ATHLLC2265253280
00:00:00.000 | (upbeat music)
00:00:02.760 | - Hello, and welcome to another episode of All The Hacks,
00:00:05.760 | a show about upgrading your life, money, and travel.
00:00:08.560 | I'm your host, Chris Hutchins,
00:00:09.640 | and each week I usually sit down
00:00:11.640 | with the world's best experts to learn the strategies,
00:00:14.520 | tactics, and frameworks that shape their success.
00:00:17.420 | Now, I've done a few solo episodes,
00:00:19.960 | but they've usually just been listener questions.
00:00:21.880 | So today I wanna try something new
00:00:23.840 | and do a solo deep dive on a topic I've researched a lot.
00:00:27.640 | Now, I love to travel,
00:00:29.240 | and there are some amazing hotels around the world,
00:00:31.640 | but sometimes you just wanna stay at a vacation home,
00:00:34.600 | whether it's 'cause you want a kitchen, multiple bedrooms,
00:00:36.940 | or you just want a private pool or a balcony
00:00:39.360 | with an amazing view.
00:00:41.040 | So let's talk about all the ways to make that happen.
00:00:44.000 | And when I say all the ways,
00:00:45.640 | we're gonna run through home rentals, fractional ownership,
00:00:48.240 | timeshares, vacation clubs, home exchanges,
00:00:51.460 | private residence clubs,
00:00:52.800 | and even vacation real estate investment funds.
00:00:55.620 | More on that one later.
00:00:56.760 | I spent a ton of time on this episode
00:00:58.700 | and have a bunch of topics I could do this on next,
00:01:01.380 | like insurance, parenting, credit card benefits,
00:01:04.780 | and a lot more.
00:01:05.840 | So if you like this format,
00:01:07.800 | please shoot me a quick DM or email chris@allthehacks.com
00:01:11.920 | and let me know.
00:01:12.960 | Okay, let's get into it.
00:01:14.320 | But before we get started.
00:01:15.720 | All right, let's talk vacation homes.
00:01:19.760 | First, thanks to David, Scott, and Jesse,
00:01:21.960 | who all emailed me to ask questions or share tips
00:01:24.500 | on timeshares or vacation homes
00:01:26.240 | and ultimately inspired this episode.
00:01:28.320 | So I'm gonna walk through all the options
00:01:30.280 | and what I personally think of each.
00:01:32.080 | And when we get to timeshares,
00:01:33.600 | I'll even share a few stories
00:01:35.040 | from my family's experience with them.
00:01:37.640 | So I'll start with the few options
00:01:39.960 | that have little or no upfront cost.
00:01:42.500 | The first, home rentals.
00:01:44.400 | It's just what it sounds like.
00:01:46.000 | We've probably all done this.
00:01:47.480 | Renting a house, could be a condo or a villa
00:01:50.080 | on a platform like Airbnb, VRBO,
00:01:52.360 | or even directly from an owner.
00:01:54.240 | So I won't spend much time here,
00:01:56.000 | but there are a few things that I found
00:01:57.780 | when I was doing a little bit of extra research
00:01:59.560 | that I wanna share.
00:02:00.520 | First, there are a few sites that seem to organize
00:02:03.120 | and curate just higher end properties,
00:02:05.800 | or at least properties with a more consistent
00:02:07.760 | design aesthetic or quality or set of amenities.
00:02:10.880 | One of them is Avant Stay.
00:02:12.440 | I've never used it, but it definitely looked interesting.
00:02:15.080 | And on the much higher end,
00:02:17.000 | there's one that I'm just really,
00:02:18.480 | really interested in called Wander.
00:02:20.800 | They only have 11 homes, but they're all beautiful.
00:02:23.880 | Fast Wi-Fi, they have eight sleeps on all the beds,
00:02:27.060 | Peloton bikes, they even have a Tesla you can drive,
00:02:30.080 | and they have multiple high-end workstations
00:02:32.240 | with monitors, good chairs, microphones,
00:02:34.320 | everything you need.
00:02:35.800 | It's really the most turnkey rental I've ever seen.
00:02:39.100 | I haven't been able to try it out yet,
00:02:40.720 | but if you do end up wanting to book something,
00:02:42.920 | make sure to email hello@wander.com
00:02:45.480 | and tell them I sent you,
00:02:46.640 | and they said they'd give you $250 off your booking.
00:02:49.360 | That is a referral link, but if enough people use it,
00:02:51.560 | I'll use the credit to go stay at a Wander
00:02:53.460 | and I'll let you know how it is.
00:02:55.000 | A couple other sites.
00:02:56.380 | When it comes to really high-end homes
00:02:58.520 | and villas and resort properties,
00:03:00.500 | there's two sites, Haven and Villas of Distinction,
00:03:04.200 | which I think are probably two of the best sites
00:03:07.200 | with the most comprehensive set of properties
00:03:09.560 | around the world.
00:03:10.920 | But I will say there are a lot of local sites and companies
00:03:14.020 | if you're looking to go to different destinations.
00:03:16.120 | So you really have to dig in.
00:03:18.300 | For example, in all the group trips I've planned to Cabo,
00:03:21.720 | I always use this one site called Cabo Villas.
00:03:24.400 | So this is not meant to be entirely comprehensive,
00:03:27.780 | but I wanna cover this category first
00:03:30.140 | because there's no upfront cost.
00:03:32.220 | A lot of the different ways that you could buy
00:03:34.060 | a vacation home or a timeshare or anything like that,
00:03:36.500 | you've gotta spend thousands, tens of thousands,
00:03:38.580 | hundreds of thousands of dollars upfront.
00:03:40.780 | And this is one where if you wanna go stay somewhere,
00:03:43.340 | you could just book it.
00:03:44.540 | Now, the reason why all of these other options exist
00:03:47.440 | is because if you commit to various lengths of term
00:03:50.740 | or specific places, you can get a better deal.
00:03:53.260 | But if you're just looking for one trip,
00:03:55.000 | it's much easier to just book the place you want
00:03:57.760 | than worry about everything else.
00:03:59.320 | So this is great for one-off trips.
00:04:00.840 | I will say the quality varies.
00:04:02.520 | I'm sure you've all stayed at an Airbnb that was great,
00:04:05.460 | and then you probably stayed at some that weren't so great.
00:04:07.760 | The price varies, the fees vary.
00:04:10.400 | I did see a post on Twitter that Brian Chesky,
00:04:12.960 | the CEO of Airbnb is finally gonna try to figure out
00:04:15.160 | how to kind of curb the craziness that is Airbnb fees,
00:04:18.760 | where it's here's the cleaning fee, the housekeeping fee,
00:04:20.720 | the booking fee and everything.
00:04:22.400 | But I will say one thing that is tough
00:04:25.180 | is if you find a place you like
00:04:26.620 | and you wanna go there regularly,
00:04:28.500 | it's really hard to guarantee anything.
00:04:30.540 | Also, there are a lot of places
00:04:32.220 | that have restrictions on short-term rentals.
00:04:34.500 | And so there are some places, Napa being one of them,
00:04:37.420 | that it's really hard to find a home that you can rent
00:04:40.540 | because of all the restrictions on short-term rentals.
00:04:43.100 | I will remind everyone of one of my favorite hacks
00:04:45.780 | for booking these places is take the photo of the property
00:04:50.020 | and save it to your computer
00:04:51.480 | and use a Google reverse image search and search for it.
