[2006] SVO Resale: Yes you can requalify/retro [MERGED]

[pointsjunkie]

from what i was told, this is correct. must spend $20000.

 

[SDKath]

So is this a risky idea? Newbie help please.

My head is spinning after reading all these posts of requal. Let me get this right. I can buy a resale Mission Hills (no Desert Willow resale yet, right?) this month. Then in a few months, we can purchase the new Poipu property or possibly Cancun and requal the Palm Springs properties as long as it's like for like (2BR for 2BR)?

Where is the $40,000 limit fitting into this? Is it the property we purchase from the developer directly (new)?

Not sure I understand the m/v debate. I think the Palm Springs properties are voluntary?!

And it sounds like I'd need to go to the site in person to make the purchase since they won't tell you over the phone all this? I don't mind going to Desert Willow but we don't have time for a Hawaii trip till end of 2008 at earliest.

I'd hate to "waste" a lot of money if I can't get the requal but if we can, that would be a GREAT deal for me and my family.

Thanks! Katherine

 

[pointsjunkie]

My head is spinning after reading all these posts of requal. Let me get this right. I can buy a resale Mission Hills (no Desert Willow resale yet, right?) this month. Then in a few months, we can purchase the new Poipu property or possibly Cancun and requal the Palm Springs properties as long as it's like for like (2BR for 2BR)?

Where is the $40,000 limit fitting into this? Is it the property we purchase from the developer directly (new)?

Not sure I understand the m/v debate. I think the Palm Springs properties are voluntary?!

And it sounds like I'd need to go to the site in person to make the purchase since they won't tell you over the phone all this? I don't mind going to Desert Willow but we don't have time for a Hawaii trip till end of 2008 at earliest.

I'd hate to "waste" a lot of money if I can't get the requal but if we can, that would be a GREAT deal for me and my family.

Thanks! Katherine

hi, i just requalified 2 units, so i will try to go through it step by step.
yes, you can requalify a resale at wmh. it does not have to be a 2br for a 2 br.

my head was spinning also . i had just come home from a trip and accidentally found TUG and boy i got a quick education.

they did not allow requals when i purchased my first 3 starwood timeshares.

this is the most significant change: if you purchase in hawaii or cancun they say you have to spend $40000 and then you can requalify. when i called starwood sales center they said it only applies if you are in hawaii or cancun at the time of the sale. so as i made her repeat to me many times: if i am on the mainland and i purchase hawaii or cancun from my house or at a mainland sales center then i don't have to spend $40000 to have a resale requalified. and she confirmed this. do i know if it is true, your guess is as good as mine.

wmh is voluntary and when requalified it will give you all the benefits as if you purchased from starwood directly.

i did not purchase hawaii so i do not know if they are allowed to do all this over the phone.

my advice is to go on starwood site and press the icon for vacation ownership. get the phone number for sales and speak to someone about the $40000 thing. that's how i got my info on that. because if you don't have to spend $40000 then you can save some money.

but of course if the unit you want is $40000 then this is a non issue.
do all your homework first and you must purchase the wmh resale before you can actually get the ball rolling with starwood.

DO NOT BUY with starwood until your resale is complete and title has passed and they have you in the system. you do not want any hassles from your end.

keep me up to date on your progress.
happy new year

 

[SDKath]

Thanks for the reply! It all makes perfect sense.

My only debate now is: buy lower resale like Mission Hills and then buy a more expenisve property from the developer (like Hawaii) OR buy Hawaii resale and requal it and then buy less pricy from developer new (like Desert Willow).

Any suggestions?

Thanks and happy new year! Katherine

 

[pointsjunkie]

Thanks for the reply! It all makes perfect sense.

My only debate now is: buy lower resale like Mission Hills and then buy a more expenisve property from the developer (like Hawaii) OR buy Hawaii resale and requal it and then buy less pricy from developer new (like Desert Willow).

Any suggestions?

Thanks and happy new year! Katherine

if you bought a resale in hawaii and then a developer week in desert willow, i think that will cost you a heck of alot less money.

if hawaii is definitely what you want i would go the resale route, make sure you get the view you want. in hawaii it is very important from all i have read.

