MVC/Vistana are affiliated with ThirdHome at the Ritz Carlton/St Regis ownership levels. ThirdHome, however, allows folks with ownerships in a number of MVC/Vistana resorts to establish their own accounts and exchange their weeks privately as a third-party independent exchange system. As a general rule, they also waive the initiation fee.
The exchange fees in ThirdHome are a bit on the high side, running from $695 to $1,395 or so for a typical exchange depending on the quality/season. They can nevertheless be a good deal if you're interested in the higher tier resorts and private vacation homes. I've got an exchange into a new 4 BR vacation home on the Costa del Sol with a view of Gibraltar and a 4 BR farm house in Provence next year through ThirdHome for acceptable costs to me. I also have an exchange into a 1 BR in a prime location in Venice for two weeks that was relatively inexpensive and seemed quite the bargain.
The annual fee runs at $295 unless you have a waiver for some reason and for certain resorts they have a requirement to deposit a week every year - that might be waived for Hyatt and is waived for one resort I own with, so I benefit from that for all the resorts I use to exchange with them.
As to how difficult/easy it is to find an exchange - it really depends on where and when you are trying to go. It also seems to go in phases; it was a bit tight finding worthwhile exchanges immediately after travel restrictions from the pandemic were lifted but is working out fairly easy now.
Bottom line for me is that I believe that ThirdHome has a lot higher quality exchanges available than I've seen in II or Registry Collection and I've made quite a few excellent trades with them. You do have to know what you are doing, though, in order to get things set up to notice the best availability when it is added and be aware of what ones are the lower end ones that you can get much less expensively through other means.
