bevans
TUG Member
- Joined
- Jun 6, 2005
- Messages
- 220
- Reaction score
- 60
- Points
- 389
- Location
- Santa Cruz, Ca
- Resorts Owned
- hgvc Flamingo, hgvc Paradise
I was wondering if the Elara which was not a built HGVC property has ROFR? Thanks, Curt
Built by Westgate. Check out the documentary “Queen of Versailles”, which is about the wife and also the founder of Westgate. The building that is now Elara plays a part in the documentary.
Buy back as equity isn't necessarily the same as exercising ROFR.When we were in a presentation earlier this year the rep whipped out a paper that listed properties that they would buy back vs. those that they won't. In general, it appeared that affiliate properties were not available for buy back e.g. Sunrise, Elara, Grand Islander, Bay Club etc. They will take back traditional HGVC properties such as Blvd, Paradise, Lagoon, W57 etc. Probably has to do with the financial structure of the property.
Built by Westgate. Check out the documentary “Queen of Versailles”, which is about the wife and also the founder of Westgate. The building that is now Elara plays a part in the documentary.
Watched the "Queen of Versailles" and I highly recommend to anyone on the HGVC boards.
Watched the "Queen of Versailles" and I highly recommend to anyone on the HGVC boards.
Buy back as equity isn't necessarily the same as exercising ROFR.
I have seen a number of complaints within the FB groups that HGVC won't buy back units at Elara if you try and upgrade. Basically people claim HGVC sold them the Elara unit, but won't take it back in trade for a bigger point package elsewhere. I have not idea if that true, but if it is true, i wonder if they exercise ROFR even if they wont take units back as trade-in.
I have heard similar complaints on FB about lack of ability to trade-in some of the other resorts as well. Not really sure why that would be unless there is something about being a fee for service resort that precludes HGVC from taking the units back as a trade-in.
I have a data point here. We successfully traded-in at Elara but we had to talk with Hilton a bit. We had a (basically useless) studio week in gold season at Elara (1700 points). About 18 months after the purchase, Hilton brought us in for a presentation and offered us an upgrade. We declined that day, thinking we could trade-in down the road.
Well, fast forward a few years and we're learning how truly useless a 1700pt ownership is. Hilton brings us in for another presentation and we ask about trying to trade in and upgrade. They claim that they offered us a one-time only option at the previous presentation. They (Hilton) claimed that was the only chance we were ever going to get to upgrade and receive equity for our trade, and that we had turned it down.
Well, maybe they told us that, maybe they didn't. I don't remember signing anything and, if we did, they didn't have it at their disposal. Given the crummy quality of so many Hilton reps, I don't think we'll ever know for sure. In any case, at the time, neither my wife nor I understood that we were being offered a one-time-only trade-in option. We told Hilton management as much.
I guess they could sense a "sell" if they would make a deal, so they offered us the option to trade-in if we signed some affidavit stating that we weren't aware of the time-sensitive nature of the offer we had in the previous presentation. We agreed. In the end they never asked us to sign any thing of the sort and our (useless) 1700 point ownership went away and we got a 7000pt ownership in its place. We still paid more than we needed to, but we got out of our previous mistake without having to do anything crazy like having the unit foreclosed upon.
(For anyone that's curious, we tried to return the unit but we didn't really know what we were doing. We were never able to successfully reach the developer. We tried to simply give the unit to HGVC but were refused. Yes, I realize we threw good money after bad, but at least we wound up with something useful in the end.)
Having something useful and something that you will enjoy for years to come is what's important. I bought from HGVC and once I realized I didn't have enough points I bought a 2BR resale. All in all, we are using the membership like crazy and love it. I believe owning a TS is like a country club membership, you pay to get in and you pay dues (like maintenance fees). The CC membership is worth it if used. If not, it's throwing away money for something not being used to it's full potential.
Learn HGVC system and plan to take amazing vacations and building memories.
So do you own both or were you able to get rid of your original purchase? Do you feel it's a better deal to pay double maintenance by getting resale over biting the bullet and buying from HGV and trading?
I own both. 1BR = 4,800pts and 2BR = 5,000pts for a total of 9,800pts to use annually. The number of points work out great. The resale purchase was relatively inexpensive and I saved a ton by not biting the bullet and buying from HGV again. To upgrade to a 3BR for 9,600pts would have cost me about $12,000 after trading in by 1BR. The resale was $3,000. So, I saved about $9,000 upfront. My maintenance fees are about $500 more than owning a 3BR. If my math is right, it will take about 18 years of paying maintenance fees before the value of purchasing a 3BR and trading with HGVC kicks in.
Everyone is different, and some may find it in their best interest to trade in their original purchase to upgrade to a higher point unit and maintain their eligibility to reach Elite status.
I read what you wrote, and thought that you could put the $9k saved into something netting 5%, and you would make $450 per year from the savings... Making the difference in maintenance fees only $50.[/QUOT
I own both. 1BR = 4,800pts and 2BR = 5,000pts for a total of 9,800pts to use annually. The number of points work out great. The resale purchase was relatively inexpensive and I saved a ton by not biting the bullet and buying from HGV again. To upgrade to a 3BR for 9,600pts would have cost me about $12,000 after trading in by 1BR. The resale was $3,000. So, I saved about $9,000 upfront. My maintenance fees are about $500 more than owning a 3BR. If my math is right, it will take about 18 years of paying maintenance fees before the value of purchasing a 3BR and trading with HGVC kicks in.
Everyone is different, and some may find it in their best interest to trade in their original purchase to upgrade to a higher point unit and maintain their eligibility to reach Elite status.
We have Elite Status and have gone to a number of presentations to trade in our 2 resale purchases that don't qualify for Elite Status to obtain Elite Premier. However, the cost would be over $40K and the maintenance would have gone up. We would have taken it if the cost was under $30K and lowered the maintenance by $1K per year. The savings of the $1K + the lower reservation fee, saving point fee, and 15% more discount on Open Season would have been worth it.
I'm in a very similar situation in that we have owned 2200 points for the past year. Love the program but that's obviously not enough to do anything with. Do you mind sharing how much you ended up paying for the upgrade.