[ 2014 ] Sold our Kaanapali Beach Club

JIMinNC · Oct 22, 2014

After 16 years of ownership, we have sold our 2BR at Kaanapali Beach Club on Maui (closed last week). In many ways we hated to let it go because we got some great vacations over the years, but our frequency of Hawaii trips has dropped from what it was in the first ten years or so that we owned our week (only one Hawaii trip in the last 6 years) and we could no longer justify Hawaii MF for RCI or II exchanges in the majority of the years when we didn't travel to the islands.

We used Timeshare Resales Hawaii to market our week and we were very pleased with them. We listed in early July, and had a pending offer within two weeks, but the buyer never formalized a written offer. We received and accepted another offer in early September, but that buyer exercised their 7 day recession right. Two weeks later, we received another offer, and that one closed about 30 days or so later. If anyone needs to sell a Hawaii timeshare, I whole-heartedly recommend Timeshare Resales Hawaii - no upfront listing fees and all commissions are paid at closing. They also have a network of physical offices that can help bring in buyers and they have agents motivated to market your week.

This past summer we bought into the Marriott program through a deeded HHI week and a small Destination Points purchase. Hopefully Marriott will allow us some closer-to-home trips and still offer us access to Hawaii ever now and again.

We still have about two weeks worth of TPUs leftover in RCI and that plus our new Marriott ownership should fulfill our timeshare travel needs through at least 2016. Our oldest graduates college in 2017 and youngest graduates high school that same year, so once we are no longer tied to public school calendars, we may find a need for a HGVC or more Marriott points or weeks.

LisaH · Oct 22, 2014

I second Jim's recommendation for TRH. I worked with Mark Mullen and was very satisfied with his performance. He got me the price that I would not get otherwise and I was ready to give it away. That was four years ago and I am glad to hear the firm is still in the business.

kalima · Oct 22, 2014

KBC

I don't suppose you want to say how much it sold for do you? How much was their fee? TYI

dougp26364 · Oct 23, 2014

Buying retail points from MVCI and paying MVCI MF's is less expensive than keeping you KBC week? I'm surprised. I wouldn't have thought a HHI MVCI week plus trust interest would be that much cheaper.

artringwald · Oct 23, 2014

JIMinNC said:
After 16 years of ownership, we have sold our 2BR at Kaanapali Beach Club on Maui (closed last week). In many ways we hated to let it go because we got some great vacations over the years, but our frequency of Hawaii trips has dropped from what it was in the first ten years or so that we owned our week (only one Hawaii trip in the last 6 years) and we could no longer justify Hawaii MF for RCI or II exchanges in the majority of the years when we didn't travel to the islands.

We used Timeshare Resales Hawaii to market our week and we were very pleased with them. We listed in early July, and had a pending offer within two weeks, but the buyer never formalized a written offer. We received and accepted another offer in early September, but that buyer exercised their 7 day recession right. Two weeks later, we received another offer, and that one closed about 30 days or so later. If anyone needs to sell a Hawaii timeshare, I whole-heartedly recommend Timeshare Resales Hawaii - no upfront listing fees and all commissions are paid at closing. They also have a network of physical offices that can help bring in buyers and they have agents motivated to market your week.

This past summer we bought into the Marriott program through a deeded HHI week and a small Destination Points purchase. Hopefully Marriott will allow us some closer-to-home trips and still offer us access to Hawaii ever now and again.

We still have about two weeks worth of TPUs leftover in RCI and that plus our new Marriott ownership should fulfill our timeshare travel needs through at least 2016. Our oldest graduates college in 2017 and youngest graduates high school that same year, so once we are no longer tied to public school calendars, we may find a need for a HGVC or more Marriott points or weeks.

Was Wally Akuna your agent? His office is only a block away from KBC so whenever we stay there I enjoy stopping by to chat with him. I also enjoy his monthly newsletter. TRH is a good company to work with.

JIMinNC · Oct 23, 2014

dougp26364 said:
Buying retail points from MVCI and paying MVCI MF's is less expensive than keeping you KBC week? I'm surprised. I wouldn't have thought a HHI MVCI week plus trust interest would be that much cheaper.

