Marriott PC Mountainside Resale - HELP

[Chase]

My wife and I are thinking about jumping into the time share game. We've located a Mountainside platinum floater for $33M - $34M. KNow we want resale (the points don't seem worth the $19M spread).

Some items about us: Both love skiing and the PC area (been there 3 times). Have three young kids < 4 -- would likely not bring them along for the first few years. Ultimately would love to teach them to ski.

Now the questions:

Price: Is it reasonable? Will we likely get burned if we decide to sell in 7 years in the event that the kids hate skiing?

Tradability/reservations: How does it trade? How tough is it to book non-holiday/non-sundance dates in Feb (say first week of feb)? How about reserving during spring break? Any luck renting a lockoff studio? What rates can you expect? If you trade the studio is it likely we could get a 1 or 2 bedroom at a lesser reort that might be kid friendly?

Resort: Any feedback worthy of sharing to a nice family about to plunk down $33M?

Other: Am I offbase? With my family situation should I be looking at some other (cheaper) solution?

Really appreciate some info here. As you know...this can be a tough decision!

Bill Chase

 

[LisaH]

Hi Bill, Let me be the first to welcome you to TUG!!!

I am not familiar with this particular resort, but a quick search on redweek.com resulted in 2 Platinum weeks asking for $31.9K. My guess is you may get it ever lower than this asking price. Look around and don't make a hasty decision. 33K is a lot of money even if this is a good deal.

 

[Chase]

Marriott Moutainside

The $33M has the week I want to ski already reserved (Feb 3). I was told that Marriott would exercise ROFR at 31,700.

Really could use help with this... Thanks everyone!

 

[riverdees05]

Don't believe everything you hear when it comes to selling and buying timeshares.

 

[Chase]

Marriott Mountainside

Fair enough...I'm not going to blindly follow everything I hear. Actually have been researching this info with a lot of different people for the last 2 or 3 weeks. A kind person also just emailed me a few other broker names to work with and see if they counter the info I have received.

Anyone have insights on some of my other questions? Any Marriott skiiers out there that can weigh in?

Thanks!

Bill Chase

 

[floyddl]

My wife and I are thinking about jumping into the time share game. We've located a Mountainside platinum floater for $33M - $34M. KNow we want resale (the points don't seem worth the $19M spread).

Some items about us: Both love skiing and the PC area (been there 3 times). Have three young kids < 4 -- would likely not bring them along for the first few years. Ultimately would love to teach them to ski.

Now the questions:

Price: Is it reasonable? Will we likely get burned if we decide to sell in 7 years in the event that the kids hate skiing?

Tradability/reservations: How does it trade? How tough is it to book non-holiday/non-sundance dates in Feb (say first week of feb)? How about reserving during spring break? Any luck renting a lockoff studio? What rates can you expect? If you trade the studio is it likely we could get a 1 or 2 bedroom at a lesser reort that might be kid friendly?

Resort: Any feedback worthy of sharing to a nice family about to plunk down $33M?

Other: Am I offbase? With my family situation should I be looking at some other (cheaper) solution?

Really appreciate some info here. As you know...this can be a tough decision!

Bill Chase

Here are a few of my thoughts for what they are worth.

Price - Reasonable, yes. Exceptional value, no. Marriott is reportedly aggressively seeking weeks at this resort due to sold out status and continued high demand. They reportedly are taking right of first refusals under 30K. If you decide to sell it in 7 years you should not expect to lose much if anything although market conditions could change. The Marriott price will likely continue to rise and the resort will always be a popular destination. Marriott will resell it for you at 60% of the current rate which would be $31,140. For the record I paid 34,900 from Marriott in 2002.

Tradeability - Platinum ski weeks are exceptional traders as long as you do not reserve one of the fringe weeks. Booking Sundance week and Spring Break (depending upon when it falls) can be very difficult unless you own multiple weeks and can book at 13 months. You will likely be frustrated at 12 months. You should be able to rent the studio with good success. Trading it for a 1 BR at another resort can be done with success but you will have to be flexible or willing to book in the 60 day window. I would not buy at Mountainside for trading purposes. You should occupy 3 out of 4 years if you want to own there.

