124 | Timeshares are Associations Too! - HOA Insights: Common Sense for Common Areas

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Jason Gamel (00:00):
If there's one thing that will get in the way

(00:02):
of a successful resort iswhether or not you're putting in
the proper resources. I mean, Ithink you have to be smart with
your budgeting. You gotta begood about cutting out waste. If
you take those things to startwith, then you've gotta really
be able to spend the money tomake this resort attractive. So
that way, people do wanna beowners, unlike, say, somebody
who owns a whole unit, they'renot likely to think to

(00:22):
themselves when people just walkaway from my unit because this
has become too expensive.

Announcer (00:26):
HOA Insights is brought to you by Six companies

that c (00:29):
Association Insights and Marketplace, Association
Reserves, Community Financials,Kevin Davis Insurance Services,
HOA Invest, and The Inspectorsof Election . You'll find links
to their websites and socialmedia in the show notes.

Robert Nordlund (00:43):
Welcome back to HOA Insights, Common Sense for
Common Areas. I'm RobertNordlund, and I'm here today for
episode 124 with a special guestwho leads Arda, the trade
association for the timeshareand vacation ownership
industries. Jason Gamel is theCEO of ARDA, and has over 25
years in various leadershiproles in the hospitality and the

(01:03):
timeshare industries. He has abackground as an attorney.
That's what got him into thiscrazy industry, and is currently
responsible for all legislative,regulatory, public relations and
communication strategies for theorganization. So many things he
has his fingers into, and wehave them here today with us,
because fundamentally,timeshares are residential in

(01:25):
nature, and they are run byboard members. So I thought it
would be great for our audienceto learn what being a board
member looks like from a resortpoint of view, and what taking
care of the property looks likewhen your owners are there only
one week a year, and they expecta great experience. Well, last
week's episode 123 was anotherconversation with regular co

(01:46):
host Julie adamen on managementand people and culture and
community associations. There'salways something interesting
going on. So if you missed thatepisode or any other prior
episode, take a moment aftertoday's program to listen from
our podcast, website, Hoainsights.org or watch on our
YouTube channel, but better yet,subscribe from any of the major

(02:07):
podcast platforms so you don'tmiss any future episodes. And
those of you watching on YouTubecan see the HOA insights mug
that I have here. It features adeteriorated Association and
some board members talking abouttheir due structure. And I got
that mug from our merch store,which you can browse through

(02:28):
from our Hoa insights.orgwebsite or the link in our show
notes, and you'll find we havesome great free stuff there,
like board member zoombackgrounds and some specialty
items for sale, like the mug. Sotake a moment look around, find
the mug you'd like and email meat podcast at reserves, a.com
with your name, shipping addressand mug choice, mentioning

(02:52):
episode 124, mug giveaway, andif you're the 10th person to
email me, I'll ship that mug toyou free of charge. Well, we
enjoy hearing from youresponding to the issues you're
facing at your association. Soif you have a hot topic, a crazy
story, or a question you'd likeus to address, you can contact
us at 805-203-3130, or email usat podcast at reserve, study.com

(03:19):
Well, this episode was promptedby Sherry from Naples, Florida,
who asked, we have two sets ofowners here, the year Rounders
and the seasonal snowbirds. Theyear Rounders are pretty
comfortable with the way thingsare, but the snowbirds seem like
they always want change anysuggestions. So after getting

(03:39):
this email, we felt it'd begreat to have someone like Jason
on the program whose entireownership base is made up of
short term visitors to theirproperty. So Jason, welcome to
the program. And how would yourespond to Sherry, who's trying
to make a cohesive group ofowners at a property where the
people on site are fundamentallyin a seasonal or weekly state of

(04:01):
change.

Well, Robert, first of all, thank you so much for
having me on the podcast. Ithink that problem is one or the
issue she brings up. It's likeyou said, when you're in a
situation where nobody is thereas their homestead property, and
everyone treats the property astheir vacation home, which
really is their their their homeaway from home, right? They have

(04:24):
a lot of interest in how theygovern, but their interest
sometimes is fleeting, because,like you said, they're there
once a year. They're reminded oftheir ownership, usually when
it's time to make of reservationfor a vacation or when they
receive a maintenance feepayment. So when that
maintenance fee payment comes iswhen they start thinking about,
all right, what am I paying for?
And oftentimes, yeah, like theylook at this and say, Okay, this

