I have a slightly different take. You indicate in the thread title that you want to cater to exchanger's tastes. I think that should be low on your priority list.
What you should do is focus on maximizing appeal to owners. Maybe I'm "old school", but I think exchanging is a fringe add-on to timesharing, not the essence of timesharing.
Catering to exchangers is appropriate only to the extent that owners deem it important. In any situation in which you might be balancing owner desires versus possible exchanger attractiveness, owner desires should receive strong preference.
Budget and finances, of course, is where those collisions are most likely to occur.
Steve, the owners are our priority, and we even sent a survey to the owners that was very detailed and thorough. We wanted to let them know we cared about their desires, and it was the FIRST time any board has ever cared to hear the owners' opinions. That is a sad state of affairs, isn't it?
This is an older resort, and I can tell you that some sofas are the ORIGINALS. That makes those sofas 28 years old. I didn't believe it was possible, because our unit has a much newer sofa, but one of the new board members is an original owner, and he insists that his sofabed in his unit is as old as the complex.
We walked through all the units in mid-July, and I cannnot even be objective about the place, I am so fond of it. I know we need carpet in some units, and some quarry tile in a few of the units is cracked beyond belief because it was installed by a bad company, but I think those are easy fixes.
The new leather chairs would be a wonderful addition, and some new sofabedss, a little paint, carpet (some units) and decor, and we would make owners happy. But I want more than that. I want the units to be the same. I would like to strive for the same furnishings and decor in the units. I don't like that some units have off-white carpet (that is brand new and already heavily stained
), and some have grey carpet (ugly as sin). I like the brownish carpet we have in James 4, and I like everything about the decor in that unit.
Mamie, our kitchens are already remodeled and have a solid-surface product, rather like Corian or Silestone, though I don't know what it is. It is very attractive and is a grayish tan with speckles. It is wearing beautifully. Some units are missing that upgrade, and I want to see it added where it is missing very soon.
The WI-FI was easy, very cheap, and the cost is shared amongst all the owners, both whole owners and timeshare owners, with several "hot spots" that works for all units. People just need to figure out how to use it, and I hope we have directions for that. I need to ask that question........
The Master association has been working on the exterior of the resort. They have been taking most of every dime of our special assessment to get the paving, painting, building, etc., done. Once that debt is paid to the whole owners by the timeshare owners, we will be able to spend some of the upcoming payments of the assessment to fix up the interiors.
The assessment was $184 X 5 years for the 3 bedroom units, and $168 X 5 years for the 2 bedroom units. I wasn't on the board when this assessment was decided. I was actually against it.
The old board pushed hard to remodel the kitchens with the first year's assessment. The kitchens are really nice. We will have one assessment left to do the furnishings we are talking about. I know that doesn't sound like a lot of money, but we plan to increase the maintenance fees from the old amount to get more in reserves.
We are at $351 for a 2 bedroom unit, $384 for a 3 bedroom unit.
That is way too low to keep things up, so it's a huge increase we are going to need to get things done within 3 years, and our owners will be angry at teh increase, I am sure. I think we need to go to $420 for the 2 bedrooms and $480 for the 3 bedrooms. It's either an increase, or we will need to assess again! I don't want to do that. The old board just loved assessments.
THIS IS SHOCKING: I have my issues with the old board members, who OKAYED, an assessment six years ago that paid for the TREX decks and the clubhouse refurbishments. We paid $612 X 50 weeks per unit= $30,600, while the whole owners paid about $2,000 for those new decks (maybe they paid even less than that, I would have to look it up). I got on the board to keep that kind of thing from happening again.
There are all kinds of reasons the old board gives for this horrible decision, but in the end, none of them holds water. All 60 units at the resort should have paid for the refurbishment equally.
It is because of this assessment, which timeshare owners are oblivious as to what the old board did,
that some owners think that timeshare is a horrible waste of money, so they pay the PCC's to take their units back. I was one of those angry
owners, but I did something about it, and I got on the board.