00:04:55.400 | And you'll find that that property might be listed
00:04:58.280 | on five or six different sites.
00:05:00.080 | And it might actually be cheaper on other sites.
00:05:02.520 | So I'd say use that trick.
00:05:04.560 | You might find that the place on Airbnb is 20% less
00:05:07.660 | if you book it on a local site, maybe like Cabo Villas
00:05:10.560 | or wherever you're looking for in the world.
00:05:12.640 | Next is home exchange.
00:05:14.240 | And this can literally be the cheapest possible way
00:05:16.640 | to stay at vacation homes around the world.
00:05:18.720 | If you're unfamiliar and you've seen the holiday,
00:05:21.300 | you remember Kate Winslet, Cameron Diaz,
00:05:23.140 | swap homes across the world, fall in love.
00:05:25.900 | Well, I guess after that, I'd always assumed
00:05:27.900 | that home swapping was about finding a specific person
00:05:30.820 | or a family somewhere in the world
00:05:32.720 | that happened to have a home you want
00:05:34.580 | in the place you wanna go at the exact time you wanna go.
00:05:38.260 | And they too wanted to go wherever you live.
00:05:40.980 | Well, the more I dug into this,
00:05:42.500 | the more I found out that the platforms
00:05:44.500 | that service home exchange have really evolved.
00:05:46.760 | And I was definitely wrong.
00:05:48.420 | There's actually a few different types of stays.
00:05:51.140 | Simultaneous being the one I just described
00:05:53.580 | where you find someone who wants to stay at your home
00:05:55.600 | while you stay at their home.
00:05:57.300 | There's also non-simultaneous,
00:05:58.940 | which is someone wants to stay at your home
00:06:00.820 | maybe while you're traveling,
00:06:02.700 | and then you can find a time to stay at their home
00:06:04.700 | some future date.
00:06:05.900 | So it doesn't have to be lined up perfectly.
00:06:08.780 | There's also something called non-reciprocal.
00:06:10.660 | And this is where I think it gets really interesting,
00:06:13.140 | which is that most of the platforms
00:06:15.040 | have created some currency.
00:06:17.140 | In one platform, they're called globes.
00:06:18.900 | Others, they're called keys.
00:06:20.580 | One of them, they're some kind of points.
00:06:22.700 | And by listing your home,
00:06:24.580 | you're able to have people stay at your home
00:06:27.180 | and earn this currency in the exchange program
00:06:30.460 | that you can then use on a totally separate house
00:06:32.840 | that the owners were never planning
00:06:34.780 | on even coming to where you live or staying in your home.
00:06:37.440 | There's also something called a hospitality exchange,
00:06:40.180 | which is where you stay with someone
00:06:42.440 | and then they come stay with you,
00:06:44.020 | but you're not actually getting the house to yourself.
00:06:46.080 | But I'm gonna put that outside of the scope of this episode.
00:06:48.540 | So the most interesting one here to me is non-reciprocal.
00:06:51.620 | I'll just share a few of the platforms here
00:06:53.360 | in case this is interesting,
00:06:54.420 | because I think prior to doing some of this research,
00:06:57.460 | this is something I never considered.
00:06:58.820 | And now all of a sudden, I'm a little bit more interested.
00:07:01.460 | There's Home Exchange.
00:07:03.020 | They've got 450,000 homes in over 100 countries.
00:07:07.340 | Love Home Swap and People Like Us.
00:07:09.740 | Both also have thousands of homes in over 100 countries.
00:07:13.180 | If you already have a second home,
00:07:15.220 | and in many cases, even a fractional second home,
00:07:17.620 | which we'll talk about later,
00:07:18.860 | there's a site called Third Home,
00:07:20.700 | which basically lets you swap your second home
00:07:23.760 | for someone else's second home anywhere around the world.
00:07:26.200 | Focuses on really high-end properties.
00:07:28.540 | The minimum is that they have to cost $500,000
00:07:31.660 | and it goes all the way up to 50 million.
00:07:33.780 | On the total other end of the spectrum is Couchsurfing.
00:07:36.700 | There's 14 million members in 200,000 cities.
00:07:40.180 | This is something that I think early in life,
00:07:42.600 | I found to be incredibly valuable.
00:07:44.560 | Amy and I did Couchsurfing all over the world
00:07:47.120 | when we went on our trip.
00:07:48.300 | And before we left,
00:07:49.220 | we hosted dozens of people in our home.
00:07:51.820 | This is definitely more like that hospitality exchange,
00:07:54.740 | except there's no real exchange.
00:07:56.620 | It's just a free thing that people do
00:07:58.740 | to get to know interesting people.
00:08:00.420 | When we were doing it,
00:08:01.260 | we'd always try to leave some nice gift,
00:08:03.100 | but at the end of the day,
00:08:04.460 | there's no expectation of compensation.
00:08:06.940 | It's just a platform for travelers
00:08:08.960 | that like to meet other travelers
00:08:10.660 | and host them in their homes.
00:08:12.180 | I highly recommend it if you're going on a trip
00:08:14.720 | and you're willing to sleep on a couch or a sofa bed,
00:08:17.840 | or in some cases the floor.
00:08:19.400 | And if you are, it's an incredible way to meet people
00:08:22.280 | and get to know a city.
00:08:23.760 | And I have so many great memories of Couchsurfing.
00:08:26.440 | There's one other cool site that a friend of mine
00:08:28.080 | actually shared with me called MyPlace.
00:08:31.000 | It's kind of like a hybrid of Couchsurfing,
00:08:33.640 | Home Exchange, Airbnb, where there's no real compensation.
00:08:37.520 | It's not supposed to be a rental,
00:08:39.180 | but it's only open to friends and friends of friends.
00:08:41.880 | So they don't have the insurance policies
00:08:43.760 | that you would normally have.
00:08:45.240 | And you can ask people to either cover your costs
00:08:48.040 | or maybe pay for cleaning, but it's not a rental service.
00:08:51.640 | It's kind of interesting if you think,
00:08:52.960 | gosh, I'd be willing to let MyPlace go
00:08:54.660 | to friends and friends of friends,
00:08:55.720 | but I don't really want just random people to stay in it.
00:08:58.400 | It's an option, or similarly,
00:09:00.100 | if you're looking for a place to stay,
00:09:01.840 | it might be a place to find a good deal
00:09:03.360 | if you have friends that live all around the world.
00:09:05.380 | If I can find discounts or referral codes for any of these,
00:09:08.400 | I'll put them in the show notes
00:09:09.720 | or at allthehacks.com/86, which is this episode number.
00:09:13.560 | As for what I think,
00:09:14.680 | the overall benefit here is the cost savings, right?
00:09:16.980 | When you're traveling, your home is empty,
00:09:18.800 | so why not get something for that?
00:09:20.520 | Or even if it's not a straight swap,
00:09:22.200 | maybe you're visiting family for the holidays.
00:09:24.760 | Maybe you have a vacation planned already
00:09:26.880 | and your home's empty.
00:09:28.160 | Why not list it on one of these platforms
00:09:30.600 | and earn whatever their virtual currency is
00:09:32.760 | and see if on your next vacation,
00:09:34.440 | you can use that currency to go somewhere for free.