(04:45):
is great. You know that theproperty has phenomenal
maintenance and upkeep, assumingit does. Many of our timeshares
have professional management,but you have it. When you look
at the number of resorts thatare there in the United States,
you're just slightly under 50.
1500 resorts. So if you look atthat and they're of all sizes,
right, you have them down from25 units perhaps, to resorts

(05:07):
that are over 3000 units insize, which make them cities
onto themselves. And thatrequires different sets of
skills, sometimes professionalmanagement, sometimes not. But
it also requires attitude, amental approach to the game, for
someone who's managing, say, asmall resort that's being self

(05:28):
managed, versus those that havelarge hospitality companies who
are professionals at management,or large management companies
that do a great job as well.
You're talking and how theymajor brands. Major brands? Yep,
got it. We've got major brandsin our business. You've got
Marriott, Hilton, travel,leisure, Holiday Inn, Westgate,
you've got a number of folksthat are there, that are
hospitality brands that are usedto worldwide, if not

(05:50):
necessarily, at least all overthe USA, managing properties at
different locations. Yeah, andthey're good at doing it, yeah,
that's, you know, that's thething. They get really good. And
they get good at doing it fortimeshare resorts. And I think,
like they talk about those asyour as your as your listener,
put it in that question Sherrydid about, well, I've got full
time residents that are here allthe time. I have part timers,

(06:10):
well, you're absolutely right.
In this case, you do have parttimers that are just there. But
they care about this property,like it is a full time property
for them, and like, it is theirsecond home, since it is a real
estate interest and it's onethat they really value.

Let me go down that path a little bit. You get
your annual fee reminder, andyou say, oh, yeah, gee, last
year was that last year where itrained, or last year we had sun?
Oh, the weather was so good lastyear. Yeah. Can't wait till we
go out there again and you startthinking about you getting the
mindset of it is running anassociation where you have a

(06:47):
major brand. So as a boardmember, you've got the major
brand, Disney vacations, Hiltonvacations, West Gate, Marriott,
all those kind of things. Isthat easier because you have the
big brand helping, or is it alittle bit awkward because they
have their big hand, their bigbrand? Do you feel like a
figurehead? Or what's it likebeing a board member there?

I think it's a little bit of it's a really
unique experience when you haveand you'll take any of those
brands that you name, and alsoit depends a lot on the exact
type of legal structure andownership, because many resorts,
if they're condominium, we'lljust, we'll stick with Florida
for one second, because that's aknown condo state. But if you

(07:31):
look at a condominium regime inFlorida that requires turnover
after a majority of interestsare sold at a project, then
you're going to have situationswhere major hospitality brands
still have to compete with, youknow, and really compete for the
business because their boardsare turned over, the boards
might very well still want themajor brand to continue to be

(07:54):
the hospitality provider,because they do a fantastic job,
and oftentimes certain benefitsare associated with that
management contract, hanging ofa flag of a particular of a
particular name on a resort iscontingent upon them doing the
management because you don'twant to have a Marriott name,
for instance, on a propertythat's not being managed by
Marriott to provide theconsistent experience that's

(08:15):
expected from that brand. Andthen you have, on the other
hand, the undivided interestprojects, Udis that look a lot
like a timeshare. No one wouldtell the difference from the
outside, but board turnoverisn't required in those
circumstances. So you will havea hospitality company, depending
upon ownership structure, thatwill either have control or not

(08:37):
control of a board, which thensets up a very different
dynamic. Not that they can'tthey that it's a worse
experience or otherwise, butthat means there's competition,
which, then, as a board member,you're evaluating and using,
putting your fiduciary duty andyour responsibilities to the
test. When you look at thingsand say, Well, what's best for
the association, what's best forthe owners there? And how do I

(09:01):
view this through a lens of aboard member who has one week or
two weeks, or maybe multipleweeks, or lots of days worth of
ownership in this particularproperty? What's the best
decision we're going to make forour owners? It usually comes
down to again, having thathospitality company and that
management company do the work,do the construction work, do
things that you know,refurbishments that take place

(09:22):
every five years, which is verycommon in the timeshare industry
for capital improvements. Butyou're going to look at this a
little differently. If you're aindependent board of the
developer, you may have one ortwo developer representatives
still on the board, but it justcreates a very different
dynamic, but it's also one whereyou find the management
companies spending a lot of timeeducating the board members, and

