Today, I attended a zoom call for a meeting of the Hamilton Cove Townhouses POA, part of Wyndham’s Fairfield Bay. This meeting was to consider the sale of the Hamilton Cove Townhouses. From the talk at the meeting Wyndham will be totally exiting Fairfield Bay.
There were 1352 interval ownerships represented at the meeting, approximately 72% of the total membership. Doing a quick calculation; this means that POA consists of about 36-38 townhouses. Wyndham entities own about 70% of the intervals. Last year’s occupancy there was 39%. From this, I can understand why Wyndham wants out. It is obvious that they are losing money and there doesn’t seem to be much of changing that. Maintenance fees/1k points jumped significantly this year and there would be a large increase in the reserve charge for next year.
The meeting was to vote on four questions. I won’t go into detail, but they were to approve placing the POA in Chapter 11 bankruptcy and then to sell the POA’s assets (the townhouses). Obviously with Wyndham’s 70% ownership, it all passed. Based on all this information, it is obvious that Wyndham is losing money on FF Bay; probably a goodly percentage of FF Bay’s total revenues. For owners that want to switch to CW Points, there will be a process for that.
The resort will cease operations at the end of December. The attorneys and real estate agents ‘hope’ the bankruptcy and sale process will be done by the end of 2026. The property will still need to be maintained after closure. That cost for next year and other fixed costs is budgeted at close to 600k. That cost will be funded from the POA’s reserves, which are currently $2.9mm (should be about 3.1-3.2mm by year end). That means no maintenance fees for us or Wyndham next year!
Looking at the local real estate market, I don’t think townhouses will fetch more than $50k each or a total of maybe $1.8mm. Add that to reserves and the total will be about $4mm. Just a WAG.
Definitely not going to take the CW points, I will just wait it out until the end. I think it’s in Wyndham interests to sell as quickly as possible. Getting out the popcorn…..
I imagine the above will be a template for most of the other resorts.