 

[SDKath]

Thanks. Here is our newest thought. Buy WMH resale EY 2BR LO. (I am getting the abbreviation lingo down, ).

Then, buy EOY at one of the new places from developer. As long as it's over $20,000, I could requal WMH, right? Or do I need to spend $40,000 since we are interested in the Hawaii/Cancun properties??

Thank you! Katherine

 

[pointsjunkie]

Thanks. Here is our newest thought. Buy WMH resale EY 2BR LO. (I am getting the abbreviation lingo down, ).

Then, buy EOY at one of the new places from developer. As long as it's over $20,000, I could requal WMH, right? Or do I need to spend $40,000 since we are interested in the Hawaii/Cancun properties??

Thank you! Katherine

that is correct, they want you to spend $20000. do you alreadt oen with starwood? make sure you get the exploere package before you contact starwood about the resale. this way you oprtimize your starpoints.

as i was told (verfy this with starwood) if yoy purcahse hawaii or cancun on the mainland you only have to spend $20000 . verify this first before you go ahead with the process.

 

[DeniseM]

Kathrine - one question: What is your goal in requalifying?

Because....you can buy two resale weeks for a fraction of the cost of buying a resale + a developer week.

If you buy resale weeks at 2 Mandatory resorts, you don't have to requalify to exchange them within the SVN, and you will save a heck of a lot of money! Mandatory resort resales automatically qualify for SVN exchanges, without having to buy from the developer to requalify a resale.

Resales that are Mandatory (include Staroptions with resales)
# Harborside Resort
# Vistana Villages
# Westin St. John
# Westin Ka'anapali
# Westin Kierland Villas

So - if you buy a resale at WKV and WKORV, you will:
1. own in the 2 areas you are interested in
2. be able to exchange within the SVN
3. save a lot of money by not buying from the developer at all

Unless you plan to purchase enough weeks ($$$) to achieve 5 Star Elite and get Platinum SPG for life, there is virtually no reason to buy from the developer at all. There is nothing wrong with that, if that's your goal, but it's a major investment. Notice that pointsjunkie had to buy 8 Starwood weeks to achieve 5 Star Elite and she posted that her MF are over $7K a year. This is not a criticism, I'm just pointing out what kind of investment it requires.

*Just to add some figures:

In Dec. a Kierland 2 bdm. worth 148,100 Staroptions sold on ebay for $22,090, and we have seen a number of WKORV OV 2 bdms. worth 148,100 Staroptions, sell for less than $30K.

So you could buy 2 Mandatory - 2 bdm. units resale, for around $52K and maybe a bit less if you took your time and shopped around.

In the other post, where you asked about buying Hawaii resale ($30K) and Desert Willow ($39K) from the developer, that would cost you $69K total, and you really wouldn't have achieved anything by spending $17K more. And because Desert Willow is not a mandatory resort, it won't hold it's resale value as well as WKV either...

 

[SDKath]

Thanks!

Good point about the mandatory resorts. Here are my thoughts (which are changing continuously). Our inlaws live in Phoenix 1/2 the year so as my wise husband pointed out, not much use in getting a TS where we can already stay with them (at the Boulders no less).

I would like one week to be a "guaranteed" holiday week for us. And with 2 little kids, that means probably buying an event week at one of the places, preferrably HI. That way when we can't go, we can almost guarantee a good rental. If we can, well, then it'll be the best New Year ever!

I am noticing that the event weeks are expensive no matter which way we look at it. But places like WMH are totally cheap right now (esp with the remodel coming up; I found a number of people willing to sell a resale for $13000 as Platinum 2BR LO). If I requal that, the price can't be beat.

And finally, parents are splitting one of the TS with us. They want StarPoints to go to hotels too. They want quick 3-4 day get aways in as many areas close to their home as they can find.

So basically we are not sure. Need to do more research. If there was a mandatory resort in CA where we can drive easily, we'd be done with this decision in no time. Thanks for the great points though. I am learning so much!

Katherine in San Diego

 

[DeniseM]

And finally, parents are splitting one of the TS with us. They want StarPoints to go to hotels too. They want quick 3-4 day get aways in as many areas close to their home as they can find.