(09:45):
board members need to be open tothat, because they understand
the value of their ownership andthe meaningfulness of having the
right manager in place to makesure that experience is a good
one over and over again,because, as we found through.
Our research, and we do a reallyneat monthly Sentiment Index,
it's our vacation ownershipSentiment Index, where we survey

(10:07):
500 timeshare travelers versus500 regular travelers to get
their opinions on all thingsrelated to travel. But one thing
we do ask is, what is yourexpectation of your timeshare
vacation versus your regularvacation, and you find that over
75% of timeshare owners expectmore from their timeshare
vacation than a regularvacation. So they go into this

(10:31):
board members are not expectinga wonderful experience because
they paid for it. It's theirsecond home. Here they go. Like
you said, the weather's gonna begood. We want the weather to be
good. We're gonna have thisamazing experience going to the
parks to the beach, and now youshow up and think, I really
believe that my experienceshould be wonderful. So the
decisions that are made by theboard are going to be ultra

(10:54):
important to making sure thatthe ability of the developer or
of the management company tomake that experience meet
expectations. Well, if you thinkto yourself, I want to go with a
low cost option on things, orI'm not thinking long term on
something, you could very wellaffect the way that the majority
of your constituent base feelsabout their vacations.

My brain just spinning on so many different
places, different directions wecould go. Is there a fundamental
difference of being a boardmember at a place where you have
a fixed week versus a club whereit's kind of a shared ownership
concept? Board Member the sameor different?

I think there's differences. There's certainly
differences in sizes, scope andservices that are provided when
you're a board member back inthe 80s and 90s, you bring up a
very important point. Thetimeshare product back then was
very much a fixed week, fixedunit product. And you knew every
year what week you were comingback as a board member, you were
certainly looking forward to,hopefully the annual meeting

(11:59):
took place perhaps some othertime other than your week,
because that was extra travel tothe resort that you like to
spend time to be able to visityou

want. But that was gonna be my follow up
question. Can you go there andrelax? Are you working?

Yeah, exactly.
Well, you know you're gonna bespending your time there, and
owners and residents know whoyou are and are gonna bring
their issues to you. So if youlook at what's happening for
those fixed week fixed unit,there's predictability for when
you know you're going to bethere, how you're going to use
your resort, and you know, forthe most part, if you're going
back there every year, you'regoing to be a little bit more
vested in that specific resortand how the expenses are spent

(12:33):
in these larger projects. Now,you may be an owner at a resort,
but you realize the inventorynow is all being held, for
instance, in a trust. So allthis inventory is into into a
trust. Governance looks a littledifferent, because you're still
going to have boards andrunning, and you still want to
make sure that the resort thatyou said, the board you sit on,
is good. But you also really dohave a different viewpoint,

(12:55):
because with the ability to goto all of these different
resorts in a system you kind ofwant to make sure that your
experience is going to beconsistent. That's the
expectation.

A brand level, yeah, not a property specific
level of condition, but a brandlevel system all

across so resorts, A, B and C that are all managed
by the same brand or the sameresort system, you're going to
want a, b and c all to look andfeel very much the same. You're
going to want to understand thatmy interest in my resort, which
might be a, is, of course,important to make sure we're
keeping a a consistentexperience. But my expectation
is that my make a reservationresort B or resort C. I want

(13:37):
that to look and feel the sameway. I want the same type of
resources to be spent. I wantthe same level of upkeep. I want
the same level of service. Iwant the people there. I want
the front desk folks to be asqualified, and I want them to be
just as welcoming it is atresort a so you are looking at a
larger picture about the waythat services are going to be

(13:59):
delivered consistently amongstall resorts, because that's the
reason why you probably boughtinto that system to begin with.
You may have been introduced toit. You love the resort itself.
You like the different locationsyou go to, and you love the fact
that every year when you make areservation, your expectations
are going to be met, yourexperiences are going to be
consistent. And that takesresources and time.

You got me thinking you have a great
experience, because you want aplace where you can go skiing
regularly once a year, and yourealize, I really like this
place. Let me get another weekso I can go mountain biking in
the summer. And you really likeit. You think, oh, gee, I've
seen the posters. We could use abeach vacation. Let's get
another week or, yeah, maybeyou're getting more weeks or

(14:44):
going different places, andyou're enjoying the same, I
hope, seamless experience as aunit owner. Now we're talking
about unit owners, not boardmembers. We need to get off that
subject, right? I go buy atimeshare week after this, after
this conversation, I. I know aperson for you, Robert, I know.
I'm sure. Okay. Is there adifference between being a board

(15:06):
member at a place that isfundamentally weak at a time
versus a like a fractional thatis what 1/5 of a year, or
something like that? Is that atotally different experience, or
is it still the same animal?