Our Marriott package costs us a little bit less on an annual basis, but not much. KBC is now almost $2100/yr maintenance fees for 2BR.

The issue wasn't cost so much as finding something that fit our needs better. Owning at KBC was a great inexpensive way to visit Maui, but in the years we didn't go (which had become most years) we found RCI/II trading/ongoing search to be a frustrating process we really didn't like. We found it hard to find places we really wanted to visit on trade, and we don't like sitting around for months and months waiting for an OGS to match.

As of this past summer, we had three unused weeks sitting in RCI and one in II. We were shelling out $$ to combine TPUs and extend expiration dates so as not to lose them. We finally made a decision this past summer to do a full court press to use up these weeks (which dated back to 2010) and have booked trips for Thanksgiving 2014, Easter 2015, and July 4, 2015. We have an OGS in the pipeline now to use up some or all of the remaining TPUs for summer 2016. But honestly, if we didn't have these weeks/TPUs sitting there unused, we would have probably made different vacation choices for 2014-2016, so that is the main reason we opted to sell KBC - to rid ourselves of the RCI/II trading game.

With Marriott points we are no longer tied to week-long stays and can book shorter stays at the 10 month window. The fact that Marriott has eight resorts a three and a half hour drive away in Hilton Head (and the best resorts in HHI) was a major factor as well. We also love the Marriott network and there are only a few of their locations that we don't really have a desire to visit. With DC points, we can go online at the 12-month or 10-month windows and see what is available and book it. No more searching online on RCI/II and only finding leftovers or waiting and wondering what an OGS will yield.

JIMinNC · Oct 23, 2014

artringwald said:
Was Wally Akuna your agent? His office is only a block away from KBC so whenever we stay there I enjoy stopping by to chat with him. I also enjoy his monthly newsletter. TRH is a good company to work with.

Karen Welck did our listing and Doug Bryant was the agent who made the sale to the buyer.

rickandcindy23 · Oct 23, 2014

I have a friend who owns Ka'anapali Beach Club, 1 bed, and she has had it listed for a long time with no buyers. So it's YMMV on listing a timeshare with any company.

I am so very happy for you but have to assume you sold it cheaply to get rid of it. We sold a SOK week with Syed Sarmad and got what we paid after paying his fees of around $2,500.

dougp26364 · Oct 23, 2014

JIMinNC said:
Our Marriott package costs us a little bit less on an annual basis, but not much. KBC is now almost $2100/yr maintenance fees for 2BR.

The issue wasn't cost so much as finding something that fit our needs better. Owning at KBC was a great inexpensive way to visit Maui, but in the years we didn't go (which had become most years) we found RCI/II trading/ongoing search to be a frustrating process we really didn't like. We found it hard to find places we really wanted to visit on trade, and we don't like sitting around for months and months waiting for an OGS to match.

As of this past summer, we had three unused weeks sitting in RCI and one in II. We were shelling out $$ to combine TPUs and extend expiration dates so as not to lose them. We finally made a decision this past summer to do a full court press to use up these weeks (which dated back to 2010) and have booked trips for Thanksgiving 2014, Easter 2015, and July 4, 2015. We have an OGS in the pipeline now to use up some or all of the remaining TPUs for summer 2016. But honestly, if we didn't have these weeks/TPUs sitting there unused, we would have probably made different vacation choices for 2014-2016, so that is the main reason we opted to sell KBC - to rid ourselves of the RCI/II trading game.

With Marriott points we are no longer tied to week-long stays and can book shorter stays at the 10 month window. The fact that Marriott has eight resorts a three and a half hour drive away in Hilton Head (and the best resorts in HHI) was a major factor as well. We also love the Marriott network and there are only a few of their locations that we don't really have a desire to visit. With DC points, we can go online at the 12-month or 10-month windows and see what is available and book it. No more searching online on RCI/II and only finding leftovers or waiting and wondering what an OGS will yield.

At $2,100 I believe I'd have been looking to move on from KBC as well. MVCI is expensive but it's not that expensive. I find it interesting you never joined or utilized DRI's points based reservations club. We own 2 DRI weeks at Polo Towers and moved them into points (deeded weeks in THE Club rather than a trust ownership) and use them that way. Otherwise I'd have been in the same position as you found yourself with KBC, the cost outweighed the value. In fact I was looking at getting rid of our Polo Towers weeks when DRI bought out Sunterra. Instead we opted to keep the weeks and join their points program. So far it's worked out well for us.

