Westin St. John New Villa Ownership Question

Hello everyone,

I wanted to know if the $85K price tag for a 3BR Villa Starwood Ownership opportunity for the WSJ is a good deal or not. They offer 148,100 Staroptions and additional incentives on the Starpoints with the deal. This is for a "floating" week and a platinum plus purchase.

I have seen a lot of discussions on this forum about resales and since this is a very new purchase option at St. John as well as the desire of the location, will the prices go up? According to the salesperson, the owner of existing villas will not be given the option to reserve the new ones and I assume that these weeks go very quick.

So with St. John being as beautiful as it is, does it make sense to lock in at these prices or wait for resale once occupancy begins in late 2007/early 2008.

Thanks in advance...

Will the developer sales prices go up? Almost guaranteed. Will resale prices ever reach the original developer sales price? Probably not. There has been debate (over on the Caribbean board) whether the new units/location are better or worse than the original section. Personally, if I had my heart set (and the $$ to spend) on a 3 bedroom unit, I'd buy a resale 3 bedroom unit from the first phase and get the private pool that goes with it and save quite a bit of money (granted you have no view per se).

David

scottcara said:

Hello everyone,

I wanted to know if the $85K price tag for a 3BR Villa Starwood Ownership opportunity for the WSJ is a good deal or not. They offer 148,100 Staroptions and additional incentives on the Starpoints with the deal. This is for a "floating" week and a platinum plus purchase.

I have seen a lot of discussions on this forum about resales and since this is a very new purchase option at St. John as well as the desire of the location, will the prices go up? According to the salesperson, the owner of existing villas will not be given the option to reserve the new ones and I assume that these weeks go very quick.

So with St. John being as beautiful as it is, does it make sense to lock in at these prices or wait for resale once occupancy begins in late 2007/early 2008.

Thanks in advance...

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$85k plus an annual Maintenance Fee for 1 week a year.

Rent a beautiful villa on the island for $3 to $5k when you wish to go like we do. Enjoy complete privacy and much better views than Westin can give you.

No worries or hassels of ownership. Just a wonderful vacation.

A no brainer IMHO.

lawren2 said:

$85k plus an annual Maintenance Fee for 1 week a year.

Rent a beautiful villa on the island for $3 to $5k when you wish to go like we do. Enjoy complete privacy and much better views than Westin can give you.

No worries or hassels of ownership. Just a wonderful vacation.

A no brainer IMHO.

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I can support what Lawren says. Due to an exchage request (internal within Starwood even!) that never panned out after being on the wait list for 6+ months, we ended up renting a beautiful home for $2,800 just up the hill from the Westin with our own pool, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, full kitchen, great view, etc. I'm afraid it's spoiled me!

$85K ????

I believe, IMHO, that $85K is way too much for one week! You should consider 6 1/2 weeks of High Country Club for only $50K in great 2-4bd properties at many great locations like Turks & Caicos, Maui, Cabo, etc. You could pay for first class airfare for all those vacations with the investment yield from the $35K you save!

dlpearson said:

I can support what Lawren says. Due to an exchage request (internal within Starwood even!) that never panned out after being on the wait list for 6+ months, we ended up renting a beautiful home for $2,800 just up the hill from the Westin with our own pool, 3 bedrooms, 3 baths, full kitchen, great view, etc. I'm afraid it's spoiled me!

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David did you use that company I like so much?

STJ is just one island where owning just doesn't make much sense <at least to me and mine>.

Welcome to TUG - I just wanted to add that most of the Starwood posts and owners are on the Hotel Based TS Board on TUG.

As far as the price, please seriously research buying a resale at the existing resort, before you spend that kind of money!

Unless you have $85,000 cash laying around and are rolling around in much more $$$$ than that, you would be crazy to spend that much on a 1 week a year timeshare.

Thank you all very much for your information

It does sound like a lot of money. As a newbie, my other question is if you are "guaranteed" during a resale of the timeshrare in WSJ to earn the 148K or so Staroptions. Are there instances where the resale just doesn't allow that to be the case.