I think at the at the base level, it's very
similar. Okay, you do, however,when you start looking like
anything, and I think the samething, if you apply it to an HOA
residential situation, you maybe in a subdivision where the
homes are a quarter of a milliondollars in value, and then you
might be in a subdivision wherethe homes are $5 million and

(15:40):
above in value. So if you lookat the different issues, they're
fundamentally is still the same.
You still have to worry aboutsaving for reserves. You still
have capital improvements thatyou need to do your FF and E
costs might be different becauseyou may have more expensive
amenities in the room. Yeah, ifyou're looking at, for instance,
the services that are oftenprovided by in the high end
fractionals, you may have astorage locker that has all of

(16:01):
your family pictures in therethat get brought out for you by
your management company when youcheck in, making it truly feel
like a second home, right? Thosethings you pay for, right? Those
are going to be, those are goingto be included in your overall
fees. And when you're askingyour management company about
what type of things they aredoing to cater to your needs.
You may have a more discernibletastes that exist within your

(16:24):
ownership base, that require youto think a bit more critically
about the services that areprovided because the fees are
expensive. When you look at theplaces, though, that might be
one week or smaller incrementsof time where people are
visiting, or, better yet, theydon't really get that multi week
stay, because the way thattimeshare nowadays is sold and

(16:46):
used in points increments. Whenthose weeks are turned into
points, people may be there fortwo or three days. They could be
there for 10 or 15. There'sdifferent lengths of stay. But
when you look at thosefractional projects that you
mentioned, you do have to have alittle bit of a different eye
for, I'm gonna say quality, andperhaps the type of experience

(17:07):
that the fellow owners arelooking for, and what they're
going to expect is an upkeep andmaintenance when you're paying
1000s and 1000s in maintenancefee, versus maybe hundreds in
maintenance fees. And so I thinkthat just like anything, the
fundamental issues are still thesame. How do I maintain How do I
have a good experience at checkin? How do I have a good

(17:28):
experience in making sure theamenities are well taken care
of? And that's also somethingyou see differently too, because
really the upkeep andmaintenance of the amenities
that might be with a fractionalproject, a ski in Skia, for
instance, a lot of them in greatplaces like Aspen or
Breckenridge steamboat, you'regoing to have yourself a
different level of expertiseneeded to make sure everything

(17:49):
is taken care of and areprovided by people who really
have higher level expectations.
So that's another thing thateach board member is going to
have to really understand. Orwhat are the expectations of the
fellow owners and the people,what do they expect every time
they're in residence?

When I think of board members for residential
properties, I think it's pets,it's parking, it's fines, it's
the maintenance, it's thebudget, of course, the rules,
those kinds of things, whatyou've been talking about adds a
layer of hospitality. So theaverage residential board member

(18:25):
is not an expert in rules,they're not an expert in
budgeting, they're not an expertin capital improvements. Can a
timeshare, a resort board, boardmember just as well be a
decision maker, not an expert,but a decision maker when it
comes to the hospitality type ofquestions, what level of
staffing, what level of support?
Is that just one more thing thatthey they become a prudent

(18:48):
representative of the otherowners?

Yeah, I think where you look at the way that boards
are made, let's see what a fiveor seven person board, it's very
much like putting together aneffective basketball team. You
have your point guards, you'vegot your forwards, you have your
centers, you have differentpeople who play different
positions when looking to fillout the boards, especially when
you're when you're doing this asa part time deal, like

(19:16):
everyone's usually part time,but if you're not living there
on property, inspecting it everyday, looking for improvements.
When you're there just for ashort period of time a year, you
first want to make sure you'vegot people on the on the board
who fill out the needs properly.
Yeah, it's always important theybut as as a board member myself,
when I was a board member, as areal estate attorney, as a board
member of my condominiumassociation, they were very