Resort - I have owned there for 5 years and have 3 children who were 5, 5, and 10 when we purchased. We fell in love with the resort as a ski in ski out resort and the location with it being only 30 minutes from the airport. The ski schools at PCMR are fantastic and you can literally walk out the door to drop the kids off and get on the lift to start your day. You can take a nice lunch break and park your skis at the gate. You can ski at night here which very few resorts offer.

Needless to say I highly recommend the resort.

 

[ondeadlin]

Bill,

I think you can do better if you're patient.

But I'm a big skier, and if ski-in/ski-out, during the dates you want at Park City, is important to you, it's not a bad deal. Certainly not good, but not bad. You won't take a bath if you have to sell it down the road.

If you're financing, that's a whole other story. Never finance a timeshare, it pushes the whole cost curve just way, way too high.

 

[Chase]

Marriott Mountainside

Thanks. This was very helpful and a lot of good info.

Anyone else out there have anything they want to add?

Thanks.

Bill Chase

 

[ondeadlin]

Bill,

I will say this: It's probably too much money to spend, even for a great property in a great location.

You could buy a cheaper timeshare and get great skiing (my 2BR Eagle Point week in Vail cost me $2,500 and trades like a tiger).

Want guaranteed ski-in/ski-out, with your dates, at a 2BR Marriott with amenties similar to Mountainside? I can tell you how to do it for under $2,000 annually at Marriott's Residence Inn in Whistler.

Last year I booked a 2BR Mountainside first week of April with a bonus week from II, cost me $350.

Bottom line? Only three types of people pay $30,000 for a ski week timeshare: Those who don't care about money, those who aren't patient enough to work the system, and suckers. You don't seem to fit any of those categories, so maybe you should take a step back.

Every timeshare I buy, I ask myself how upset I'd be if the thing were suddenly worthless. Since I buy cheap weeks, it's an easy answer. But if I owned a $30,000 week, I'd be very nervous about what would happen to the timeshare market if there were another terrorist attack, a bad recession, or even back-to-back bad snow years in Utah.

 

[divenski]

Originally Posted by Chase View Post
My wife and I are thinking about jumping into the time share game. We've located a Mountainside platinum floater for $33M - $34M. KNow we want resale (the points don't seem worth the $19M spread).

So are you saying that Marriott now wants about $52K for a std, ie non-holiday, ski week? Wow.

As far as tradeabilitity goes, I occasionally compare my MOU lockoff with Waiohai which is a 2 bedroom, Hawaii unit. In general, I don't see much difference in what they pull, and I have traded to Phuket, Maui, and Breckenridge with the MOU LO. Can't seem to get to Big Sky, Montana though.

Agree with other poster. Don't pay that much money for a trader; much easier in the long run to buy at a place that you plan to use most of the time.

Park City's great. Every year, I take a 1-day road trip to a different ski area, eg Deer Valley, Alta, Snowbird, Solitude, Canyons, but still ski 4 or 5 days at PC. If PC and DV ever hook up, ala Alta/Snowbird, that would be even better.

Who told you that Marriott would exercise ROFR at $31.7K? That sounds high to me. IMO, never pay more just to try an prevent a ROFR exercise.

 

[Chase]

Marriott Mountainside

Yep. Marriott has raised the price for a platinum ski week at Mountainside to $52,900.

My wife and I have strong preferences for a ski vacation over beach (and we don't golf). So not really looking at this as a trader.

On the other hand, the kids are young (2 x 20 mths and a 4 year old) so its tough knowing if they will grow into the ski fans that Mom and Dad are. Either way the first few years we would certainly leave them behind and rent the 1 BR -- and try to do something else with the lock off. My question on tradability has much more to do with what happens to us if 7 years down the line the kids say they hate to ski. At that point we're going to be trading -- or selling. Hopefully it doesn't play out this way -- but one has to consider everything when looking at this kind of cash down. [any ski families out there care to weigh in....it sounds like youngsters and ski vacations mix well]

Other than that I could see trading occasionally (maybe 1 out 4 years) for a change of pace.