I do appreciate all your responses. As to the rentals, it is nice to be part of the resort where you can use all the amenities and have housekeeping, auto rentals, and other people around to mingle with.

What is the typical "resale" as a percentage of the overall purchase price in a location such as WSJ?

Scott

scottcara said:

As to the rentals, it is nice to be part of the resort where you can use all the amenities and have housekeeping, auto rentals, and other people around to mingle with.

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Scott,

This is exactly why we like the resorts because they often have on-site restaurants, kids for kids to play with, etc. We try and avoid the super busy weeks because then we feel too crowded. Without kids, I'd definitely LOVE to rent a home for a great price!

Like DeniseM mentioned, a lot of the Starwood owners (resale and developer) are over on the other board. There are a lot of WSJ owners!

That's a different story from Starwood again!!

"According to the salesperson, the owner of existing villas will not be given the option to reserve the new ones and I assume that these weeks go very quick."

We purchased an additional 3 bedroom WSJ in when we were there in April (we now own weeks 17 and 18 - Platinum Plus) and were told by Starwood that we should have a "better chance" of trading into other seasons as owners would be allowed to use StarOptions to book into the newer units. I wouldn't, of course, be interested in the newer units as our 3 bedroom unit has a private pool, which we use heavily. Note that there is a difference in seasons between the new and old units - in the new units, our weeks would be Platinum. We've tried off and on for the last two years to change one of our April/May weeks for a June week and have not been successful.

Resales for the existing units often run very close to developer pricing - we had been looking for another week resale for about 2 years before we bought our unit from Starwood. The difference in price was about $4K, and we were given 120,000 StarPoints which I think we've utilized in ways worth more than the difference in price.

As far as appreciation goes, we purchased our first 3 bedroom week in 1999 for about $28K, and our second in 2006 for @$50K (both developer). We hope that there will be as much appreciation on our recent purchase as soon as the people who buy the new units realize they don't get the private pools and have to share the resort pool with everyone and start looking to buy the "older" units.

Just my 2 cents.

Lori

Lori, thank you and some additional questions

Thank for all your great info. So, please pardon my naive questions, when you say developer do you mean Starwood direct sales or someone else? Also when you are locked into those weeks in the older villas, are you then able to float into another period considering you are already Platinum plus. Finally, i have seen some that have said the resales can be qualified to earn the Staroptions? Is that correct in all cases?

Glad you love the St. John area, i do as well and development there is tough given the National Park and it's a short ride to other destinations in the Carribean.

And remember, that $85,000 doesn't get you a week every year... It gives you the right to pay a healthy Maintenance Fee every year to stay at WSJ for one week...

Sorry, I just don't get it. And yes I have been to St John, and seen the WSJ. But that's a college fund!! Or a really really awesome car, that you could drive every day

scottcara said:

Thank for all your great info. So, please pardon my naive questions, when you say developer do you mean Starwood direct sales or someone else? Also when you are locked into those weeks in the older villas, are you then able to float into another period considering you are already Platinum plus. Finally, i have seen some that have said the resales can be qualified to earn the Staroptions? Is that correct in all cases?

Glad you love the St. John area, i do as well and development there is tough given the National Park and it's a short ride to other destinations in the Carribean.

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Try posting in the Hotel based forum located at the bottom of the forum page. That is where the Starwood owners are located. Developer means from Stawood. The existing St John units are considered mandatory, which means the staroption use transfers with the sale/resale of the unit. There is talk that the new phase is voluntary, which means you have staroptions with your purchase from the developer, but can not be transfered to a new owner when you sell the unit.

One other thing, Westin St. John is nearly impossible to trade into, even internally. St John owners return to their home resort 95% of the time or rent to private parties. Rarely will you see a unit available for exchange, especially the three bedrooms.

Please go to the Hotel-Based Timeshare forum, there is a lot more information on Starwood and their resorts.

