# Thinking of buying a Whistler TS



## hellolani (Mar 14, 2011)

Steve, I've been meaning to ask you if you'd be willing to share your recommendation on what to look for if you are considering buying a Raintree membership resale.  I've heard the the MFs on Whiski Jack resorts are lower than Raintree in general, but if you were to do a search on ebay, what are key things you'd be looking for? I'd be buying for internal use in Raintree clubs and not external trading, unless you'd recommend it.

Alternatively, what type of membership at Raintree do you own and how did you acquire it?

Having gotten out of a sticky situation recently, I remain committed to sit on my hands and do no buying for another 4 months


----------



## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 14, 2011)

hellolani said:


> Steve, I've been meaning to ask you if you'd be willing to share your recommendation on what to look for if you are considering buying a Raintree membership resale.  I've heard the the MFs on Whiski Jack resorts are lower than Raintree in general, but if you were to do a search on ebay, what are key things you'd be looking for? I'd be buying for internal use in Raintree clubs and not external trading, unless you'd recommend it.
> 
> Alternatively, what type of membership at Raintree do you own and how did you acquire it?
> 
> Having gotten out of a sticky situation recently, I remain committed to sit on my hands and do no buying for another 4 months


I'm not as well-versed on ownership details as I used to be.  You are wise to take your time and investigate.

Similar to Diamond Resorts, Raintree cobbles together various ownerships under one umbrella, so it's important to know what you are buying.  

Focusing on Whistler, what you need to remember is that Whiski Jack existed prior to Raintree acquiring the Whiski Jack development and management arm.  So first off there are many Whiski Jack ownerships that stand apart from Raintree's club operation.  These are owners who bought prior to Raintree and who have done nothing to attach their ownership to Raintree.  They simply have a deeded timeshare week.

Those owners can be further split into the fixed week owners and floating week owners.  Most of prime season Whiski Jack units were sold as fixed week units - those the ski season and summer weeks.  The off-season weeks were sold as floating weeks.  

After Raintree got involved, I believe they did most of their sales as part of the Club, and I believe that most of those were done as undivided interest in a Trust.  The Trust holds the developer inventory.

Then there are Whiski Jack owners who bought before Raintree came on the scene, but have "upgraded" to include Raintree.  I'm less sure of the details, but I think that in some cases the owners retained their Whiski Jack deeds, and in other cases they folded their deed into the trust and received an interest in the trust in return.

*********

So, with that, they key thing you need to decide is whether you want to own a deeded Whiski Jack week or whether you want to have an ownership in the Trust.  And if you buy a week where the owner has retained the deed but affiliated with the Club, whether the Club ownership comes along with the sale or whether the ownership then reverts to a simply Whiski Jack ownership.

*********

As far as type of Raintree ownership goes, I don't think it's worth owning anything lower than Platinum (80,000 points).  Maintenance fees don't rise as fast as points, so the bigger your value the more cost effective it becomes.  

If I were in the market, I would probably look closely at buying a fixed week unit in prime ski season at one of the upper tier Whiski Jack resorts.  That way your annual fees are tied to that specific resort.  If you can then attach to Raintree's club while still paying maintenance fees based on the specific deed,  I have a suspicion that will give you the most points for the least annual fee.  I would certainly investigate that as an option.

Of course, that also exposes you directly to any special assessments due at the property, so investigate the condition of the specific resort before you buy.  And finally, if you have any intention of actually using the week at Whistler with any regularity, that should tilt you toward trying to buy a specific week and property that you want to own.


----------



## hellolani (Mar 14, 2011)

*Awesome advice*

Thanks Steve, that was very thorough and specific.  I'm in agreement with your assessment of the situation.  After my retail purchase at the developer washed out, I remained in possession of all the literature we were given as new members so its nice to have a listing of what are considered A, B, and C level Whiski Jack resort holdings.  I suspect the points charts used to rent to members internally at Raintree inflates the value of some of their holdings a bit much.  We purchased at Club Regina in PV and those were definitely some nice digs, but in the booklet Villa Vera across the street in the Marina required the same points for equivalent bookings but we were even told by our presenter that it didn't compare to the CR property.  

Personally I'm only considering Whiski Jack to try to get lower MFs and also because it would be easy for me to get up there an have a close look at the properties / not rely on seller photos and descriptions.  Living in Vancouver and having relatives in tourism means that it's easy to get cheap weekenders in Whistler and I'm certain I wouldn't find the same value in using the TS I purchase on staying there when it's so close to home compared to other owners.  With that in mind, would you have any other tips on for a newbie thinking of getting into the Raintree system, if not through Whiski Jack?

May I also ask what brought you to Raintree and which resorts you enjoy the most within the membership?  I've been told that Isla Mujeres and Grand Regina are both pretty awesome.


----------



## T_R_Oglodyte (Mar 14, 2011)

hellolani said:


> May I also ask what brought you to Raintree and which resorts you enjoy the most within the membership?  I've been told that Isla Mujeres and Grand Regina are both pretty awesome.



What brought me to Raintree was that they have a collection of resorts that lines up nicely with places that we want to visit.  They have more resorts at interesting locales in Mexico than similar operations, and the opportunity to get to Whistler occasionally is a plus.  

The ironic thing, though, is that we've never actually used the units ourselves.  Almost every year we've been able to rent, more than covering out annual fees; and we've been able to get to MX regularly using SFX bonus weeks.  And one year we booked and deposited with SFX because we needed exchanges in the Caribbean for a wedding party.

We're very seriously thinking about getting to ZIH next year, though.


----------