Given the above, though, I am curious to know what the studio lock off will trade for (particularly given that for the next few years I probably won't be using it...at least until the kids are old enough to come along). Would be great to trade it for a 1 bedroom or more at a less demanded site (makes the money stretch further). Not sure if this is realistic, though. Any ideas?

 

[seatrout]

II has change this year that it is much harder to get anything biger than a studio for a studio.

My Mountainside sundance or Springbreak studio can pull any other studio. When I try to get anything bigger--it is the off-season.. Example
this year I try to pull a MS Sundance studio for a 2BR Marriott Orlando during Thanksgiving and can not. Yet an AC, or the 1BR will pull it.

 

[TomF]

Owner, just returned from MountainSide

Chase, my wife and I bought at MountainSide two years ago and just returned from our second stay there. We absolutely love it. It is a 1-1/2 hour flight from San Diego and a 40 minute shuttle, and the roads to Park City are usually clear. Extremely convenient to us. After we bought here, we sold our Embassy Resorts Lake Tahoe timeshare.

To answer some of your questions:

Price: We did an Owner's Preview on 2/15. We were told the current price is $51,000 for a Platinum week, but is increasing almost weekly. We paid $42K exactly two years ago. Is mid-$30K reasonable? Only you can make this decision. Summit Watch, another nice Marriott property, is currently going for ~$41,000 from Marriott. As for value after 7 years, if I could tell the future, I'd have a custom home at Deer Valley! We just did an "equity upgrade" of our white Desert Springs Villas I week, purchased in 1993, to a gold Newport Coast Villas week and Marriott gave us ~67%. If we purchased a Platinum Week, the equity would go up to about ~85%.

Tradeability/Reservability: Never traded, can't say personally. We did meet a couple in the spa who did an internal Marriott exchange and they had no problem, but they also own Ko' Olina on Oahu and Waiohai on Kauai, two premium properties, and they used one of those for the exchange. In two years we haven't met anybody that exchanged a non-Marriott property. We ask everyone in the spa each night whether they are an owner, exchanged a Marriott property, exchanged a non-Marriott property, or a they are a renter.

We had a very tough time getting our week for this year (last year's reservation was made at the time of purchase). We tried twice, once for the first week in March and again for the second week in March. Both weeks were sold out within 2 minutes of the first available request date and time. We ended up with the 2/10-2/17 week purely by chance after calling later in the week. My guess is that it could be hard to reserve a week anytime in Jan, Feb or March. The 13 month rule seems to be in play heavily here, which is why we made the upgrade to Newport Coast Villas. We talked to our original sales rep and he said that he was able to rent a lockoff for $300/night. The going price to rent the full villas is roughly $3200-$3500 for a platinum week.

Other: Depends whether you are just looking for a ski property anywhere compared to a Marriott ski property at Park City. In that case there is only MountainSide and Summit Watch. We've exchanged into other ski properties and Park City is by far the most convenient to us. I've skied most of the major resorts in the US and none are as accessible as PC. As they say, location, location, location. Some people seem to value their ski property by how little they paid, regardless of the quality, and don't care where it's located. We have owned Marriott since 1993 and a Marriott ski-in/ski-out at Park City was a no-brainer for us. We only wished that we'd been able to purchase pre-construction when the price was $27,000.

The growth in Park City this past year has been explosive, more than the previous three years combined that we have been skiing there. I talked to some people who have been considering real estate in PC for a few years. They said that it is hard to find anything for less than roughly $1M now.

Good luck in your decision.

 

[Chase]

Marriott Mountainside

This was great info. Thanks.

I must say...I'm a bit spooked about your experiences booking a ski week. I may open another thread to address just that issue.

I'll keep this one running to just talk about the quality of the resort and if its a good choice for a family with young kids...