The thing with StarPoints is that you just don't get a get an equal value when you exchange your timeshare for points.

Let's say you buy at a resort worth 80K Starpoints That's about the norm for a 2bdm. lock-off worth 148,100 Staroptions like the WKORV. Then you covert the lock-off into Starpoints for your parents. That would give them 33,800 Starpoints, which would only get them 2 or 3 nights per year in a standard room in a Starwood Hotel.

At best, even if you converted both sides of your TS to points, they might get 2 - 3 day weekends out of it. 2 weekends in a standard hotel room is just NOT an equal trade for a 2 bdm. Maui TS!

It's just not a good value to convert to StarPoints. And it's certainly not worth $17K more to buy from the developer. I wouldn't let the Starpoints influence my buying decision at all, because the conversion rate is so unfair.

With your goals, buying 2 resales makes good sense.

 

[pointsjunkie]

i do agree with denise, but if you purchase a developer week you can get the explorer package as well as the sales incentive starpoints which will get the parents the 3-4 day trip that they want as part of the program. that's is why we went developer 2 times. i use this option all the time.

but i would nor use it for hawaii or harborside because the mf's are too high. but i will use them to convert my sdo, wkv and my svv. when added to my other starpoints it let's us go to many beautiful resorts where there are no timeshares.

 

[SDKath]

Thanks. That's our thinking also. We'd like the flexibility to go to more places than just a ski, desert and tropical location. So with the hotel points, we can pick up some much needed short breaks. And so can my parents. The developer incentives for new purchases sound like about 400,000 points, which would last us a while. Who knows.

I look at it kind of like Weight Watchers. I know to lose weight I have to eat less. But now that I am paying $55 a month, I am finally accountable to eat less or lose the money (and I have reached my goal). LOL. K

i do agree with denise, but if you purchase a developer week you can get the explorer package as well as the sales incentive starpoints which will get the parents the 3-4 day trip that they want as part of the program. that's is why we went developer 2 times. i use this option all the time.

but i would nor use it for hawaii or harborside because the mf's are too high. but i will use them to convert my sdo, wkv and my svv. when added to my other starpoints it let's us go to many beautiful resorts where there are no timeshares.

 

[pointsjunkie]

Thanks. That's our thinking also. We'd like the flexibility to go to more places than just a ski, desert and tropical location. So with the hotel points, we can pick up some much needed short breaks. And so can my parents. The developer incentives for new purchases sound like about 400,000 points, which would last us a while. Who knows.

I look at it kind of like Weight Watchers. I know to lose weight I have to eat less. But now that I am paying $55 a month, I am finally accountable to eat less or lose the money (and I have reached my goal). LOL. K

make sure you have the amex starwood card so you can pay for it and get double starpoints.
pm me and i will give you the code to get extra starpoints and i will give you the guys name for the explorer program.

 

[DavidnRobin]

Kath - This is getting long and it is tough to follow what you really are attempting here (your main goals...), but I will make some suggestions (as quickly as possible)

The matter of retro/requaling a resale is very complicated - and there are many things to consider. Basically, you need to establish what your goals are (which may be very different than others).

If getting to 5*/Plat-4-Life (PFL) is your goal - then I would use duke's approach and buy as cheaply as possible the resales and SVO properties needed to reach 5*/PFL. This means that you are not buying these mainly for you Home Resort, but to get to PFL in order to use the Starwood Hotel system to its fullest. If you do not intend to do ALOT of travelling via Starwood Hotels (or major flexibility for using SVN exchanges), then you need to consider whether PFL is right for you. Because this will mean buying SVO VOIs that are not in prime locations, nor will have as much value if you ever decide to sell (again - a major consideration).

If you want better Home Resort value and care about future value - then getting to 5*/PFL is going to be more expensive, because that entails buying the more prime resort locations.