00:09:37.720 | So some other cool, fun things
00:09:39.560 | I was reading as I looked in these exchange platforms,
00:09:42.120 | people include all kinds of things
00:09:43.760 | because it's really about getting to know the person
00:09:46.400 | even more than you normally would on an Airbnb.
00:09:48.840 | So some people leave out their transit passes.
00:09:51.600 | Some people will let you use their car.
00:09:53.660 | Some people ask that, "Oh, you can stay here,
00:09:55.420 | "but you have to watch our dogs."
00:09:57.020 | So it's a little bit more of a person-to-person experience
00:09:59.960 | than just kind of a transactional book a property
00:10:02.120 | like you would with a rental.
00:10:04.340 | But it seems, at least to me, kind of interesting
00:10:07.400 | if you can get past the obvious objection,
00:10:09.960 | which is having people in your house.
00:10:11.660 | In the past, we've had our place on Airbnb.
00:10:14.040 | And as we were thinking about what we could do now,
00:10:17.280 | we thought there were probably a couple rooms and closets
00:10:19.800 | that we could just add a lock on,
00:10:21.600 | get a little bit of privacy for some of our belongings.
00:10:25.080 | Some of these platforms also collect deposits.
00:10:27.360 | Some have insurance.
00:10:29.160 | Some suggest maybe you should check
00:10:30.400 | with your homeowner's policy.
00:10:32.000 | But when I was looking online,
00:10:33.480 | even though these home exchanges aren't short-term rentals,
00:10:36.600 | the short-term rental coverages you can buy for your home
00:10:39.320 | often will still cover you.
00:10:40.640 | So I do think that if you can get over the fact
00:10:43.160 | that someone's in your house,
00:10:44.240 | staying in your room and sleeping in your bed,
00:10:46.200 | you can always buy a second pair of sheets, don't worry.
00:10:48.640 | This could be a really, really interesting thing.
00:10:50.800 | Also, I'm not an accountant,
00:10:53.000 | so don't take this as tax advice,
00:10:54.440 | but because there's no money changing hands,
00:10:56.320 | I wouldn't expect you to get 1099s
00:10:58.840 | for your people staying in your home.
00:11:00.600 | And so it could be a little bit better
00:11:02.400 | even just from a tax advantage standpoint
00:11:04.280 | of renting your place and then booking places.
00:11:06.640 | I might try it out, see what happens.
00:11:08.400 | If I do, I'll let you guys know.
00:11:10.040 | So those are two options that don't really require
00:11:13.040 | any significant upfront investment,
00:11:15.200 | but from all my research and personal experience,
00:11:18.520 | some of the programs that require an upfront investment
00:11:20.840 | can save you a ton in the long run
00:11:22.800 | if it's the right fit for what you're looking for.
00:11:25.000 | Others can be a downright terrible investment,
00:11:28.120 | so let's dive in.
00:11:29.520 | And if the thing you really came for is timeshares,
00:11:31.520 | I just wanna make sure you know I will get to it,
00:11:33.720 | but I'm gonna get to a few things first.
00:11:35.920 | The most expensive option
00:11:37.400 | is to just buy an entire second home.
00:11:39.840 | This one doesn't make sense to me
00:11:41.240 | because you can't be in two places at once.
00:11:43.680 | So unless you plan on renting them each out
00:11:45.960 | and effectively becoming a landlord
00:11:48.000 | because you can't be in the same place twice,
00:11:49.840 | which means you're gonna be renting out 365 nights a year,
00:11:53.360 | that's just not something I'm interested in.
00:11:55.160 | So for me, this was never an option,
00:11:57.440 | and it's also probably the most expensive option
00:12:00.040 | unless you wanna turn it into a rental.
00:12:01.880 | So I'm gonna skip over that,
00:12:03.720 | but I think you all know how that works.
00:12:05.440 | You buy another second home.
00:12:07.040 | Fortunately, there are quite a few ways
00:12:09.160 | that you can buy into vacation homes
00:12:10.720 | for way less than buying an entire second home.
00:12:13.720 | Some are effectively just clubs
00:12:15.320 | that you allow you to rent places,
00:12:17.080 | but others are true equity programs
00:12:19.200 | where you can have real ownership in the real estate
00:12:21.520 | and benefit from any of the appreciation.
00:12:24.360 | Unfortunately, there are so many different names
00:12:26.920 | when it comes to all of these things.
00:12:28.720 | There's timeshares, vacation clubs,
00:12:31.120 | fractional ownership and private residence clubs,
00:12:33.680 | destination clubs, luxury travel subscriptions,
00:12:36.960 | vacation real estate investment funds.
00:12:39.360 | So to break this down,
00:12:40.840 | I'm gonna split everything into two categories.
00:12:43.240 | One, equity, where in one form or another,
00:12:46.120 | you're benefiting from the appreciation of the property,
00:12:48.840 | and non-equity, where members or owners
00:12:51.120 | don't have any ownership interest in the properties
00:12:53.600 | and don't benefit from its appreciation.
00:12:55.720 | I'll start with equity,
00:12:56.840 | and if you came here for timeshares,
00:12:58.320 | unfortunately, it's not in this category,
00:13:00.080 | and I'll explain more why later.
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00:15:26.560 | But first I'll talk about fractional ownership.
00:15:28.920 | So this is true deeded fractional ownership in real estate.
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00:15:51.800 | And that's because I reached out to them
00:15:53.240 | because I really love the product
00:15:55.100 | and it's too bad they didn't reach out first.
00:15:56.680 | Maybe I would have gotten a better deal on our place,
00:15:58.840 | but I think they explained the model really well.
00:16:01.320 | So Picasso will buy a home, they'll furnish it,
00:16:04.700 | put it into an LLC with eight member interests
00:16:07.560 | and sell those to buyers.
00:16:09.420 | So because you hold an equity interest in this home,
00:16:11.820 | you can get a loan from the purchase.
00:16:13.520 | And when you wanna sell,
00:16:14.760 | you benefit from any appreciation.
00:16:16.720 | In fact, Picasso resales have sold in an average of 12 days
00:16:20.080 | with a 12% annualized gain.
00:16:22.320 | And I know that because I could see
00:16:24.380 | that I paid more than they did just a year before.
00:16:27.400 | So the benefit of doing fractionals through a company
00:16:29.760 | versus doing it by yourself
00:16:31.200 | is that they manage all the aspects of the property.
00:16:33.920 | Cleaning, paying utilities and property taxes,
00:16:37.080 | landscaping, maintenance, repairs,
00:16:39.200 | and they usually have a system for scheduling
00:16:41.280 | and try to keep everything equitable between owners.
00:16:44.040 | I can only imagine that if you were trying
00:16:45.280 | to do this yourself and having to come up with a system
00:16:47.600 | about who gets to stay when, it could get complicated.
00:16:50.240 | But not all fractionals are for just one property.
00:16:53.280 | I came across this site called My Five Homes
00:16:55.960 | that pairs you up with 20 other families
00:16:58.200 | who all collectively buy five homes.
00:17:01.160 | So as an example, one I looked at
00:17:03.000 | is planning on buying a home in New England,
00:17:05.160 | Turks and Caicos, New York City, Park City, and Maui.
00:17:08.400 | So this isn't just about buying one property,
00:17:10.880 | there's all kinds of options here.
