village merchants.
As to the economics - I have done a number of private rentals in Whistler. In fact, I owned a whiski Jack property for about a year, but then I sold it because for the same money I could rent from a private owner without having the obligations of ownership.
In talking with private owners from whom I rented I deduced that their goal was to be able to get enough rental income from their unit to be able to cover operating expenses, leaving them able to use the unit essentially rent free for four or five weeks per year. The proposition worked out best for people who lived in Vancouver, where they could use the condo for those odd two or three days when there was an open space in their bookings that they couldn't fill. They would then take a short ski vacation and clean the unit themselves before departure (in lieu of their usual cleaning service). They didn't make money, but they regarded it as free ski vacations with a possible equity bonus if they sold.
****
As to your situation ... don't make the mistake of thinking that you can rent units for the same rate as the Westin. Put yourself in the position as a renter ... if you had two offers in front of you for the same money, one from the Westin and one from some private individual about whom you know nothing - which would you take?
Bottom line: as a private person you should figure that you would get no more than one-half of the rates that the hotel operator gets. Also, think about who is handling your rental. If it is the Westin itself consider whether they are more motivated to rent a unit from their own inventory or from private owner inventory? Figure that given the choice they are going to offer your inventory only after they have rented all of the inventory they control directly.