I think you'll find MVCI has nicer resorts overall than DRI. I can't say MVCI's points based system is better than DRI's or that MVCI has as many locations. Each has it's strong points and each has it's weakness.

If push ever came to shove and I had to choose between the two, while I like DRI I'd probably keep our MVCI weeks and sell or give away our DRI weeks. The reality is both systems are expensive but, MVCI has typically has the better locations and nicer resorts. DRI has more locations but, they're not always as prime and, I can trade in relatively easily if that's what we really want to do.

JIMinNC · Oct 23, 2014

kalima said:
I don't suppose you want to say how much it sold for do you? How much was their fee? TYI

Originally listed it at $5,990 to be the lowest price at TRH, but over the ensuing months some newer listings came in under us, so we had gradually dropped the listing price to $5,800 to stay competitive. Sold for $4,700 with buyer paying 2015 MF. Commission to TRH was $2,500.

Recent comps were in the $4500 range although there were higher comps in the $5000 to $6000 range earlier in 2014 and 2013. There were three other listings for 2BR units close to our listing price, so given the competition, we didn't try to hold out for a higher price.

JIMinNC · Oct 23, 2014

dougp26364 said:
I find it interesting you never joined or utilized DRI's points based reservations club.

I think you'll find MVCI has nicer resorts overall than DRI.

They pitched it to us several times when we were in Maui over the years, but as I recall they always required purchasing some additional ownership interest to join "The Club". And we were never enamored with the DRI resort portfolio, so didn't really have that much interest in expanding our "investment" in DRI. We love KBC and also The Point at Poipu, but the overall DRI network didn't really appeal that much.

Marriott has higher quality and better locations for us, so we had our eyes on Marriott for a long time and would have bought there earlier if we had not already had the KBC week. This summer we finally decided we needed to make a change with our accumulating unused weeks, so we bought Marriott and listed KBC. I just wish we had done this a few years ago before Marriott DC Points so we would have had a pre-June 2010 legacy week that we could have enrolled in DC instead of having to do a combo/hybrid purchase.

We owned KBC from the very beginning - bought there just a few months after they started converting the Embassy Suites hotel to timeshare - so it's a little bittersweet, sort of like divesting yourself of a family member - but we won't miss RCI.

JIMinNC · Oct 23, 2014

rickandcindy23 said:
I have a friend who owns Ka'anapali Beach Club, 1 bed, and she has had it listed for a long time with no buyers. So it's YMMV on listing a timeshare with any company.

I am so very happy for you but have to assume you sold it cheaply to get rid of it. We sold a SOK week with Syed Sarmad and got what we paid after paying his fees of around $2,500.

There are so many 1BR units at KBC, I am sure they are harder to sell than 2BR. So many more to compete with.

TUGBrian · Oct 23, 2014

glad to hear a good report, they are a recent new advertiser with TUG!

always great to work with people who get great reviews from owners!

LisaH · Oct 23, 2014

JIMinNC said:
Originally listed it at $5,990 to be the lowest price at TRH, but over the ensuing months some newer listings came in under us, so we had gradually dropped the listing price to $5,800 to stay competitive. Sold for $4,700 with buyer paying 2015 MF. Commission to TRH was $2,500.

Recent comps were in the $4500 range although there were higher comps in the $5000 to $6000 range earlier in 2014 and 2013. There were three other listings for 2BR units close to our listing price, so given the competition, we didn't try to hold out for a higher price.

In my case, I sold a 1BR at SOK. It has very little value and I would be happy to give it away for free. Not sure how I contacted TRH (maybe stopped by at its Lahaina office) but Mark voluntarily offered to charge only $2000 commission instead of $2500. At the end, I cleared about $800. Not bad...

dougp26364 · Oct 23, 2014

JIMinNC said:
They pitched it to us several times when we were in Maui over the years, but as I recall they always required purchasing some additional ownership interest to join "The Club". And we were never enamored with the DRI resort portfolio, so didn't really have that much interest in expanding our "investment" in DRI. We love KBC and also The Point at Poipu, but the overall DRI network didn't really appeal that much.

