The marketing of fractional ownership has to date focused on a certain type of development, i.e. super-luxury resorts laden with facilities and services at a very high cost. This isn’t all it should be about. IN a lot of ways it is potentially more benficial for people who don’t have loads of money.
Forget about anything you think you know about fractional ownership and consider the following:
A. Think of something that you would like to own or use but can’t afford (it has to be something that you don’t need to use all of the time). Typical types of things would be leisure assets (second homes, yachts, caravans/RVs,tents), business (expensive and occasionally used machines), or functional items (a ride-on lawn mower, a garden shredder).
B. Assess how much this would cost you if you were going to buy it. If you would have bought something used then use this price, not the new price.
C. Consider how many people could realistically share the use.
Now divide B by C - doesn’t this make your proposed purchase seem more affordable? There is no reason why fractional ownership has to be about luxury (although that is very nice). It can save you lots of money as well.
Example 1: A family on a limited budget would like to save money on their holidays (or even afford to be able to go on one) by camping or caravaning. The problem is that a full camping setup for a family of 5 isn’t cheap if you haven’t got much money. The fractional solution would be to share the cost with 2 other families in their local area. They would still each be able to go on a 2-week holiday in the school Summer break and take turns at using the equipment through the rest of the Summer.
Example 2: If you enjoy yachting why not look at a fractional scheme for a used yacht. This can really bring yachting/boating within the reach of a lot of people.
OK, so a bit of an over dramatic title for this post (isn’t “Fear will keep you prisoner” part of the tagline for the Shawshank Redemption?) but there is a serious point to be made.
Whilst promoting a fractional yacht I came across a lot of resistance to the idea from people who already owned their yacht outright. “It can’t work”, the would say - “when you go to the yacht it will be dirty/broken/in the wrong place” etc. etc. Most of these comments seemed to be motivated by a deep distrust of people in general.
I think this attitude is wrong for a couple of reasons. Firstly any properly configured fractional ownership scheme should have proper change-over and cleaning arrangements in place (and penalties for breaches of the rules). Secondly, who are these people that they think are going to be wilfully destroying/abusing an asset that they own part of? Yacht charter/holiday home rental work very well even though the people concerned have no long-term commitment to the thing that they are using.
So fear of fractional ownership may not keep you prisoner but will certainly prevent you from experiencing a wider range of life’s experiences and pleasures. Generally distrust of people is a bad thing that shuts you off from some of the best things that life has to offer.
One area of the real estate market is bucking the generally negative trend, with values and sales volumes up. Fractional ownership of luxury real estate has been slowly gaining in popularity over the last 10 years or so, but now seems set to reach a tipping point and become a mainstream concept…….
Welcome to my free competition, to enter all you have to do is post a reply to this post (and answer a really tough question)! Since this is a followed blog, you’ll get a link even if you don’t win the competition, so I really think this is something that you can’t lose by taking part in.
So What is it About?
I am promoting a French Fractional Ski Apartment scheme that allows people to buy fractions entitling them to as little as a week’s high-season use. Of course they can buy as many weeks as they want to. This competition is part of the promotion.
Once the fractional scheme is completed a winner will be selected at random from the valid entrants. Valid entries will be anyone who has posted a reply to this post answering the qualifying question.
How to Enter
1. Post a reply to this post (make sure you are looking at the original post on the ReachTogether blog). Include in your post the answer to the following question:
“The fractional development is in the town of Morzine in the French Alps, what is the capital city of France?”
That’s it!
I realize that these type of competitions have quite a poor record of actually being completed, but a lot of previous schemes/competitions would have required you to pay some money! With this you have to do very little, so if the scheme doesn’t complete and pay out a prize then you have lost nothing (and you have still gained a link to your blog!).
Rules
1. This is a competition not a lottery. Receiving the prize is contingent upon it being a legal competition in your country of residence. If it is determined that paying you a prize would violate the law in your country of residence then another winner would be selected.
2. There is no guarantee that a prize will be paid out. This is dependent on the fractional scheme being completed by 30th June 2009. No responsibility is accepted for circumstances outside of our control that would prevent a prize being paid.
3. Once the fractional scheme has completed (defined as all fractions being sold) the winner will be selected at random and contacted through the e-mail details supplied when entering the competition. A response must be received from the selected winner within 4 weeks of e-mail notification, otherwise a new winner will be selected.
4. The prize value will be $10000 or the equivalent in your local currency.
5. One entry per blog and no spam.
Making it more likely that you will win!
The scheme has to complete for there to be a prize. This will happen through people finding the scheme details on our website. Now you could do lots of things to make this more likely:
I have written elsewhere on the subject of timeshare and how (especially if purchased on the resale market) it can be a useful way of fixing your future holiday costs. Unfortunately the good points of timeshare are often rightly swamped by all the bad publicity about sharp sales practices, inflated prices, and escalating annual fees.
In theory fractional ownership is the better alternative to timeshare, but unfortunately it doesn’t normally end up serving the same market. In an effort to distance themselves from timeshare, most fractional developers concentrate on more luxurious properties. They are also almost always sold in fractions entitling the owner to more than a week. The combination of selling a something that is worth probably over double the typical timeshare unit in time units of at least 4 weeks, produces a product that can be 8 times (impressed by my maths!) as expensive or more. Clearly this is going to appeal to a very different (and smaller) market. It occurs to me that the method of time allocation used in timeshare schemes (commonly although not always by fixed weeks) is something that could be adapted to suit the fractional ownership marketplace. Within a single fractional scheme fraction sizes would vary depending on the popularity of the week selected. This would produce a fraction cost comparable to typical timeshares, but with the advantage of true ownership of the property/real estate.
If combined with a fixed-period winding up clause (where the fractional scheme is terminated, the property/real estate sold, and the proceeds returned to the fraction owners) it would achieve something that timeshare rarely has - getting a reasonable proportion of your money back. It might even be possible to show a profit over a period of 5 years, although it would still be the case that these types of schemes should not be regarded primarily as investments.
To test this theory I have adapted a French Fractional Ski Apartment scheme to allow purchasers to select weeks. Take a look and let me know what you think!
After selling out 1 project (and nearly selling out their 2nd) Paris Home Shares announce their 3rd charming apartment in the beautiful city of Paris.
In the midst of the lower Marais restaurant district, just steps from the Hotel de Ville, lies a quiet tree lined cobblestone passage called rue du Trésor. Vehicle traffic is prohibited so that pedestrians can stroll freely and soak in the beauty of this oasis of tranquility. This little gem of a passage is truly “un trésor”, a treasure. Price currently 78,500Euro for a 1/12 share.
An attempt to get over 1000 blogs linked together…..
Follow the instructions below to add your blog to the list.
*Start Copy Here*
You do not have to be tagged to play along. This game is simple and so are the rules.
1. Copy from *Start Copy Here* through *End Copy Here*
2. Add your site(s) to the list. Just be sure to post the “Big Bang” at each site you add.
3. Tag or don't tag, your choice, however, the more tags you create the longer the list will grow.
4. Let me know your blog's name and url by leaving me a comment HERE. I will add you to the master list. (If you would like a scroll box code, leave me your email address and I will email it to you.) Scroll Box Example. (I decided not to use the box for the Big Bang for ease of copying.)
5. Come back and copy the master list back to your site, often. This process will allow late-comers to get as much link benefit as the first ones in. Once you are on the master list people who have participated earlier will update their bookmarks and help everyone lower than them out on the list.