Sedona Summit: Recent Purchase Timeline and Initial Thoughts

[NiteMaire]

Earlier this year, we purchased a legacy resale week at Sedona Summit. The experience definitely tested my patience as it took 6.5 months(!) to from initial offer to transfer. In contrast, we signed a contract for Marriott’s Grand Chateau on May 29th and it transferred on July 7th!.

It took nearly 3 months from initial offer to recorded deed, nearly 2 months for DRI to reply with a request for additional information, and another 1.5 months for DRI to transfer the unit. I realize COVID played a part, but I’m very surprised it took that long. Detailed timeline is at the end of the post.

On a positive note, we were still able to reserve a “peak” week for 2020 and deposit it within DX. We really like the availability of units within DX, as well as the possibility to get discounted stays as @Grammarhero mentioned in a recent post.

Sedona Summit seems to be a good value within DRI. For peak week reservations, the 1BR gets tier 4 and the studio gets tier 3 within DX. If I understand correctly, Polo Tower Villas get tier 5 and tier 4, but MFs are nearly $300 more per year. The additional cost of trading 2BR LO Summit in DX compared to Villas is $350 – if exchanging into tiers 5 and/or 6. That’s not much more than the difference in MF. If we exchange into tier 4 units, then the difference is only $175, and Summit ends up costing less overall.

We’re happy to be owners at Sedona Summit. Sedona is one of DD’s favorite places. This will likely be the first TS where we use a week at the resort; to date we have never stayed where we purchased. We’ll probably trade most years, but are definitely looking forward to staying here as well.

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Purchase → Recorded Deed:
March 2: Initial offer, seller counter, my counter
March 10: Nothing heard from seller; I tell the seller’s agent I’m walking away if I don’t hear anything by the next day.
March 11: Seller agrees to my counter. I request the deed for verification.
March 13: Sign contract, then notice the deed is for Sedona Springs, not Sedona Summit! I don’t know how I overlooked it. I cancel the contract.
March 16: Agent realizes seller owns both Springs and Summit and sends the proper deed for Summit. I sign contract for the Summit unit.
March 18: Seller signs contract. Estoppel request sent to DRI.
April 2: Sent follow up to seller’s agent since I hadn’t heard anything. DRI still hadn’t responded with estoppel.
April 3: DRI sends estoppel.
April 28: Receive closing documents from closing agent; DW’s name is misspelled…
April 29: Return closing documents with names properly spelled
May 29: Recorded deed received (seller took a long time to get closing documents to closing agent).

Recorded Deed → Transfer:
May 29: Recorded deed sent to DRI.
July 23: DRI responds asking for more documents (primarily affidavits and IDs from all parties). Included in the request are documents they already have (purchase agreement).
July 27: Buyer’s documents submitted.
August 4: Seller’s documents submitted.
August 5: DRI requests seller’s ID (even though they had POA and POA’s ID).
August 7: All documents with DRI
August 19: Follow-up with DRI; they claim they don’t have seller’s ID. Closing agent and I conference call DRI, and they eventually find they’ve had everything since August 7th.
September 17: DRI transfers unit to us.

 

[csalter2]

DEX is very new and expensive. You will have many more options with Interval International. I belong to Diamond’s Club Select which allows me to put my Marriott property in Diamond and then get Diamond points. That would give Diamond owners an opportunity to reserve my Ko Olina property in DEX. That’s never going to happen. It never has and never will, because it’s never a fair trade even for Sedona Summit or The Point or the Ka’anapali Beach Club.

You’re new to DR. I would advise you to get to really understand the DEX system. The only way I’d use it would be when I have no other option and I’m about to lose points. Then I’d have 5 years to make a reservation, that is if I can find something where I want to go when I want to go..

I like my DR ownership, but I know it’s pluses and minuses.

 

[NiteMaire]

DEX is very new and expensive. You will have many more options with Interval International. I belong to Diamond’s Club Select which allows me to put my Marriott property in Diamond and then get Diamond points. That would give Diamond owners an opportunity to reserve my Ko Olina property in DEX. That’s never going to happen. It never has and never will, because it’s never a fair trade even for Sedona Summit or The Point or the Ka’anapali Beach Club.

You’re new to DR. I would advise you to get to really understand the DEX system. The only way I’d use it would be when I have no other option and I’m about to lose points. Then I’d have 5 years to make a reservation, that is if I can find something where I want to go when I want to go..

I like my DR ownership, but I know it’s pluses and minuses.

We realize we still have learning to do, but we researched DX before purchasing. We own a legacy week, and our MFs are less than points owners at SS. Prior to purchasing, we checked availability in DX, and also ran our mostly likely exchange scenario. Here’s what we found:

DX fee: $60/yr (purchased 5 years)
Trade fee: $300 ($150 x 2 for each portion of LO)
Upgrade fee: $175 peak or $525 high for SS week reservation to trade into Tier 4 units at P@P and/or KBC
Total fees: $535 for peak week SS reservation, $885 if high week.
SS MF: $906
Total: $1441 for peak, $1791 for high OR $720.50 per week for peak and $895.50 per week for high.
Worst case: for less than $100 more than 1 week MF at P@P, we can get 2 tier 4 weeks!

Sure we can get there with II, but I don't think we'll get an OF, OV, or Partial OV. The fees with II are $418 for the 2 exchanges (not counting the membership fee and e-plus). Throw in the cost of membership and DX is less than $100 more. We’ll gladly take a guaranteed partial OV for that!

Our unit was transferred to us this month, and we were still able to reserve a peak week for this year. We’re fairly confident we’ll get peak weeks in the future. If not, we’re still good with the cost. Heck, if we exchange for 2 OF rooms at P@P, the total cost is $3341 which equates to an average of $1720.50 per week. So we can get 2 guaranteed OF rooms for roughly the same price as a P@P owner.

I completely agree with you regarding depositing Marriott within DX. We're definitely keeping our II membership since it's what we use to trade our Marriott and Vistana units. Even if given the opportunity, we wouldn't use DX for our MGC. DX and II both have their pros and cons. II will get us into higher level resorts, but DX provides greater opportunity for us to vacation on the other islands during the specific times we want. As I mentioned in my other thread, our Sedona Summit ownership has already been added to our II membership. When our vacation plans involve trading Sedona Summit, we'll look at both exchange companies and use whichever is best for us.