Resort Development Continues to Grow…But
The Resort Development industry continues to grow despite the perception that it is stuck in 2008 and that there is a sub-prime loan crisis ongoing and that all banks are insolvent and cant fund projects and that golf courses are overbuilt and that timeshare is dead. Quite the contrary. The Resort lifestyle industry, including golf course communities, timeshare and interval ownership companies as well as private camping networks and vacation clubs continue to see large sales volume increases. According to A.R.D.A. (American Resort Development Association), timeshare sales topped $7.9 Billion in 2014, up for the fifth year in row and with forecasts of 6%+ sales growth for the foreseeable future. Chris Bounds, of Austin, notes that moderately priced to high end, golf course communities are flourishing in every major market that has a positive population grown and RVing and RV resorts continue to try and keep up with baby boomer demand. Marriott Vacation Club continues to add luxury properties to its stable of world wide resorts and will once again finance many of its sales internally. The industry is growing.
Admittedly the markets have shifted and changed and consumers have more choices for their leisure dollars and are much more “educated” about such things than they once were (which is great) and the internet is a THING! OK fine, these are all good changes. A well dressed, non-chain smoking, educated sales team under seasoned leadership is what it may now take to sell out all the lots around a golf course before it is complete or sell Points for interval exchanges at a higher average rate and volume than on-site sales, but that is that. Resort companies that understand and embrace this concept are setting sales records. Public companies own more and more such assets and old, mismanaged country clubs with musty carpet and divot laced greens or timeshare communities with faded paint and mossy swimming pools are struggling the same fate carriage manufacturers did in 1920. For them, without change, it won’t end well.
Many land and timeshare notes are once again being financed at face value and many are once again being securitized on Wall Street. The US consumers HAVE CHANGED and the developers that change with them will fair just fine as we plan sales projects into 2020!
