Nothing yet. It's always later than most - last year was Dec 5th and the year before, Nov 29th.
They were all golf centric and sold poorly. Doral was supposed to surround the lake it is located on, they only built 3-4 buildings. They since sold off the undeveloped land to residential developers and it is completely built up. Legends Edge was supposed to have four buildings, but two of them had to be sold as whole ownership or fractional (Grand Residence). It is now no longer a Grand Residence and isn't associated with Marriott Vacation Club. I don't know about the situation at Fairway Villas.
Yikes. So the said liabilities means that those properties carry high maintenance fees for deeded week owners as well as what the trust holds.
I am giving an educated guess. In the 1991, I had a staff job at IBM in NYC and was asked (told) to be part of a team putting together a multi day management meeting for the sales executives and management teams in the tristate area. It was my last activity before before I was allowed to accept a role as a sales manager. The event was held at the the Marriott Seaview Resort in Absecon NY. The Marriott was picked because of the golfing and easy access (we provided transportation) to Atlantic City. At that time, Atlantic City boardwalk and the immediate surrounding area was a thriving area for gambling, shows, a lot very good restaurants and of course the beach. I was not aware of timeshares at the time but had to stay there 4 days before in preparation and there was no Fairway Villas kind of complex.
Years ago, we visited Fairway Villas, the resort itself was nice. But, It was just in a bad location. That had a nice golf course, a spa on-site and a restaurant on-site.
I believe Fairway Villas opened in 2000. Atlantic City was already starting its downward trend but there was an expected resurgence that didn't happen. Vistana has a similar resort that suffered similar fate. Sheraton PGA Vacation Resort in Port St Lucie Florida only built and sold three buildings out of many more that were planned. These golf centric resorts just didn't do well as golf was starting to decline. Just look at how many golf courses around the country closed during the 2000s. These may have done better in the 70s and 80s, but people were no longer interested in the 2000s. Most people don't plan a week long vacation around golf anymore. Perhaps Fairway Villas was just too far from Atlantic City to be considered as a property to stay at and it was too dependent on golf to bring people in.
We are, unfortunately, Fairway Villas owners. They were supposed to build 8 buildings in total. They built 4, one after another, then paused for a while, then built 2 more. No plans to build the other 2. This location had really good golf and spa amenities. There was an Elizabeth Arden Red Door Spa on property, with pretty good discounts to owners, and my wife and her friends that would come with us enjoyed that. Golf discounts, for owners, were pretty good at the beginning. The 2 courses that surround the property are/were really nice courses, hosting PGA/LPGA events (not sure if they still do). Marriott sold the hotel, Seaview, a handful of years later and the golf perks diminished. Multiple ownership changes later, they are pretty much gone. Elizabeth Arden Spa left several years ago, and that whole space remains empty. Per the GM, enticing a new vendor to come into that location, with not much around, is difficult.
We have been in MVC's ear about this, but they don't care. I've spoken with the GM and will be speaking with the board president today. I've also done some analysis on the whole property. Based on input provided by GM's, yearly occupancy has been as low as in the 50%'s, and now in the low 80%'s. The time between June-August is pretty much 100%, as expected. Outside of that, this place is a large Courtyard. The bad part is, MVC owners get screwed (IMO) during those months. Weekdays are mostly cash stays, averaging $165/night, Jan-May. Using points, average of $125/night. On weekends, lots of MVC owner points stays. In Jan-Feb, it costs more to stay using points than it does via cash, from $66 to $94/night. In March, a points stay costs $172 more than cash, per night. April is $141 more than cash, and May is anywhere from $51 to $152/night more than a cash stay. I'm told, the reason they have such low cash costs, lower than local hotels, is so they can keep money coming in, which allows them to pay their staff. I get that, and appreciate it. But, at a cost to the owners, above the cost of MF's.
Your recommendation is exactly what I have in mind, exchange your timeshare for the same amount of DC / Abound points ($0 cost) and they take the week back for all owners. Enrolled owners choose between getting Abound points or residual proceeds of the sold property/land, while resale/non-enrolled owners get residual proceeds from sale of the property/land.
I think the more likely scenario is for MVC to eventually drop the resort and that will give incentive for owners to sign on for a possible sale of the property.
They don't need cash stays to pay the staff. The staff is paid out of the annual maintenance fees paid for by owners. Now, MVC Trust may be a big owner, but the trust maintenance fees are now covering those salaries. With low occupancy means they just want to fill rooms. Even if MVC can rent them out for 50% of what they are paying to cover the maintenance fees, it is still better than a 100% loss. The only people really reliant on cash guests to get paid are food and beverage as they are paid for by Marriott and Marriott keeps the profits from those sales.
If they were to drop it, would it just continue on as a non branded timeshare property? Or do you think MVC would want to dissolve the timeshare scheme?
I think it would continue without MVC and the BOD would need to work towards a solution which might be just another so so timeshare because of it's location and they should try to sell it at that point. Getting a super majority is difficult.
Any idea if the deeds there have a sunset clause?
Sorry, I am not aware of the wording there of any of the legal documents. Unless it is a RTU, which I don't think it is, I doubt it.
Wouldn't that depend on either MVW choosing to dissolve the Management Agreement, or, the majority ownership voting in sufficient numbers to dissolve the timeshare? I'm asking because I don't know of any resorts where Marriott's method of separation involved anything other than severing the Management Agreement, none where they dissolved the timeshare.
I guess the question is, how large a percentage does MVC or the Abound Trust own at this particular resort?
That's pretty creative but I wouldn't expect MVW to offer anything more generous than the bare minimum, no difference between enrolled and unenrolled Weeks. With the cash proceeds each owner could then purchase Club Points but again, I wouldn't expect MVW to offer them any type of deal - it'd just be that any of the owners could use the cash proceeds to purchase Club Points at current prices as a stand-alone transaction.
You could be right.
Aren't the resort management agreements time limited and have to be renewed periodically? I was thinking they were on a 5 year cycle. All they'd have to do would be to either let it expire or sell the management rights to another company such as Bluegreen, Hilton or Wyndham. I also suspect there are for cause terminations built in which they could work from if they truly wantee to.
I think they'd have a few options. For enrolled owners they'd likely just terminate them from Abound. For the trust all they'd have to do would be to swap out with another location. I suspect they'd have to give the NJ owner the option to terminate their enrollment. I am told that for the first round of resort terminations early on, they gave those owners who'd bought directly a reasonable option to swap out. This did not happen with the last round (Spicebush, etc) even though some owners pushed for it.