00:17:12.960 | If you couldn't tell, I love the fractional model
00:17:15.560 | because what we wanted was to have a consistent place
00:17:18.240 | we could go with a bit higher end furnishings
00:17:21.040 | than some of the Airbnbs we'd seen
00:17:23.120 | where we knew how everything was set up
00:17:24.880 | and more importantly, we could leave some things
00:17:27.200 | in onsite storage.
00:17:28.720 | So for example, we have a bunch of non-perishable food,
00:17:31.440 | some clothes, a computer monitor, a dog bed, and more.
00:17:34.520 | So we don't have to lug all that stuff with us anyways.
00:17:37.120 | And the house itself actually also already comes
00:17:39.840 | with a crib, a baby monitor, a high chair,
00:17:42.520 | and all those things.
00:17:43.440 | So for us, it was been so great.
00:17:46.960 | Also, there are a ton of restrictions on short-term rentals.
00:17:50.200 | So it's actually really hard and quite expensive
00:17:53.000 | to find a place you can rent with a few bedrooms
00:17:55.200 | for a family, but fractionals are true ownership
00:17:58.280 | and so they don't actually have those issues.
00:18:00.280 | Now within fractionals, there's another category
00:18:02.960 | called private residence clubs.
00:18:04.840 | They're often described as high-end fractionals,
00:18:07.600 | but I've seen some really incredible fractionals
00:18:09.840 | that don't call themselves private residence clubs.
00:18:12.160 | So I'm gonna focus on the other distinction,
00:18:14.240 | which is that they're usually operated
00:18:15.840 | by luxury hospitality chains like Four Seasons
00:18:18.640 | or Ritz-Carlton and have the amenities typically found
00:18:21.720 | in high-end hotels or resorts.
00:18:24.200 | These clubs often sell condos or villas with access
00:18:27.280 | to the club's golf course or ski resort,
00:18:29.840 | along with maid-cleaned rooms and turndown service.
00:18:33.160 | But a big selling point for some people
00:18:35.120 | is that owners also gain access to other properties
00:18:37.880 | in the chain's portfolio.
00:18:39.520 | So for example, up in Napa, there's a resort
00:18:41.800 | called The Orchard at Carneros,
00:18:43.600 | where you can buy a fraction of a two-bedroom condo,
00:18:46.200 | but the property is part of Timbers Resorts,
00:18:48.680 | so you can also trade your place in
00:18:50.400 | for a stay at their other properties
00:18:52.480 | in places like Mexico, Hawaii, or Colorado.
00:18:56.000 | That said, I have a friend
00:18:57.440 | that actually has a fractional in Timbers,
00:18:59.280 | and he said you really have to be ready
00:19:01.000 | to pull the trigger the second you find availability
00:19:03.360 | at any of the partner resorts,
00:19:05.140 | because it's extremely limited and it goes really fast.
00:19:08.720 | Though another perk of private residence clubs
00:19:10.840 | is that some have a program
00:19:12.040 | that let you rent your place out
00:19:13.400 | if you're not gonna use it and either make some money
00:19:15.680 | or offset any of your annual dues
00:19:17.420 | that you pay for management or maintenance.
00:19:20.240 | I assume some fractionals also allow this,
00:19:22.760 | but because private residence clubs are often at resorts,
00:19:25.680 | it's a much more turnkey experience.
00:19:27.840 | We actually considered The Orchard at Carneros
00:19:29.940 | because it was also in Napa,
00:19:31.760 | but for us, we didn't really want a two-bedroom condo
00:19:34.840 | that would change every time.
00:19:36.320 | We wanted a place that we could have all to ourselves
00:19:38.380 | that was big enough that we can invite family
00:19:40.240 | to come stay with us as well.
00:19:41.740 | So if you're wondering what fractionals,
00:19:43.780 | including private residence clubs, cost,
00:19:46.040 | I'd say at the very entry level
00:19:47.880 | where you might only get a couple weeks in a smaller condo,
00:19:51.240 | you're looking at $50,000 to $75,000,
00:19:54.040 | but many are in the low to mid-six figures,
00:19:56.320 | and I've seen some fractions that cross into seven figures.
00:19:59.680 | Like I said, another big benefit
00:20:01.260 | is that you can get a mortgage or a loan for fractionals
00:20:03.480 | because they're actual real estate,
00:20:05.320 | but you also wanna make sure that you budget
00:20:07.680 | for your annual dues to cover maintenance,
00:20:10.080 | management, property taxes, utilities,
00:20:12.680 | which probably is anywhere from $5,000 to $25,000 a year,
00:20:16.600 | depending on the property.
00:20:17.800 | Next, I wanna talk about
00:20:18.880 | vacation real estate investment funds.
00:20:21.440 | When I first came across this, it was super interesting
00:20:23.720 | because in this model,
00:20:25.520 | a company creates an investment fund
00:20:27.800 | that raises money to acquire properties
00:20:30.280 | and then lets the investors in the fund
00:20:32.320 | use those properties
00:20:33.920 | at some rate proportional to their investment.
00:20:36.420 | So it's almost like investing in a private real estate deal,
00:20:39.560 | except you actually get to stay in the properties.
00:20:42.240 | Now, a lot of private real estate deals
00:20:44.060 | are actually doing rentals, so there's less income,
00:20:46.360 | so I think the return on the investment
00:20:48.280 | might be more about the appreciation than the income,
00:20:51.520 | but it's still pretty interesting.
00:20:52.800 | So the first example I found of this
00:20:54.600 | was called Equity Residences,
00:20:56.520 | which for their next fund is gonna raise $50 million
00:20:59.440 | to acquire 16 properties, mostly in North America
00:21:02.480 | and places like Hawaii, California, Florida,
00:21:05.120 | the Caribbean, and Mexico.
00:21:06.920 | And you can invest various amounts,
00:21:08.760 | but at the lower end, you can invest $200,000
00:21:11.760 | and get one to three weeks of usage
00:21:13.840 | with annual dues in the few thousands of dollars.
00:21:17.140 | So some cool things they do
00:21:18.840 | are they actually rent out properties
00:21:20.960 | when they're not in use
00:21:22.420 | to fund all the ongoing costs of the properties.
00:21:25.320 | And then they also list those homes on Third Home,
00:21:28.720 | which is one of the exchange sites I mentioned earlier.
00:21:31.200 | So you can actually exchange your time
00:21:33.480 | for properties outside of their portfolio.
00:21:36.540 | But one of the major differences with this
00:21:38.800 | is around liquidity.
00:21:40.360 | The Equity Residence funds
00:21:42.080 | are set up to be 10-year investments.
00:21:44.360 | So while you can get your share
00:21:45.720 | of the appreciation of the portfolio when they sell,
00:21:48.280 | you can't just list your property or your share
00:21:50.660 | on an MLS site like you could with a fractional
00:21:53.200 | and sell it whenever you want.
00:21:55.120 | You also can't get a mortgage
00:21:56.800 | because it's actually an investment
00:21:58.280 | as opposed to a real estate purchase.
00:22:00.480 | So if you're comparing a fractional share
00:22:02.400 | that costs 250,000 and a $250,000 investment
00:22:05.560 | on one of these funds,
00:22:06.740 | you might only need to put 75,000 down on the fractional
00:22:09.980 | while you'd need the full 250,000 for the investment fund.
00:22:13.460 | That was a huge factor for us
00:22:14.860 | when we were looking at options,
00:22:16.300 | but maybe more importantly,
00:22:17.700 | was that we wanted to make sure
00:22:19.100 | that if we were gonna purchase a vacation home,
00:22:21.420 | we really knew we would get the maximum usage out of it.