Regardless of how this fits into your goals - it is important to consider the resorts that you are buying, what their current values are, and what their future values may be (crystal ball vision). The best thing may be to buy as many SOs as you can for as cheaply as you can resale (first) and then buy a SVO to retro/requal that you can find the best deal on - with the best SP incentives. This is where V vs. M resorts really become important, and the quality of the resort from a value perspective - both in current costs(purchase price and MFs) and future costs (MFs and reasle vaue). SVO is no longer buiding M resorts, and they are more expensive, but tend to have better resale value.

This is not easy (as you are finding out). Our retro goal was not to get to PFL. We wanted premier resorts, and the deal they offered us was really good - but we paid a premium to do this. duke managed to do it amazingly inexpensively, but the some of the resorts owned - we would not consider (Orlando for example). But, it does come down to cost and personal TS goals versus the value you get. Our vacation time is limited, if we were in retirement mode - it may make sense to be PFL, and get there as cheaply as possible.

I am not sure if it is still possible to use duke's approach in getting to PFL so inexpensively - as buying 'cheap' resorts from SVO seems to be drying up. If you have lots of disposible income, then your flexibilty increases. If you do not need the hotel side of Starwood - then why bother? Just buy Mandatory resorts resale in places you want to go - or even look into the Marriot program (or others) to increase you TS experience.

Again, it comes down to what you TS goals are, and how much income you have to get to these goals.

I don't think I added any clarification, but hopefully food-for-thought. If you are going to go the retro/requal route - set-up a clear plan and be willing to negotiate hard. First buy resale as many SOs you can get (and consider a M resorts), then negotiate with SVO in buying a VOI from them as cheaply as possible - for the best current/future value - with as many SPs as you can squeeze. IMO - buy where you want to go in case things change in this venture

An EY requal with an EOY purchase will be best here. Try and use a same day ExpPkg to do this - which means that you likely need to walk out of the first negotiation. And get an SPG AMEX card - use this to purchase (and pay off immediately).

Good luck.

 

[SDKath]

Thank you!

I appreciate all the time everyone is taking to answer my questions. Our goals change daily right now.

I think my husband and I have come up with a good plan, albeit not the cheapest. We'd like a home resort we can drive to. We live in San Diego. So that means Palm Springs or Newport (although we live in the Del Mar area so Newport is not that much of a change for us). We'd probably use that resort most years as a get away week.

Then, we'd like a really nice place at an exotic location with great trading power, the ability to rent it out well. We are thinking Hawaii, St John or CO ski. We'd need high season as we can only travel with the kids during the usual breaks. Also, we probably won't go there yearly so we'd like to be able to rent it out, which I am assuming will keep us even on the expenses. I have no delusions about making $ off our "investment."

So plan right now is buy WMH resale and requal it with a development purchase EOY or EY, likely during an event week, likely Hawaii or St John.

THat's the best I got after a month of reading these boards 24/7 and thinking of what would work best for our lifestyle.

(OH, and parents are splitting the development purchase and want it 1/2 time. And of course I want to be able to have my kids use it when they get older too, making Hawaii a more practical choice as we are on the West COast).

Katherine

 

[DavidnRobin]

I did read that your folks live in the PHX area - mine do to - BUT I would still consider WKV since it is a Mandatory resort (therefore always in SVN - resale or not) - and a great resort. You can get 148.1K SOs (2Bd LO Plat) for about $21K at WKV. What does WMH cost resale for 148.1K SOs?

As to an exotic location - we bought WSJ VG resale (M). The new WSJ BV units are way expensive (V) - and a very long trip - I have heard that WSJ-SVO does still sale some WSJ VG units, but don't know the specifics. I would consider WPORV (we bought EOY and requaled our EY WKORV) - or even WKORV-N, but it appears these prices may have gone thru the roof. Perhaps even Cancun WLOR (V) since they appear cheap and come with lots of SOs.

then there is also Aruba (WAV)...

 

[SDKath]

Thanks. I have person willing to sell WMH Platinum 2BR LO for $14,000 with use in 08 or 09. Is that sounding reasonable? Asking prices are all over the map ($15,000 to $22,000).

Quick question -- why did you requal WKORV. Wasn't that Mandatory to begin with? Katherine

Also, looking at Poipu if and when that comes out. I love Kauai but would like to be on the beach for the kids. I just hope they don't do away iwth the requal deals by the time that property is for sale.