(19:38):
impressed by, okay, we have areal estate attorney. He knows
condo law. That'll be helpful tous. We had an accountant on
there, which is great, becauseyou've got somebody who
understands the budgetingprocess. But by Hoa, when I
lived in Florida, I had someonewho was actually a landscape
architect, design person, nice,who really helped us manage all
of our Hoa, all of our HOAgrounds, and he was someone who
could direct. People to do theright thing. And it was great,

(20:01):
because living there full time,it drive the neighborhood every
couple times a week, see whatneeds you pointed out it would
take care of it when you don'thave that type of expertise. Or,
better yet, people full timethere. It still helps to have
people who are either greatdecision makers, great on
process, that can ask the rightquestions, because many times I
think that's what board membersneed to be skilled at, which is

(20:23):
asking the proper questions toeither challenge assumptions or
to fully understand andappreciate what the needs are
the association. Because I thinkone thing is universal. No one
loves making the decision toraise fees the most unpopular
thing one could do or take awayan amenity that people love so
much. And you talked aboutrules, you talk about parking.

(20:44):
And what's really big in ourworld, in the timeshare world,
is day use, if I live in thearea, if I'm there at a ski
resort and I live in I buy inBreckenridge, but I live in
Denver, can I? Can I drive outand use the facilities? Are the
ski lockers available to meanytime I want to go, you know.
Can I? Can I do I have access tothings like that? Or if I have a

(21:05):
pool that during the summertimein Arizona, I don't have a pool
of my house, but my timesharehas a pool. Can I go use it?
Yeah, interesting, you know. Andso how do I make a decision as a
board member? Do we open it upthis way? Do we crowd things up?
So when I'm in residence,there's more local or more
locals, maybe, than people whoare actually staying there. But

(21:26):
at the same time, I want fulluse. I want things to be
vibrant. You want yourcommercial. If you've got a
little restaurant on property,you want it to be busy. How do
we keep it busy? And how do wemake sure that the resorts being
utilized properly, but not tothe detriment of people who are
there for their vacation time.
So these are the issues thatpeople have to be prepared, and

(21:50):
I don't think to fullyunderstand it until you're in
it, then you see all of thesedecisions that all add up to the
experience as to whether or notthey're happy with their
product. And really, from adeveloper standpoint, when you
have these board members makingdecisions, a lot of it will
affect whether or not somebodywants to buy, like you

(22:10):
mentioned, if you own one week,maybe wanna buy two or three
more weeks or more time, thatdecision is largely gonna be
based upon your vacation needs,but it will also be based upon
your experiences at that resort,which are a direct reflection of
the decisions the board of themanagement company

make. Jason, this is fantastic stuff. Let's
take a quick break now to hearfrom one of our sponsors, after
which we'll be back with morecommon sense for common areas,

Paige Daniels (22:35):
numbers matter, and we need numbers like game
scores and bank balances to letus know where we stand. The same
is true for your association. Isyours, thriving or struggling?
Let me introduce you to theFiPhO health score, like your
own personal FICO credit score.
Now in one simple number, ownersand boards can learn the
combined financial, physical andoperational health of their
association. The good news, it'sfree at our FiPhO.com that's our

(22:57):
f, i, p, H, o.com, learn howyour association measures up now

we're back.
Well, during the break, Jasonand I were talking about where
we went with this conversation,and if we're going to make this
a multi part mini series, or ifwe can actually bring it to a
close. But one thing I enjoyedwas hearing the depth of skills
that a timeshare board memberneeds, with so many factors
going on yet, they have help ofthe manager, and it seems like

(23:30):
they may be like a coach. Isthat a fair thing to say, that
the manager almost becomes likea coach to the board?

It does, and in many circumstances will feel
that way too, especially if youlook at a smaller resort that
has, perhaps a manager, on sitemanager or a very small
management company helping themout, they're going to need
different levels of coaching asto how to make sure they're
running a successful board andideas right, because that
manager is also Going to helpfacilitate the different ideas

(24:02):
that go in place to make aresort successful. I'm very
familiar with with one resortthat has a fantastic manager
that works with the board andhelps them really understand how
to improve the amenities, forinstance, so that way they get
better rental rates forinventory that's on the rental
market. How do they makethemselves appeal online,

(24:22):
because you realize it's acompetitive world out there,
right? And there's a lot ofrental that they place the
timeshare world. So how are yougoing to really make your resort
both attractive to people whoare looking at a rental the same
way you are wanting to provideamenities for your owners where
they're in residence, and how doyou acquire those amenities?
That you do, you have deals withother resorts. One person's used