00:22:24.460 | Otherwise, we knew it just wasn't gonna be a good deal.
00:22:27.100 | And that meant we were looking for a place
00:22:28.940 | that was within driving distance of the Bay Area
00:22:31.180 | that we could go to regularly,
00:22:32.980 | and we just didn't find any of that
00:22:34.700 | with these fund options or private residence clubs.
00:22:37.360 | So those are all the equity options
00:22:38.780 | where you have real ownership in a property
00:22:40.440 | and benefit from its appreciation.
00:22:42.400 | That's not to say the other options aren't a good deal.
00:22:44.400 | I just needed a way to split things up.
00:22:46.640 | And if you want links
00:22:47.600 | to any of the companies I'm talking about,
00:22:49.160 | I'll put them all in the show notes and on allthehacks.com.
00:22:52.840 | Now I'm gonna move on to non-equity
00:22:55.120 | and talk about destination clubs.
00:22:57.480 | Now, depending on where you look online,
00:22:59.500 | destination clubs might be two different things.
00:23:02.340 | Some sites happen to say that destination clubs
00:23:04.880 | are actually equity, some aren't.
00:23:07.280 | But because there's no consistent definition,
00:23:10.200 | I've decided that I'm going to use destination clubs
00:23:12.960 | to mean non-equity programs
00:23:15.120 | where members pay an upfront fee
00:23:16.800 | to gain access to a portfolio of residences,
00:23:19.640 | typically multi-bedroom luxury homes all around the world.
00:23:23.040 | And they typically come with the kinds of high-end concierge
00:23:26.440 | and hospitality services you'd expect at a five-star hotel.
00:23:30.120 | They're usually set up with a lower fee,
00:23:32.000 | like Inspirato starts at $600 a month,
00:23:34.580 | and then you just pay as you go for the properties.
00:23:37.320 | Or sometimes they have much higher fees
00:23:39.480 | that require no additional cost to use the properties.
00:23:42.580 | So example, one of these is called Exclusive Resorts,
00:23:45.660 | and they charge $275,000 upfront
00:23:49.100 | and $36,000 a year in annual dues.
00:23:52.220 | But after that, you get 25 nights a year at their properties
00:23:55.260 | for the next 30 years.
00:23:57.260 | So there's a really great site I spent a lot of time on
00:24:00.940 | learning about everything I'm talking about
00:24:03.260 | called SherpaReport,
00:24:04.620 | and they have a comparison list
00:24:05.940 | of all the destination clubs,
00:24:07.500 | so I'll link to that in the show notes.
00:24:09.180 | But I think the reason most of the people I've talked to
00:24:11.720 | seem to like these programs are two things,
00:24:14.340 | and neither of them really applied to me.
00:24:16.380 | One, they really appreciate the turnkey nature
00:24:19.340 | of the travel planning services,
00:24:21.260 | where you can say, "I'm going to this house in Italy,"
00:24:24.060 | and someone will plan everything around that trip for you.
00:24:27.860 | And two, the kinds of homes that they're looking to rent,
00:24:30.620 | you just can't rent on other sites.
00:24:32.860 | These two, five, $10 million homes
00:24:35.340 | that I've seen in a lot of these destination clubs
00:24:37.200 | just aren't on Airbnb that often.
00:24:39.780 | Also, from my math,
00:24:41.060 | it seems like you really need to be spending
00:24:42.780 | more than a few weeks traveling around the world,
00:24:44.940 | staying at multi-million dollar properties
00:24:46.900 | to get a good value,
00:24:48.460 | and that just isn't us, at least not yet.
00:24:51.100 | Another thing, from Inspirato's investor presentation,
00:24:53.920 | since they were in the process of going public,
00:24:55.900 | I saw that their destination club project has a 67% margin,
00:25:00.100 | which means it's definitely a good business for them,
00:25:03.540 | but it made me a bit skeptical
00:25:04.900 | on the value I'd be able to get from it.
00:25:06.980 | Now, I'm sure a lot of their customers
00:25:08.460 | aren't maximizing their memberships,
00:25:09.980 | and that's contributing to that margin number,
00:25:12.060 | and maybe if I signed up, I'd get a ton of value,
00:25:14.660 | but it was an interesting data point.
00:25:16.420 | Either way, I don't think it's the right fit for us,
00:25:18.820 | but speaking of Inspirato,
00:25:20.580 | they actually launched another product
00:25:22.020 | called the Inspirato Pass,
00:25:23.860 | which they're calling
00:25:24.700 | the world's first luxury travel subscription.
00:25:27.500 | I saw a ton of advertising for it
00:25:29.300 | when it launched a few years ago,
00:25:30.980 | but I hadn't heard any firsthand reviews,
00:25:33.520 | so all of my thoughts here
00:25:34.880 | are based on research and blog posts.
00:25:37.060 | The way it works is a little complicated,
00:25:38.860 | but my best stab at explaining it
00:25:41.300 | is that you pay $2,500 a month,
00:25:44.060 | and every time you book a stay,
00:25:46.340 | it locks up your pass for a certain number of days.
00:25:49.780 | So, if you wanna book the biggest,
00:25:51.580 | nicest property they have for two weeks,
00:25:54.020 | it might lock your pass up for eight months,
00:25:56.980 | but if you book a smaller place for a weekend,
00:25:59.300 | it might only get locked up for a month or two.
00:26:01.620 | Then, once it's unlocked,
00:26:02.960 | you can go and book something else.
00:26:04.780 | I got a bunch of this understanding
00:26:06.240 | from this site Luxury Pass Review,
00:26:08.340 | where the author talks all about his experience
00:26:10.640 | with the pass and the tremendous value
00:26:12.600 | he believes he's gotten from it.
00:26:14.260 | In the 21 months he's had the pass,
00:26:16.540 | he said he spent $52,500, just 21 times 2,500,
00:26:21.540 | but he's calculated the value
00:26:23.180 | of all the stays he's had at $130,000.
00:26:26.580 | So, it's definitely possible
00:26:28.020 | to get a good deal from the program,
00:26:29.860 | but in those 21 months, he's booked 70 nights,
00:26:33.820 | which is a lot of travel around the country,
00:26:36.440 | though, to be fair, 40 of the 70 nights he booked
00:26:39.300 | were at one specific property
00:26:40.940 | that I think was pretty close to him.
00:26:43.060 | However, this made me think about the times
00:26:45.380 | where I've used my points
00:26:46.420 | to book a $10,000 business class flight.
00:26:49.380 | As much as I love feeling like I got so much value
00:26:52.220 | for my points, I'm not sure it's quite fair
00:26:54.720 | to call those points being worth $10,000
00:26:57.620 | because there is zero chance
00:26:59.340 | that I would ever pay $10,000 for a flight
00:27:02.060 | if I didn't have the miles.
00:27:03.760 | So, I wonder how much the guy that writes this site
00:27:06.120 | would have spent traveling
00:27:08.180 | if he was limited to only booking rentals or resorts,
00:27:11.500 | and whether he actually would have spent $130,000
00:27:14.860 | or it would have been closer to the $50,000
00:27:17.140 | he spent for the pass or even less.