College fund is covered and I don't really need a new car

Avery:

I agree it's a lot of money, but we tend to spend our disposable income on travel, not clothes, jewelry or cars. Our child's future is covered, I think, due to the fact that we spent the first 12+ years of our marriage working and saving, not vacationing. Now that we're in a comfortable position, we prefer to guarantee our trip to St John every year, with full access to the Westin's amenities, and plenty of room for family and friends. To us, St John is the most wonderful place and it fits our vacation needs and interests to a tee. Everyone has different thoughts on timeshares, villas, etc. and everyone has their own perfect spot. We're just fortunate enough that we found ours at a time when we could afford it.

Lori

I second TomandRobin's recommedation

to go to the hotel-based timeshares board for more Starwood info. We did buy both of our units from Starwood. Yes, we should be able to "float" our fixed week within our season, but there just aren't that many vacancies as everyone tend to use their week(s). StarOptions do attach to resales of the original WSJ units because they're mandatory, but I've heard rumors to the effect that the new units aren't mandatory. The hotel-based timeshares board has a sticky regarding requalifying Starwood resales, so I recommend you check that out also.

Hope this helps,

Lori

This 3 BR villa recently did not sell on Ebay for $55,000.

It's Week 35, that's why

Week 35 is end of August/beginning of September - very few people will chance that part of the Caribbean during September. Historically, that's when the VI gets the majority of its hurricanes.

Also, unless you're very savvy in the ways of Starwood and use your week 35 to get an early June week, you probably won't be able to rent it out, either.

Lori

Lori, Amen to that! Just as in anything we buy, the price of a timeshare follows the value of the property. Week 35 is going to be less valuable then most weeks at any Caribbean resort. On the other hand, you would be hard pressed to buy a week 16, WSJ three bedroom pool unit, for $55,000 because they are not available. Lucky I bought mine when I did.

I wish I could afford to buy a second week, but that's not going to happen. Pam

Loriannf said:

Week 35 is end of August/beginning of September - very few people will chance that part of the Caribbean during September. Historically, that's when the VI gets the majority of its hurricanes.

Also, unless you're very savvy in the ways of Starwood and use your week 35 to get an early June week, you probably won't be able to rent it out, either.

Lori

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Been to the caribbean 9 times in Aug/Sept. Never had a hurricane. Statistically speaking, the odds of a storm hitting a particular island while you are there is very small.

OCsun said:

Lori, Amen to that! Just as in anything we buy, the price of a timeshare follows the value of the property. Week 35 is going to be less valuable then most weeks at any Caribbean resort. On the other hand, you would be hard pressed to buy a week 16, WSJ three bedroom pool unit, for $55,000 because they are not available. Lucky I bought mine when I did.

I wish I could afford to buy a second week, but that's not going to happen. Pam

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$55,000 for a timeshare. Wow. I sure hope you paid cash and didnt finance it.

Hey - a discussion on WSJ - great!

First - as mentioned - the Hotel-based section is the best place to have this discussion. Lori is a great resource of info on the 'Virgin Grand' 3Bd TSs at WSJ. Virgin Grand (VG) is what they are calling the Hillside units. I own a 2Bd Townhouse that I bought on eBay (resale) for what I consider an unbeatable price - we LOVE STJ and WSJ - got engaged there - so I am a bit biased. And is I ever wanted to I likely sell our unit for more than I paid - no plans to, but always a nice fallback in case our money tree dies. I am actually hoping that the seler of our week (fixed) will sell their adjacent week to us - because 2 weeks in STJ at WSJ would be sweet! {cross-fingers}.

Our MF is about $1300 for a week for a fully contained 2bd/3Ba 1250sqft TH - with full WSJ resort priviledges - and a semi-private pool - THAT is hard to beat no matter how you cut it. Plus - as noted - VG is SVN Mandatory so we could use the SVN exchange system (not that we would because the SO exhange value is very low). As mentioned, it is currently understood that the BV section is SVN Voluntary which means that you can buy into the SVN exchange system, but upon resale this is not transferred to the buyer. This has caused the resale value of other SVO (Voluntary) resorts to lose quite a bit of value compared to Developer costs (as compared to Mandatory resorts).