(24:44):
rock wall could be anotherResort's brand new amenity,
yeah, just because they'returning it out, you may find a
wonderful deal as brand new toyour owners, or one resort that
that successfully turned, forinstance, a tennis court that
there was no longer using into.
Do a putt, putt. You know, thoseare the type of things that
people do that provide greatvalue, and they really work for
the manager needs to be creativeand help coach those members and

(25:07):
understand it. Where, in alarger context, with a very
large professional managementcompany, you're going to get
more it's more advice. Yeah,this is going to be more of this
is how we need to run things. Orhere's our here's our version of
operations. And people could bethere to challenge, they could
be there to question andunderstand whether or not the
management company is using allof those resources wisely. But

(25:27):
yet, there may be less fulldecision making for the board,
because they have a much largerbusiness operation that's being
run to manage a resort withhundreds of units and
significant common area togovern. So there's a really a
different role that managementcompanies will play very much so

(25:48):
that affects the type ofexpertise in people you're
looking for to be on the board,to be able to help with

it too. Yeah.
Well, you mentioned that youwere looking for people with
different skill sets, but Iwould imagine you also look for
people for people with differentat different age brackets or
Stan place in life. You may wantsomeone who is retirees, or you
may want someone who representsa younger generation, who is
much more prone to use apps ontheir phone, or is looking to

(26:18):
build a foundation of vacationsfor their family where they get
away from the busyness of lifeand focus on having fun together
as a family. So does that gointo the blend?

It does. I think when you look at it, you want
this different blend of peopleto be able to look at the
different ways that resorts arebeing used. You almost think
about the way that an attorneymight select a jury. If you're
looking at people who are tryingto evaluate a case, or look at a
resort, you want diversity ofopinion. You need to have a
group of people who can evaluatewhat the needs are. If you had

(26:56):
all say, retirees on your board,they might make decisions that
would be most effective to theirusage of a resort. And might not
look at the way a 30 somethingmight come with a small child
and want to have amenities likea splash pad or something like
that. That would be veryimportant, that may have no
interest to the retiree unless,of course, they're thinking

(27:18):
about their grandkids. But youlook at the but you're looking
at the different ways that theycould approach these different
issues. The diversity of opinionmatters. It really matters a
lot, because it is a difficultthing. You talk about those
challenges of every board, and Ithink every board member
struggles with, what do we dowith dues this year? You know,
you can't control costs andexpenses. You can't control,

(27:39):
necessarily, inflation. Youcan't control the cost of labor.
We had Arda, we just started itup, or we're about ready to
launch our own insurance,captive to help provide property
insurance for associations andfor resorts all across the
country. It's trying to meet aneed that you realize people
have a cost that they know theyhave to spend every year. How do

(28:01):
we do so in the most efficientway possible? Because nobody
likes to raise dues. But we allknow, if there's one thing that
will get in the way of asuccessful resort, or being
making a resort successful iswhether or not you're putting in
the proper resources. I thinkyou have to be smart with your
budgeting. You got to be goodabout cutting out waste. If you
take those things to start with,then you've got to really be

(28:23):
able to spend the money to makethis resort attractive. So that
way people do want to be owners,that you don't lose your owners.
Because unlike, say, somebodywho owns a whole unit, they're
not likely to think thatthemselves will be able to walk
away from my unit because thishas become too expensive.
They'll sell it. They'll moveon. But timeshare owners have a
little different dilemma when itcomes to what do they do and how
do they feel about their resort,and what are their options once

(28:46):
they believe that timeshare nolonger fits their lifestyle, but
yet, one of the big reasonsmight be my resort is in
disrepair because my board won'tspend the money to fix it up,
and that comes at the boardmember decision about how much
Money should be assessed.