00:27:19.700 | So, I can't say whether Destination Clubs
00:27:22.100 | or the Inspirato Pass is a good option
00:27:24.220 | or isn't for some,
00:27:25.420 | but I will say that you're gonna need
00:27:26.740 | to make a big commitment to travel
00:27:28.620 | and want it to be at very high-end properties
00:27:31.620 | and need those properties to have room for a lot of people
00:27:35.020 | since most of them are larger
00:27:36.980 | if you wanna make this worth it.
00:27:38.620 | I wanna spend an extra minute
00:27:41.300 | talking about what I think is the best way
00:27:43.660 | to buy a vacation home.
00:27:45.140 | And as you know, we actually did it for our second home.
00:27:48.320 | I'm talking about Picasso
00:27:49.580 | and I'm excited to partner with them for this episode.
00:27:52.260 | So, how does it work?
00:27:53.340 | Picasso buys amazing luxury homes
00:27:55.660 | in over 40 world-class destinations,
00:27:58.140 | creates an LLC for each home,
00:27:59.820 | and you can buy as little as 1/8 of the property.
00:28:02.720 | But it doesn't stop there.
00:28:04.100 | Picasso also professionally manages the home,
00:28:07.020 | handling design, cleaning, maintenance,
00:28:09.460 | bills, repairs, taxes, and more.
00:28:12.120 | When we found Picasso, it felt like it was made just for us,
00:28:15.620 | and within a few days,
00:28:16.860 | we found the perfect place in Napa,
00:28:18.460 | toured it, and the next week we were closing.
00:28:21.220 | Since then, it's truly become our second home
00:28:23.860 | and has been so amazing.
00:28:25.740 | And it's true real estate ownership.
00:28:27.840 | Owners can sell at any time, set their own price,
00:28:30.940 | and tap into Picasso's active marketplace of buyers.
00:28:34.380 | In fact, on average, Picasso listings resell in 12 days
00:28:38.300 | with a 12% annualized gain.
00:28:40.660 | For a modern way to buy and own a second home,
00:28:43.520 | go to allthehacks.com/picasso
00:28:46.540 | where our listeners will get a free Picasso access account,
00:28:50.240 | which means you can see new listings
00:28:52.020 | before they go live on the website
00:28:54.120 | and get up to $10,000 in credit towards closing costs.
00:28:58.620 | Again, that's allthehacks.com/picasso,
00:29:01.960 | P-A-C-A-S-O.
00:29:04.500 | I love helping you answer all the toughest questions
00:29:09.620 | about life, money, and so much more,
00:29:12.100 | but sometimes it's helpful to talk to other people
00:29:14.700 | in your situation,
00:29:16.140 | which actually gets harder as you build your wealth.
00:29:18.740 | So I wanna introduce you to today's sponsor, Long Angle.
00:29:22.020 | Long Angle is a community of high net worth individuals
00:29:24.880 | with backgrounds in everything from technology,
00:29:27.020 | finance, medicine, to real estate,
00:29:29.120 | law, manufacturing, and more.
00:29:31.560 | I'm a member of Long Angle.
00:29:32.960 | I've loved being a part of the community,
00:29:34.920 | and I've even had one of the founders, Tad Fallows,
00:29:37.240 | join me on All the Hacks in episode 87
00:29:39.360 | to talk about alternative investments.
00:29:41.720 | Now, the majority of Long Angle members
00:29:43.440 | are first generation wealth,
00:29:45.240 | young, highly successful individuals
00:29:47.320 | who join the community to share knowledge
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00:29:50.800 | in a confidential, unbiased setting.
00:29:53.400 | On top of that, members also get access
00:29:55.680 | to some unique private market investment opportunities.
00:29:59.000 | Like I said, I'm a member,
00:30:00.440 | and I've gotten so much value from the community
00:30:02.600 | because you're getting advice and feedback
00:30:04.560 | from people in a similar situation to you
00:30:07.040 | on everything from your investment portfolio,
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00:30:13.140 | So many of these conversations
00:30:14.600 | aren't happening anywhere else online,
00:30:16.800 | so if you have more than 2.2 million in investable assets,
00:30:20.480 | which is their minimum for membership,
00:30:22.360 | I encourage you to check out Long Angle,
00:30:24.520 | and it's totally free to join.
00:30:26.580 | Just go to longangle.com to learn more,
00:30:29.720 | and if you choose to apply,
00:30:31.240 | be sure to let them know you heard about it here.
00:30:34.180 | Again, that's longangle, A-N-G-L-E, .com.
00:30:38.240 | I just wanna thank you, Quick,
00:30:41.040 | for listening to and supporting the show.
00:30:43.340 | Your support is what keeps this show going.
00:30:46.180 | To get all of the URLs, codes, deals,
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00:30:57.560 | Okay, time for the moment that at least a few of you
00:30:59.840 | who wrote in have been waiting for, timeshares.
00:31:02.800 | So with timeshares, you're purchasing the right
00:31:05.640 | to use a property unit for a specified time each year,
00:31:09.360 | or in some cases, a specific time or week each year,
00:31:13.440 | or in some cases, you're buying a timeshare,
00:31:15.960 | but it's really just a set number of points in a program,
00:31:19.180 | which it turns out is called a vacation club.
00:31:21.600 | Either way, you don't really have any true equity ownership
00:31:25.500 | in the underlying real estate,
00:31:27.260 | which is probably why the resale values
00:31:29.060 | of timeshares is so terrible.
00:31:31.460 | But it can't be all bad, right?
00:31:33.660 | After all, almost 10 million households
00:31:36.060 | in the U.S. own a timeshare.
00:31:37.740 | My grandparents were one of them,
00:31:39.280 | and since they've passed, my parents became one too,
00:31:42.100 | so I've actually gotten a chance to see this
00:31:44.180 | from a few perspectives.
00:31:46.120 | The good perspective was a few trips
00:31:48.200 | where our entire extended family went to Hawaii and Mexico
00:31:51.640 | and stayed at timeshare properties
00:31:53.200 | my grandparents had owned.
00:31:54.760 | In fact, my grandfather was probably
00:31:56.320 | one of the most frugal people I've ever met,
00:31:58.520 | so it's hard to imagine timeshares
00:32:00.380 | couldn't be a good deal, right?
00:32:02.080 | Well, I've done a bunch of digging,
00:32:03.880 | and if you're okay planning your vacations
00:32:06.280 | very far in advance, and you've found a place
00:32:09.700 | you wanna keep coming back to for decades to come,
00:32:13.120 | and you're not looking for five-star luxury properties,
00:32:16.720 | I actually don't know if timeshares
00:32:18.240 | are the worst deal out there.
00:32:19.820 | It's much less expensive than most of the options
00:32:22.000 | we've just talked about,
00:32:23.440 | with the average price of a timeshare being $21,455,
00:32:28.240 | and then a few thousand per year in maintenance fees.
00:32:31.200 | And I can tell you firsthand
00:32:32.600 | that I think my grandparents
00:32:33.680 | probably got their money's worth,
00:32:35.280 | because for almost 30 years,
00:32:36.920 | they meticulously used all five or six of their timeshares
00:32:40.120 | every single year.
00:32:41.440 | But after they passed,
00:32:43.120 | and my mom had to figure out what to do with them,
00:32:44.960 | we saw the other side.
00:32:46.680 | Trying to get rid of them was such a challenge.