 

[DavidnRobin]

I have no idea what WMH is worth - SO-wise (if it is 148.1K SOs) - seems pretty good, but it is a V resort.

All of our SVI VOIs were Mandatory - we requaled WKORV because it had the most SOs associated with it - but you are correct in thinking what would be the use of doing a M resort (?). But remember - upon resale it is still within SVN (where a V resort is not). Our 'deal' was more about the entire package (EY requal with EOYodd purchase, 50% for EOY, same-day ExpPkg, 200K+ SPs, 3*), and we wanted WPORV.

Poipu is a long way off still - and will be branded as a Sheraton. Princeville has no direct beach, but the area is unique in the world.

Some of your questions (WMH value) should be asked in the Starwood forum - and not in the requal thread/sticky.

 

[Henry M.]

Some reasons to requalify a resale Mandatory resort:

- Staroptions can be converted to Starpoints
- Staroptions count towards SVO Elite status
- Staroptions from developer purchases/requalified units can be combined towards exchanges (e.g. you want to use the points from two low Staroption units to exchange into one that requires more Staroptions)

You can't do any of the above with a mandatory resale property if you don't go through the requalification process. Voluntary resale property loses the ability to exchange within the SVN system in addition to losing the above.

 

[LisaRex]

Then, we'd like a really nice place at an exotic location with great trading power, the ability to rent it out well. We are thinking Hawaii, St John or CO ski.

Just remember that the flight to the Caribbean is going to be much longer (and more expensive) than a flight to Hawaii.

Or, you buy St. John and I'll trade you every other year for my WKORV ocean front unit!! (The flight to Hawaii from the Midwest is a killer, too.)

 

[duke]

Thanks. I have person willing to sell WMH Platinum 2BR LO for $14,000 with use in 08 or 09. Is that sounding reasonable? Asking prices are all over the map ($15,000 to $22,000).

WMH resale Platinum 2 br L/O price should be between $10k - $12k. Don't pay more.

Also, you should know that you cannot rent via SVN rental services units that you traded into. You can only rent units you own. This does not apply to renting yourself...which you can do with traded into units.

Also, note that you cannot combine staroptions for mandatory resorts that have not been requalified.

duke

 

[DavidnRobin]

Just remember that the flight to the Caribbean is going to be much longer (and more expensive) than a flight to Hawaii.

Or, you buy St. John and I'll trade you every other year for my WKORV ocean front unit!! (The flight to Hawaii from the Midwest is a killer, too.)

Listen to duke...

This is off topic, but...

Our flights to STT (from SFO) have been cheaper than our flights to OGG (Maui). We just paid $625pp (AA) to fly to STT - our flights to OGG have cost $700pp (UA).

We may not be using our WSJ unit in 2009... :ignore:

 

[SDKath]

D&R: I just looked at your list of properties. WOW! You have everything we want! And more.

So I am back to requaling a "cheap" resort like WMH that I can possibly get for $10-12,000 and is going to be renovated. Then buy developer (was quoted $63,000 for fixed Week 52 in Princeville today!) with requal of WMH. OF Week 52 in Maui is $104,000! EEK. OF Week 52 is $76,000.

One interesting thing OT today is that they tell me the Princeville property has only 1 level of "views", and that's an OV. No OF obviously. But you can be in the building right by the water or behind 10 other buildings if I am looking at this all right on the map!?!?!

 

[DeniseM]

Katherine - You are correct, in that some building will have better views that others, but they are all being sold as ocean view. Also, since the resort is up on a cliff, there is quiet a bit of setback, and a long drop down, so nothing is right on the water. My guess is that owners who call at exactly 9 a.m. ET, at 12 mos. out will get the units closest to the cliffs. Unless, of course, you pay a premium to fix your unit.

Did you see this artist's rendering? The first picture of the slide show gives you a good idea of the setback and relationship to the cliffs.

 

[DavidnRobin]

How about the video on this page?
http://www.westinvacationownership...._resort_villas/index.html?IM=SVO_WEB_EOI_WPOR

Hey... lets' take this to the main forum and not on the requal thread.