I'm wringing my hands here because people who
overemphasize saving moneyregularly do so at the peril of
the entire property. If it'sresidential or resort, you know,
you lose, you lose the thingsthat made it nice to start with,
and that decision making, Jason,you talked about being able to

(29:26):
make the hard decisions we'vespoken on the podcast
previously, about the 4c ofbeing an effective board member,
about caring about beingcurious, about being courageous
to be able to make that decisionand say this, this does need to
be done, and then communicatingit effectively. And those are
the same kind of characteristicsyou're talking about, maybe with

(29:47):
larger issues. You talked aboutmillions of dollars a budget, or
10s of million dollars ofbudget, and add the hospitality
layer on top of it, but you dohave a hopefully, a coach, a. A
manager or a management teamthat's helping you along, but
you still need to have thosecharacteristics, and you're the
board member helping to definewhat the future of the resort is

(30:09):
gonna

look like. So true, and that, to me, is just part of
it's such a largerresponsibility that I think a
timeshare board member everwould anticipate before they
join, when they realize that,yes, it's a lot too, when you
sit on your own, Hoa, like Ihave, and others, when you're
worried, when you're looking atyour community. And yes, people

(30:32):
know who you are, and they theytalk to you get to know them.
You get opinions whether youlike them or not. Yeah, the
because you're because you'rethere, well, this is very
different, but your role isstill extremely important. I
mean, you're still responsiblefor the overall management,
maintenance and repair of allthe common areas and making sure
this resort experience is a goodone. And as people want to stay
on these boards, they want to bere elected, and they want to

(30:56):
continue to participate, it'simportant, though, that they
balance that, that they'verealized it's not always bad to
spend more money, especiallywhen it means that the
maintenance and repair are goingto stay at a level that people
expect. Because at the end ofthe day, that's the name of the
game. It's not just about savingmoney or being reelected as a
board member. It's about makingsure that property is just as

(31:17):
nice as it was on day one, whenI bought it as day 5000 when
hopefully I'm still vacationingat that

property? Yeah, I just wrote down desirability,
making it still a good thing.
Well, I'm looking at the time.
I've got another question foryou, though, sure, I live in the
world of residential communityassociations, and our world
changed when we had the tragicChamplain tower South collapse
in June of 2021, did that havethe same I don't wanna say

(31:46):
ripple effect. It had acatastrophic effect in how board
members saw their product. Arewe just here? Are we just saving
money? Are we gonna redecoratethe lobby this year? All of a
sudden, they're concerned aboutsafety and the stability of
their building. Did that havethe same repercussions in the
timeshare in the resort world,or was it

different there? It was same and different. So for
one horrible tragedy, and it'sone that I think everyone could
relate to, especially in thetimeshare industry, managing
large properties or multi storysome of them could be 20, 3040,
years old, and when you lookedat what happened there, it was a

(32:29):
teachable moment as well forpeople to understand. Just like
you mentioned, what kind ofresources are being put in to a
resort, what are decisions arebeing made and who's making the
decisions to either putresources into a resort for
maintenance and repair, to dothe right reserve studies and
the structural engineeringstudies to make sure that you're
building especially those thatare close to the ocean or maybe

(32:51):
more susceptible to see thatsalt water, air and salt water
intrusion, or you're looking atplaces in California that might
be more earthquake prone. We asa trade association, do a lot of
advocacy work. That's really theheart of any trade association
is advocacy. And through theArda resort owners Coalition,
which we call Arda rock, that ishow owners have a voice in what

(33:13):
we do from a legislativeadvocacy perspective, because it
is owners, and are the ownerswho contribute through their
maintenance fees, voluntarily toour association to be able to do
advocacy work on their behalf.
And the reason I bring this upis because over the last few
years, as you well know, there'sbeen a lot of effort in Florida
to try to legislate bettersafety standards, and I think
those legislative efforts havehighlighted two important

(33:36):
things, one that it's difficultto find consensus on how all
these different associations andmanagement companies approach
this issue. Everyone's gotdifferent thoughts. What's
safety, what's right, what'swrong, what's too much. Three
stories. Two stories. Howfrequently should you do these
studies? What do you do now andwhat happens once? A board then

(33:58):
receives a report that tellsthem something might be wrong,
and how does that engineer couchit in a way that people can
either act on it or not? But yourealize that fiduciary duty
comes back to you, and boardsare going to, of course, act
conservatively or they should.
But what does that mean for theresidents? What does that mean
for longtime residents who'vegot their entire savings poured

(34:20):
into their unit and otherwise.
When you look at the timeshareworld, part of it for us is the
law, we'll just say, the law ofunintended consequences. Yep,
right. When we look at thingsthat happen for residential
versus timeshare, I'll give youone great example, Robert during
the times in which the originaldays of legislation and happened
last year, where legislatorsdetermined you needed to meet a