00:32:49.400 | None of their children wanted to inherit them,
00:32:51.940 | so after failing to sell them for anything,
00:32:54.640 | or even give them away,
00:32:56.340 | my mom actually had to pay the timeshare companies
00:32:59.460 | thousands of dollars to take them back.
00:33:02.280 | So if you believe in market pricing theory,
00:33:04.520 | the fact that you can buy so many secondhand timeshares
00:33:07.960 | for a tiny fraction of their original purchase price
00:33:11.240 | would have to lead you to believe
00:33:12.840 | they're either not a good deal,
00:33:14.520 | or they're a good deal,
00:33:16.680 | but if you buy them secondhand, which is called a resale,
00:33:19.400 | it's an even better deal.
00:33:21.480 | The deeper I went online,
00:33:22.840 | the advice was so consistent
00:33:24.560 | that if you're really interested in a timeshare,
00:33:26.700 | you're better to just go rent the places
00:33:29.160 | from owners that aren't using them,
00:33:31.060 | or buy one as a resale from another owner.
00:33:34.120 | And thanks to sites like Redweek, Tug2, and Go Koala,
00:33:38.140 | it's never been easier to do those things.
00:33:41.040 | It's actually so crazy to browse those sites
00:33:43.680 | and see hundreds and hundreds of people
00:33:45.680 | trying to sell their timeshares for even just $1,
00:33:49.360 | or some of them will actually pay you
00:33:51.320 | to take the timeshare off their hands
00:33:53.560 | by prepaying a year or two of maintenance fees.
00:33:56.680 | But if all that's true,
00:33:58.120 | then why have so many millions of Americans bought them new?
00:34:01.720 | Well, first off, the sales pitches are so good.
00:34:05.040 | I'm sure many of you have seen them while traveling
00:34:07.760 | or even been to some.
00:34:09.200 | They usually offer you a gift certificate,
00:34:11.400 | a spa treatment, or something to go to a presentation,
00:34:15.120 | but only if you're married and over 25.
00:34:17.560 | I know because I've been to a couple,
00:34:19.640 | and I just wanted to hear the pitch.
00:34:21.800 | And if you're 100% confident you can walk away,
00:34:25.000 | then I'd encourage you to check out one of these
00:34:26.800 | and just see how it works.
00:34:28.620 | It's so crazy how good they make the deal sound.
00:34:31.320 | It's crazy to see the high pressure they put on you
00:34:33.800 | to sign on the spot,
00:34:35.080 | and the crazy incentives they'll roll out
00:34:37.240 | to get you to do that.
00:34:38.760 | I loved watching it happen,
00:34:40.720 | but I happily left empty handed each time.
00:34:44.080 | I probably won't do it again on a whim,
00:34:46.080 | but I have gotten these letters from Hyatt and Marriott
00:34:48.840 | to go to some decent properties in Mexico and Hawaii.
00:34:52.160 | And it's like five nights for $400
00:34:55.000 | as long as you go to the timeshare presentation.
00:34:57.500 | Sometimes they even throw in bonus points.
00:34:59.560 | So I wouldn't be surprised if we end up taking them up
00:35:01.680 | on one of those offers in the future,
00:35:03.540 | but you can be assured
00:35:04.760 | that we are not going to end up with a timeshare.
00:35:07.520 | But I wanna loop back and cover a few of the nuances
00:35:09.960 | and answer a few questions.
00:35:11.600 | First off,
00:35:12.440 | I mentioned you have to wanna come back
00:35:13.840 | to the same property,
00:35:15.200 | but I'm sure many of you
00:35:16.240 | that are familiar with timeshares are thinking,
00:35:18.400 | "Aren't there so many exchanges
00:35:20.040 | either through the timeshare companies
00:35:21.680 | or partners like RCI?"
00:35:23.440 | And I'll say, "Yes, there are."
00:35:25.420 | But they all usually give priority booking
00:35:27.440 | to the owners at specific properties.
00:35:29.420 | So every time we've looked
00:35:30.960 | trying to use my parents' timeshare they inherited,
00:35:33.840 | it's been very, very difficult
00:35:35.840 | to get the dates we want
00:35:37.320 | in the unit size we want
00:35:38.840 | at a property that's worth staying at.
00:35:41.080 | But that makes sense
00:35:42.200 | because my parents are timeshare owners
00:35:43.840 | or technically vacation club owners
00:35:46.040 | and their ownership is tied
00:35:47.360 | to a really nice window in Park City.
00:35:49.400 | And in order to book the three or four bedroom units
00:35:52.040 | they have that we use for our family vacations,
00:35:55.080 | you literally need to log into the website
00:35:57.080 | 13 months in advance at 1201 AM
00:36:00.240 | and book it before it's gone.
00:36:02.320 | Otherwise, you almost never get the dates you want
00:36:05.300 | unless you get lucky
00:36:06.520 | or you happen to be looking right as someone cancels.
00:36:09.580 | Which brings up another interesting point
00:36:11.320 | on the downside of buying timeshares from an existing owner.
00:36:14.640 | So I know I said that's the advice I got
00:36:17.120 | but a lot of these programs
00:36:18.640 | especially at the vacation clubs where they're points-based
00:36:21.760 | have come up with tiers of status you earn
00:36:24.200 | as you buy more annual packages of points.
00:36:27.000 | So you may have 500,000 points per year
00:36:30.000 | but if you buy another 500,000
00:36:31.840 | and cross to the 1 million threshold
00:36:33.860 | you get an exclusive VIP status
00:36:36.480 | that lets you book yet another month
00:36:38.160 | before everyone else at certain properties.
00:36:40.660 | So to make their resales less enticing
00:36:43.480 | they only give you that status
00:36:45.400 | and those great advanced booking windows
00:36:47.140 | when you buy new directly from the property.
00:36:49.440 | Funny enough, this is actually what happened to my parents.
00:36:52.160 | So they inherited a bunch of Wyndham points
00:36:54.400 | from my grandparents
00:36:56.120 | that based on the catalog of properties
00:36:58.320 | seemed like a great deal.
00:36:59.840 | Someone had to take them
00:37:01.160 | and we only had to cover the maintenance fees
00:37:02.680 | since my grandparents had already paid for them.
00:37:04.620 | However, we quickly learned that it was just so hard
00:37:07.340 | to book the properties you wanted
00:37:08.740 | because they were getting snapped up so early.
00:37:11.140 | So despite years of family stories
00:37:13.300 | about how crazy it was
00:37:14.980 | that my grandparents were buying all these timeshares
00:37:18.380 | my parents went to one of these pitches
00:37:20.300 | to get their free gift certificate
00:37:21.980 | and left having spent thousands of dollars
00:37:25.100 | to get enough points
00:37:26.980 | that they crossed that magical million point per year mark
00:37:30.260 | and got that extra month to book things
00:37:32.720 | before everyone else could.
00:37:34.360 | And to be fair
00:37:35.480 | they've used that to book a four bedroom unit
00:37:37.840 | at a place in Park City
00:37:39.480 | that's been a fantastic family vacation for us
00:37:42.140 | most of the past decade.
00:37:43.960 | And if you look at what it would cost
00:37:45.600 | to rent a four bedroom property in Park City
00:37:48.520 | I think the fact that they didn't have to pay
00:37:50.640 | for the original amount of timeshare points
00:37:53.060 | might've been a good deal.
00:37:54.980 | But even given all of that
00:37:56.800 | they still keep rolling over
00:37:58.280 | hundreds of thousands of points each year
00:38:00.160 | because they're not using them all.