Thanks again.

 

[m61376]

Since a few people mentioned the 13 month booking I just wanted to clarify things a little for you. If you own 2 or more weeks and want to book them consecutively or concurrently (either at the same or different resorts- they just have to be owned weeks in overlapping seasons so you are eligible to book them for the weeks you want), then you can book at exactly 13 months before the first reservation. However, what was not mentioned here (and you may not know) is that only 50% of the inventory can be booked for any given reservation period at 13 months. 50% is always saved for 12 months and less reservations.

What is tough if you have a single week that you want during the season and will be unhappy if you cannot reserve that one week. If you have some flexibility and try at 9AM exactly 12 months out, you may be unsuccessful the first week, but are likely to succeed if not the first week then on a subsequent try. The vast majority of posts that I have read from people frustrated with making reservations, not only here but in general, are from those that only want a specific week, esp. a holiday or special event week.

 

[Chase]

Marriott Moutainside

THANKS for clarifying. This takes a big concern away. Is this contractual -- or can Marriott at a different point in time up the 50% to (say) 65%?

Would hate to be squuezed into the poor weeks.

How has your experience been?

 

[m61376]

THANKS for clarifying. This takes a big concern away. Is this contractual -- or can Marriott at a different point in time up the 50% to (say) 65%?

Would hate to be squuezed into the poor weeks.

How has your experience been?

From what others have posted this wording is in the ownership paperwork under reservations, so you will be protected. Actually, as more people opt to buy extra units with overlapping reservations for this purpose, the competition at 13+ weeks will increase. 50% will always be reserved for 12 months or less reservations regardless of the 13 month+ demand.

We own in Aruba and haven't had a problem making reservations and, actually, was able to change a reservation last year two and a half months beforehand (we had just bought last Fall and wanted a different week than the one reserved by the prior owner). When I called this year at 9AM I got through to reservations so quickly that the reservation window had just popped up online (I was calling and looking online at the same time and I have a high-speed wired cable connection. A friend of mine had no trouble reserving their Mountainside ski week for next Feb. and they are a single week owner.

 

[TomF]

This was great info. Thanks.

I must say...I'm a bit spooked about your experiences booking a ski week. I may open another thread to address just that issue.

Thanks again.

You're welcome!

Just as an update, the paperwork went through for us yesterday for the Newport Coast Villas Gold week. This allowed me to make reservations late in the afternoon for concurrent weeks at both MountainSide and NCV for our first desired week at MountainSide from 3/2-3/9/2008. Note that this was almost three weeks past the release date of the first 50% inventory at both resorts. We now have the option anytime after 3/9/2007 to change the NCV reservation or deposit it to II, up to 60 days prior to check-in, or trade for points anytime before 12/31/2007.

 

[m61376]

You're welcome!

Just as an update, the paperwork went through for us yesterday for the Newport Coast Villas Gold week. This allowed me to make reservations late in the afternoon for concurrent weeks at both MountainSide and NCV for our first desired week at MountainSide from 3/2-3/9/2008. Note that this was almost three weeks past the release date of the first 50% inventory at both resorts. We now have the option anytime after 3/9/2007 to change the NCV reservation or deposit it to II, up to 60 days prior to check-in, or trade for points anytime before 12/31/2007.

Tom- I assume you realized to do this, but just in case you didn't: did you get a separate reservation number for each week booked? Otherwise it would be a good idea to call them now while there is hopefully still inventory left and have them separate the reservation numbers.

 

[TomF]

Tom- I assume you realized to do this, but just in case you didn't: did you get a separate reservation number for each week booked? Otherwise it would be a good idea to call them now while there is hopefully still inventory left and have them separate the reservation numbers.

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I did get two separate reservation numbers, one for MountainSide and one for NCV. I'm thinking of calling them back just to confirm that I actually got the week that I wanted! The purchase is not yet shown under "My Resorts" on vacationclub.com.