Marriott has higher quality and better locations for us, so we had our eyes on Marriott for a long time and would have bought there earlier if we had not already had the KBC week. This summer we finally decided we needed to make a change with our accumulating unused weeks, so we bought Marriott and listed KBC. I just wish we had done this a few years ago before Marriott DC Points so we would have had a pre-June 2010 legacy week that we could have enrolled in DC instead of having to do a combo/hybrid purchase.

We owned KBC from the very beginning - bought there just a few months after they started converting the Embassy Suites hotel to timeshare - so it's a little bittersweet, sort of like divesting yourself of a family member - but we won't miss RCI.

We were fortunate. They allowed us to pay a joiner fee without buying more points. If they had required us to convert to one of the trust and/or buy trust points we likely would have dumped our weeks on the resale market as well.

For us THE Club has worked. At least well enough to validate our investment in paying the joiner fee. The resorts aren't the best and aren't in the best locations but, they do have resorts in locations MVCI does not and, for us, it gives us good access into Hawaii when we want to go. Easier at least than HGVC or Marriott and less expensive than MVCI based on MF's.

pamanc · Nov 16, 2014

What about selling 30,000 DRI points?

Thanks for the information on Timeshare Resales Hawaii.... We were duped into converting 2 deeded properties at KBC into points in 2011. Our MF for 30,000 points is now over $5,000/year. We originally had one 2 bedroom unit and a 1 bedroom unit. We could NEVER book the 2 bedroom. I think we stayed in it twice since 2003. We are so frustrated about how frequently the "rules" change related to reservations, upgrades, etc. I would love to sell and have contacted an attorney who has been successful in lawsuits, but really don't want to go the contentious route if we don't have to. Any suggestions?

TUGBrian · Nov 16, 2014

pamanc said:
Thanks for the information on Timeshare Resales Hawaii.... We were duped into converting 2 deeded properties at KBC into points in 2011. Our MF for 30,000 points is now over $5,000/year. We originally had one 2 bedroom unit and a 1 bedroom unit. We could NEVER book the 2 bedroom. I think we stayed in it twice since 2003. We are so frustrated about how frequently the "rules" change related to reservations, upgrades, etc. I would love to sell and have contacted an attorney who has been successful in lawsuits, but really don't want to go the contentious route if we don't have to. Any suggestions?

we suggest you not pay upfront fees to anyone who claims they can "cancel" your timeshare.

JIMinNC · Nov 17, 2014

pamanc said:
We could NEVER book the 2 bedroom. I think we stayed in it twice since 2003.

How far in advance were you trying to book the 2BR and were you only looking for a specific high-demand week?

In the 16 years we owned a 2BR at KBC, we never had difficulty booking - at 8 to 12 months out. Our trips were:

1999 - Late December check-in for Millennium New Years
2001 - February trip, as I recall
2003 - Christmas
2005 - Late June
2008 - Late June
2011 - Late June

We we're also able to request specific units and always received our first or second choice.

judell · Nov 21, 2014

Please post a link to the agent you used

That we can contact him directly
Thank you

sjuhawk_jd · Nov 21, 2014

JIMinNC said:
After 16 years of ownership, we have sold our 2BR at Kaanapali Beach Club on Maui (closed last week). In many ways we hated to let it go because we got some great vacations over the years, but our frequency of Hawaii trips has dropped from what it was in the first ten years or so that we owned our week (only one Hawaii trip in the last 6 years) and we could no longer justify Hawaii MF for RCI or II exchanges in the majority of the years when we didn't travel to the islands.

We used Timeshare Resales Hawaii to market our week and we were very pleased with them. We listed in early July, and had a pending offer within two weeks, but the buyer never formalized a written offer. We received and accepted another offer in early September, but that buyer exercised their 7 day recession right. Two weeks later, we received another offer, and that one closed about 30 days or so later. If anyone needs to sell a Hawaii timeshare, I whole-heartedly recommend Timeshare Resales Hawaii - no upfront listing fees and all commissions are paid at closing. They also have a network of physical offices that can help bring in buyers and they have agents motivated to market your week.