I wrote a post about the BayView (BV) WSJ units a while back - after a discussion with a WSJ TS salesperson. The BV units are being sold as both float and fixed (at a premium) - with only so many units within a season being sold as fixed. The issue for the VG units is that they are fixed - and that causes them to be severely limited in the ability to exchange - both for owners trying to exchange within their season and definitely for SVN exchangers. Having partial float and fixed for the BV units should help to mitigate this. They also change the seasons between the 2 sections even though they share the same resort. Our Week 24 is Gold, but would now be Gold+ if it were down below - I guess the weather is different down there -

There was a 3Bd BV units that sold on RedWeek that was listed for $34K (Week 50), but this unit went very (very) fast - 2Bd units are about the same price (or a bit lower).

As to paying $85K!!! Wow! Perhaps I didn't read your post correctly - but this must be a fixed week in the best season. Regardless - that is a lot of money - I agree with other posters here on this. I listed the prices that I was told by the TS salesman on the Hotel board.

Lori - if you are reading this... Do you have a copy of the WSJ Owners Manual? Is it possible to get a copy from you? If it is paper-only I would be happy to pay for the mailing. I ask this because of recent discussions on the Hotel-based board about Mandatory vs. Voluntary - and this mystry 'Club' that is referred to.

Tks Robin-Here is additional Info on the Bay Vista Pricing

I just received this from SVO on the pricing of the Bay Vista accommodations.


Annual Price


Resort Price
Westin St. John- Bay Vista
Three Bedroom
Platinum Plus- 1-18, 51, 52 (*Does Not Include weeks 7, 16, 51 & 52) $109,995.00
Platinum- 19-33 $64,995.00
Gold Plus- 34-50 (*Does Not Include week 47) $49,995.00

Two Bedroom Loft
Platinum Plus- 1-18, 51, 52 (*Does Not Include weeks 7, 16, 51 & 52) $109,995.00
Platinum- 19-33 $64,995.00
Gold Plus- 34-50 (*Does Not Include week 47) $49,995.00

Two Bedroom
Platinum Plus- 1-18, 51, 52 (*Does Not Include weeks 7, 16, 51 & 52) $79,995.00
Platinum- 19-33 $54,995.00
Gold Plus- 34-50 (*Does Not Include week 47) $39,995.00


Westin St. John- Bay Vista (Float Pricing Only)
Three Bedroom
Platinum Plus- 1-18, 51,52 $84,995.00
Platinum- 19-33 $54,995.00
Gold Plus- 34-50 $39,995.00

Two Bedroom Loft
Platinum Plus- 1-18, 51,52 $84,995.00
Platinum- 19-33 $54,995.00
Gold Plus- 34-50 $39,995.00

Two Bedroom
Platinum Plus- 1-18, 51,52 $64,995.00
Platinum- 19-33 $44,995.00
Gold Plus- 34-50 $34,995.00


Westin St. John- Bay Vista (Ultra Premium Prime Wks)
Three Bedroom
Platinum Plus- 7,16,51,52 $127,995.00
Gold Plus- 47 $59,995.00

Two Bedroom Loft
Platinum Plus- 7,16,51,52 $127,995.00
Gold Plus- 47 $59,995.00

Two Bedroom
Platinum Plus- 7,16,51,52 $94,995.00
Gold Plus- 47 $44,995.00

So my question is this

Based on the pricing for the new 3BR with Platinum Plus and 148,100 Staroptions at $85K and float vs. a Hillside resales at some cost well below and a locked weeks, is it crazy to buy the new Timeshare option since you lose the private pool and you can save a lot of money for the HS villas?

I appreciate keeping this thread active on this board as we are getting good dialog and I wanted this to be a surprise to my wife for our 10th anniversary in August but don't want to make a huge financial mistake. What are your thoughts on the value of the new BV villas vs. the Hillside given the Voluntary and Mandatory terms as well as this is St. John where you can't get other real estate.

Scott

Additional information on Costs from SVO

Maintenance for the three bedroom BV's are $1,775 and you can't occupy the first years since they will not be available until 2008.

Incentive is 180K Starpoints for Platinum Plus