 

[m61376]

Thanks for the advice. Yes, I did get two separate reservation numbers, one for MountainSide and one for NCV. I'm thinking of calling them back just to confirm that I actually got the week that I wanted! The purchase is not yet shown under "My Resorts" on vacationclub.com.

Don't worry about the purchase not showing up yet on your account when you sign in online. They told me it takes 14 days for that (actually, for some reason mine didn't show up after that and they had to manually enter it after several phone calls to correct it, and it took another week+ for it to finally show up after being manually entered).

They should have sent you confirmation e-mails for your reservations though almost immediately.

 

[msweaver]

Hi,

I own at the Summit Watch, and I have been able to easily get February weeks. Sundance week is difficult, but not impossible, to get even if you own only one unit. I pulled a Sundance week last year.

I have been able to trade a MSW studio for a 1BR Marriott Streamside at Vail, and a 2 BR at Grande Vista. My 2BR traded for a 2BR Maui during spring break too. I'd say that MSW is an excellent trader. You'll do even better at Mountainside.

Mike

 

[hipslo]

We now have the option anytime after 3/9/2007 to change the NCV reservation or deposit it to II, up to 60 days prior to check-in, or trade for points anytime before 12/31/2007.

I notice that you used the date that is 12 months from the LAST day of the weeks that you reserved concurrently as the date after which you feel comfortable depositing one of these weeks with II. Lets say that I have reserved three or four consecutive weeks at 13 months from the first day of the first week in the series, and I then want to deposit the FIRST week with II. Lets also assume that I got a separate confirm # for each of the consecutive weeks. After what date should I feel reasonably comfortable depositing the FIRST week with II? 12 months after the FIRST day of the first week, 12 months after the LAST day of the first week, or 12 months from the first (or last) day of one of the later (or even the last) week in the series? Anyone have any guidance on this point?

 

[TomF]

I notice that you used the date that is 12 months from the LAST day of the weeks that you reserved concurrently as the date after which you feel comfortable depositing one of these weeks with II. Lets say that I have reserved three or four consecutive weeks at 13 months from the first day of the first week in the series, and I then want to deposit the FIRST week with II. Lets also assume that I got a separate confirm # for each of the consecutive weeks. After what date should I feel reasonably comfortable depositing the FIRST week with II? 12 months after the FIRST day of the first week, 12 months after the LAST day of the first week, or 12 months from the first (or last) day of one of the later (or even the last) week in the series? Anyone have any guidance on this point?

I may have misstated the date. The Marriott CSR told me that I didn't want to change anything with either reservation until I was within the 12-month reservation period, otherwise it would cancel both the MountainSide and the NCV reservation. So that's probably 3/1/2007, not 3/9, although I may have said 3/9 just to be absolutely certain. I think that the point she was trying to make is that changing either of the reservations before the first day of the 12-month period would result in both being canceled because they would now be single week reservations, which cannot be done until 12 months before the first available date.

In the example that you gave, I think that all of the consecutive weeks would have to be within the 12-month period in order to be able to make changes to any one of them, which would be when the first day of the last week was within the 12-month period.

 

[hipslo]

I may have misstated the date. The Marriott CSR told me that I didn't want to change anything with either reservation until I was within the 12-month reservation period, otherwise it would cancel both the MountainSide and the NCV reservation. So that's probably 3/1/2007, not 3/9, although I may have said 3/9 just to be absolutely certain. I think that the point she was trying to make is that changing either of the reservations before the first day of the 12-month period would result in both being canceled because they would now be single week reservations, which cannot be done until 12 months before the first available date.

In the example that you gave, I think that all of the consecutive weeks would have to be within the 12-month period in order to be able to make changes to any one of them, which would be when the first day of the last week was within the 12-month period.

Thanks, that makes sense. Do others agree - is that the general consensus? 12 months from the first day of the last consecutive week in the series? In my case, once we get past 12 months from first day of the FIRST week, the second and later weeks could still have been reserved, even if the first had not been, using the 13 month rule for the second and later weeks. But would it just be safer to wait?