This past summer we bought into the Marriott program through a deeded HHI week and a small Destination Points purchase. Hopefully Marriott will allow us some closer-to-home trips and still offer us access to Hawaii ever now and again.

We still have about two weeks worth of TPUs leftover in RCI and that plus our new Marriott ownership should fulfill our timeshare travel needs through at least 2016. Our oldest graduates college in 2017 and youngest graduates high school that same year, so once we are no longer tied to public school calendars, we may find a need for a HGVC or more Marriott points or weeks.

You are active on TUG and you sold something on resale and than bought from the developer??? "S......e" on you :banana:

JIMinNC · Nov 21, 2014

judell said:
That we can contact him directly
Thank you

Sent you a PM with email address. Our agent was Karen Welck in the Lahaina office.

JIMinNC · Nov 21, 2014

sjuhawk_jd said:
You are active on TUG and you sold something on resale and than bought from the developer??? "S......e" on you

Given that Marriott third-party resale weeks can't be enrolled in the Destination Club, buying from the the developer was our only viable path to DC membership.

We wanted DC membership for the flexibility of less than 7 day stays.

While we could have bought pure resale points and then paid the initiation fees, by the time we would have done that, our cost per point would have been close to what we paid for the hybrid/combo purchase. With the hybrid we have a deeded week, plus both legacy and trust points. We also have greater security that future rule changes will not undermine the value of what we bought. With a pure resale point purchase, the program documents seem to give Marriott some leeway to possibly limit the usability of resale points down the road. May never happen, but since the cost was about the same, we took the safe route.

The situation was similar 16 years ago when we bought Kaanapali Beach Club from the developer - we evaluated resale, but at that time the only resales on Maui were in some of the older, more residential timeshare/condo complexes in Kahana and Kihei. KBC was the only place with the "resort" amenities and feel. Marriott, Westin, and Hyatt weren't around yet and KBC was a brand new timeshare conversion with a viable resale market still several years away.

theo · Nov 22, 2014

It's your money, but...

pamanc said:
I would love to sell and have contacted an attorney who has been successful in lawsuits, but really don't want to go the contentious route if we don't have to. Any suggestions?

I know nothing at all about your current DRI Points package or about the KBC facility, but I certainly know enough about the legal system to ask one simple question:
WHY on earth would you believe that paying an attorney to file suit is somehow going to help you escape your (3+ years old now) contract?

I have often stated in these forums that lawyers are attorneys --- not magicians. They possess no magic beans or potions, no pixie dust, no vials of secret elixirs.

It's your money and your decision, but I must still point out that by your own account you willingly chose to "convert" to DRI Points and you freely and voluntarily executed the associated contract (at least three years ago now) to do so. Please don't shoot the messenger here, but with all due respect your time, effort and resources might now be better spent seeking out a new home for your DRI Points, even if you inevitably have to take a financial loss. With a $5k+ annual fee obligation and (apparently) no actual unit / week reservation guarantee of any sort, you certainly have an uphill battle ahead to successfully achieve that particular objective.

If you do end up hiring an attorney, understand that those legal services might well ultimately end up just negotiating a "exit settlement" with DRI on your behalf.
In any such prospective settlement scenario or negotiations however, your previously owned deeded weeks are gone and "off the table" now, three+ years later.
I do not envy your predicament and wish I could offer more encouragement, but still wish you luck and success in whatever course of action you choose to pursue.

kdukesor · Apr 15, 2015

Kaanapali Beach Club

I have a KBC 1 [timeshare.] Does anyone know the approximate resale value on this? I'd like to sell this year.

[*specifics edited to comply with our no-advertising rule.]

DeniseM · Apr 15, 2015

kdukesor said:
I have a KBC [timeshare.] Does anyone know the approximate resale value on this? I'd like to sell this year.

Check the Comps on some of the timeshare classified websites:

http://www.ebay.com/sch/items/Timeshares-for-Sale_?_catref=1&_sacat=15897

www.redweek.com

http://tug2.com/timeshare-marketplace.aspx

[ 2014 ] Sold our Kaanapali Beach Club

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Elite

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Expert

TUG Review Crew: Veteran