(34:41):
board, needs to meet four timesin person a year as a
condominium association board toensure they're really doing
their job. This is important,Florida legislation. Florida
legislation, so you look at thetimeshare world, just this year,
we finally made the properamendment to that bill in.
Saying for a timeshareAssociation that's not
necessary, meeting once a yearin person is more than

(35:04):
important, more than enough,especially for people who aren't
there full time, because you'rebringing people back and four
times a year when you couldstill meet if you needed to
electronically, or you could gettogether by zoom, or you could
pull together a special meetingwhenever you need it. But this
isn't a homestead property, sopeople are not this isn't their
home. This isn't some placewhere they live, necessarily. So
what is the consumer protectionin four in person meetings a

(35:26):
year, when we can still do allthe structural issues that we
structural studies, everythingelse that needs to be done. It's
inefficient. It's impractical tobring people in from all over
the country four times a year,and it just doesn't make sense
or contracting for services. Sothere's a number of things you
look at that were good ideasthat were coming from
legislation the Champlain towertragedy, that from a timeshare

(35:48):
perspective, just doesn't makesense because of the nature of
ownership and the nature ofmanagement and board member
participation. So I think it didrock our industry to the core.
There had been even timeshareresorts that have gone through
structural studies that foundproblems that literally kind of
decommissioned the timeshareplan and sold the property that
was then leveled and reused andrebuilt. But it's good. It

(36:11):
highlighted an issue. It madeeveryone think twice about
everything. To go get theirstructural reports to make sure
they were in good shape, becausewe didn't want to see the
strategy again. And really, it'schanged the way that we view
management overall, especiallyin Florida and beyond. Because
this isn't something that'sgoing to be just isolated to
Florida. It will make its way.

(36:33):
If the trade this happenssomewhere else, in California,
others, you'll see similar typelegislation, and people should
be thinking ahead, yeah,

well, I'm looking at my map here on my
wall, Mother Nature and FatherTime doesn't care about the
border between Florida andGeorgia and South Carolina and
North Carolina. The buildingsare going to deteriorate. So you
got to manage deterioration andnot just focus on the laws. But
I like that summary that talkingabout the laws between

(37:01):
timeshares and residentialAssociation need to be similar,
a little bit different, maybedifferent flavors. Jason, it's
been great. It's been fantastichaving you with us on the
program here today. Any closingthoughts to add at this time?
Well, first

of all, thank you so much. Have me on the show
again. The podcast been great. Ithink if there's one closing
thought, I'd say to people isthat they realize, if you're in
an area or a community from alegislative or regulatory
perspective, and you're thinkingabout the differences or the way
that things should be for HOAoperations, if you're part of a
mixed unit community, whichthere are with timeshare,
residential and hotel all inone, understand that those

(37:39):
timeshare folks, Yes, there aredefinitely different but they
have different needs, there'sdifferent thoughts, there's
different concerns. And bemindful. If you're an HOA
professional, you're thinkingabout what it means to manage a
resort or what it is like to bepart of an HOA world. In the
timeshare space, there arespecial considerations you
should know that be smart aboutasking questions and be aware

a sibling or a cousin, they're similar, but a
little bit different. Fantastic.
Well, if you'd like to get intouch with Jason or learn more
about Arda, you can go to theirwebsite at Arda, a r, d, a.org
Well, we hope you learned someHOA insights from our discussion
today that helps you bringcommon sense to your common
areas. We look forward to havingyou join us for another great
episode next week.

Announcer (38:26):
You've been listening to Hoa insights, common sense
for common areas. If you likethe show and want to support the
work that we do, you can do soin a number of ways. The most
important thing that you can dois engage in the conversation.
Leave a question in the commentssection on our YouTube videos.
You can also email yourquestions or voice memos to
podcast@reservestudy.com orleave us a voicemail at

(38:49):
805-203-3130, if you gain anyinsights from the show, please
do us a HUGE favor by sharingthe show with other board
members that you know. You canalso support us by supporting
the brands that sponsor thisprogram. Please remember that
the views and opinions expressedin this program are those of the
hosts and guests with the goalof providing general education

(39:10):
about the community, associationindustry. You'll want to consult
licensed professionals beforemaking any important decisions.
Finally, this podcast wasexpertly mixed and mastered by
stoke light. Video and marketingwith stoke light on your team,
you'll reach more customers withmarketing expertise that
inspires action. See the shownotes to connect with stoke
light you.

All Episodes

124 | Timeshares are Associations Too!

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}124 | Timeshares are Associations Too!