00:38:02.020 | And I finally talked to my mom yesterday
00:38:04.060 | and she said, if she could go back in time
00:38:06.260 | she'd probably have preferred
00:38:07.620 | to never taken over the timeshare
00:38:09.260 | and certainly wouldn't have bought
00:38:10.580 | all those additional points a few years ago.
00:38:12.980 | So I guess my takeaway on timeshares
00:38:15.460 | is that you should definitely do a ton of research
00:38:17.660 | on the program you're looking at before you buy anything.
00:38:20.740 | That means joining the Timeshare user group forums
00:38:23.660 | or finding the owners Facebook groups
00:38:25.820 | and really trying to make sure
00:38:27.060 | you're gonna be able to get the value you want out of this
00:38:29.700 | because I can assure you
00:38:31.400 | anyone at a resort trying to sell you one of these
00:38:33.660 | is gonna make it clear that that value is so easy to get.
00:38:38.080 | And specifically, I'd try to figure out
00:38:40.040 | if there's really anything you'd miss by buying a resale
00:38:43.180 | because you can get these resale timeshares
00:38:45.400 | for pennies on the dollar.
00:38:47.480 | And I do think there's some real value
00:38:49.580 | to be had on these resales.
00:38:51.320 | But again, you have to wanna stay at the properties
00:38:54.400 | within the timeshare program, many of which
00:38:57.480 | but certainly not all are pretty dated.
00:39:00.420 | Also, if you're considering a timeshare,
00:39:03.140 | I would 100% make sure you try out the property first
00:39:06.720 | and sites like Go Koala make it so easy
00:39:09.960 | to rent other people's timeshares
00:39:12.300 | which might make you realize
00:39:13.960 | that you can just keep doing that every year
00:39:16.100 | and getting a great deal.
00:39:17.900 | However, I would love to hear from anyone listening right now
00:39:20.860 | that has stories or anecdotes around this topic
00:39:23.660 | so I can share back what I learned with all of you.
00:39:26.580 | I can only do so much reading online
00:39:28.680 | but it would be great to hear all of your thoughts
00:39:30.800 | and experiences as well.
00:39:32.320 | So, that almost wraps up this vacation home episode
00:39:35.920 | but I did wanna share two more quick things
00:39:38.220 | that fit in line with the topic.
00:39:40.040 | Now, there are a lot of reasons to have a vacation home,
00:39:42.720 | timeshare, et cetera, but for some people
00:39:45.440 | it's because they just wanna go to a nice place
00:39:47.800 | maybe with a nice pool or resort amenities.
00:39:50.480 | And if that's the case,
00:39:51.880 | there's actually two interesting companies
00:39:53.560 | you should consider checking out.
00:39:55.460 | The first is Resort Pass which lets you pay
00:39:58.760 | to use all the facilities of a resort hotel
00:40:01.680 | without actually needing to stay there.
00:40:03.960 | So, it could be that you're traveling
00:40:05.320 | and are saving money by staying at an Airbnb
00:40:08.040 | or maybe you even rented one of these timeshare weeks
00:40:10.340 | from Gokwala but you just wanna have a nice day
00:40:13.380 | at a beautiful pool or float down the lazy river
00:40:16.620 | or maybe you don't even wanna take a vacation
00:40:18.660 | or maybe you don't even wanna travel that far
00:40:20.680 | and you just wanna book a day at a resort close to home.
00:40:23.900 | I haven't used it before
00:40:25.200 | but it's definitely an interesting model
00:40:27.280 | and there are a bunch of properties all over the country
00:40:29.480 | where you can pay anywhere from $20, $30
00:40:32.600 | all the way to $200 to spend the day at.
00:40:35.260 | The second is Swimply which is kind of like Airbnb
00:40:39.120 | but for swimming pools.
00:40:40.820 | So, when I searched near us, I found six pools
00:40:44.240 | within 10 miles that I could rent for 65 to $100 an hour.
00:40:49.000 | Based on the site, it seems like they're catering
00:40:51.080 | towards people who wanna host an event
00:40:53.140 | or a birthday party for their kids
00:40:55.400 | but compared to the cost of joining some type of gym
00:40:58.200 | or club with a pool, adding a pool to your property,
00:41:01.080 | staying at a resort or even using resort pass,
00:41:03.520 | for the occasional pool day,
00:41:05.240 | it's probably a much cheaper option
00:41:07.680 | and from their site, it looks like they're gonna expand
00:41:10.000 | beyond pools to tennis courts, home gyms,
00:41:12.920 | backyards and more.
00:41:14.800 | As crazy as this might sound to some of you,
00:41:16.800 | I've definitely walked by some of our neighbor's houses
00:41:19.680 | who've turned their garage into a fully decked out gym
00:41:22.960 | and thought if there were some deal we could work out
00:41:25.340 | so I could use their gym,
00:41:27.060 | which probably sits unused 23 hours a day,
00:41:30.180 | I would totally do it.
00:41:31.760 | So, if you wanna check it out, I created a Swimply account
00:41:34.940 | and you can use my referral code to get $25 off
00:41:38.140 | at allthehacks.com/swim
00:41:41.240 | and if any of you actually use this or resort pass,
00:41:44.380 | please let me know what you think
00:41:45.820 | and if I get enough referrals,
00:41:47.100 | I'll use my credit to book a pool
00:41:49.020 | and let you guys know what that experience was like.
00:41:51.980 | Wow, so I had 14 pages of notes to do this episode
00:41:55.320 | and I think I've hit on everything on vacation homes.
00:41:58.580 | I was actually a bit nervous doing all this research
00:42:00.920 | because I went much deeper than I did
00:42:02.680 | when we bought our fraction of a vacation home
00:42:04.640 | through Picasso and I was a little worried
00:42:06.880 | that I would find an alternative
00:42:08.400 | and wish that I've done something different.
00:42:10.600 | However, the opposite happened
00:42:12.520 | and I am now actually much more confident
00:42:14.560 | we made the right choice
00:42:15.960 | and because we're now gone five to six weeks a year
00:42:18.800 | at our Picasso in Napa,
00:42:20.480 | I'm actually thinking maybe we should start listing
00:42:22.680 | our primary house on one of the exchange sites
00:42:25.360 | and start building up some credits
00:42:27.320 | to let us stay in amazing homes on our trips abroad for free.
00:42:31.360 | So thank you so much for listening.
00:42:35.200 | I'm curious to hear what you thought about this episode,
00:42:37.480 | both the content and the idea
00:42:39.500 | of doing these solo deep dives more frequently.
00:42:42.280 | Like I said at the beginning,
00:42:43.320 | I'm thinking of doing one on insurance,
00:42:45.200 | credit card benefits and parenting.
00:42:47.440 | Ideally the parenting one, I'll have Amy join me
00:42:50.300 | but if there are any other topics you want me to dig into
00:42:53.360 | or maybe there's just things
00:42:54.400 | about how I manage my own life you wanna hear more about,
00:42:57.140 | please let me know.
00:42:58.400 | I'm Chris at allthehacks.com.
00:43:00.520 | Thank you so much.
00:43:01.680 | I'll see you next week.
00:43:02.880 | (upbeat music)
00:43:06.440 | (upbeat music)
00:43:09.020 | (upbeat music)
00:43:11.600 | (futuristic music)
00:43:14.520 | you