cjw

Any insight as to why DHH is so much less expensive than comparable DCs like ER, Quintess or UR Elite? Granted, the current locations are less desirable for U.S. residents. Nonetheless, the Membership Fee is nearly half that of the others and the annual dues are also significantly discounted. This, on top of, a $1000 food credit and use of a BMW. I am learning that a healthy club is not always the cheapest club. That being said, is there something special going on here that we should all be looking at?!

DC4MS

There are a few DHH members here, so hopefully, they will help address some of your concerns.

DHH is a fairly new Destination Club with only 50 members, thus they are using the standard formula that has been used by every other club and that is - early adopters get the best prices. When certain benchmarks are made (i.e. 25 members, 50 members, 100 members) then the club usually raises prices.

DHH has already had one or two price increases already.

When you factor in the yacht charter alone, then no other club can match their prices. Also, I have heard members comment on the excellent availability of DHH properties.

The food allowance has been lowered to $500.

TravelGuy

There was a vague explanation of the DHH biz model on TUG last year by the DHH execs (before the start of DC4MS.com). Several of us ask specific questions about some contradictions in the biz model and sources of cash that, IMHO, were never answered satisfactorily.

I'm a strong proponent of the better Destination Club's biz models and understand how they are viable in both the short term and long term. I'm in the early stages of due diligence for my SECOND DC MEMBERSHIP and am evaluating many clubs versus a second High Country Club private membership.

However, I've already disqualified Distinctive Holiday Homes and Private Escapes from contention due to questionable biz viability (again, IMHO). I was especially interested in these two but there are too many red flags for me.

FWIW

P.S. - I've also ruled out Yellowstone for obvious reasons.

Kagehitokiri

nick

Hi All

Sorry for the lack of commentary on my part for a while ... nothing to say ;-)

However there are simple reasons why DHH is less than the rest, and why our availability is the best in the industry and why many of our properties are a lot better than many of the other Clubs who charge a lot more, and the locations are also better.

Compare our Paris Apartment to any other club, even Solstice - it is in the most exclusive location in Paris, with the best river view there is.

Beaver Creek show me any club in the 300K range that offers you a 7000 sqft home in the resort.

Anyone else offering a 86 ft yacht which charters for $50,000 a week to their members ?

Tuscany anyone offering you 2 houses on 2 private acres with 7 bedrooms in a location that is not in the wilderness , with a $500,000 art collection to admire?

Our Home in the French Alps is ski in / ski out as far as i know none of the other clubs offer this, their homes are all some distance from the action.

I don't think any other club is offering an O'ahu based home in Hawaii either ...( we will be very shortly)

(And we are delivering all of this, within the required spend per home for our business plan, with debt levels currently below 25 %)

We also have one - to -one local staffing for our Destinations , which mean you get your own personal concierge, vs someone looking after 5 properties, and they have local knowledge as they are locals, they are preparing breakfast for you everyday, your laundry is done, we have cars at most destinations , and food & beverage included.

If you visit our website you can under the "using the club" section see what our real members have to say about their experience using DHH. You can also see live availability info here as well.


Security for Members regarding our business model.

We have i believe one of the best asset to member deposit ratio in the industry, and we don't rent any property when many clubs have 20 % or more in rentals. Our net assets after debt and Members deposits is very high, we have more than 14 times Net Asset to Members deposits, which i think you will find is more than any other club.

We have 100 % availability for every Destination for 2009 other than Beaver Creek which is booked Dec 18 - Jan 14th and Queenstown , NZ which is booked over New Years.

We also have a global mix of members so there is not everyone trying to get access to the same holiday weeks.

People in NZ, Australia and Europe don't care about 4th July, Presidents day, Memorial Day, Spring Break etc, and there school holidays are spread over the year, and the summer holidays for NZ & Australia are Dec - Feb with most staying at home for Xmas & New Years ...this makes a huge difference to availability.

We just signed a contract for a 4 bedroom/bath property in O'ahu in Hawaii which should be open for Members use by 1st September.

We will be also completing a contract for property in New York the end of this Month just after the Conference in Miami, and may also go to contract on a home we have like in Miami for sometime which is now at the right sort of price levels.

We will be moving our largest boat to the Caribbean for this season starting Dec. So very soon we will have 6 US destinations.

We plan to add a further 5 destinations more in various other places ( London, Provence - France, Sydney -Australia, 75ft Motor Yacht - South France, St Martin - Caribbean) by the end of the year.

We are adding property as we add Members, not waiting to fill in the current 250+ weeks of spare peak time availability we have, we will continue to do this.

We ARE scheduling another price rise, which will likely be the end of June as we reach our next milestone. However we do not plan to ever be a expensive as other clubs.

Cheers

Nick Wood
CEO Distinctive Holiday Homes LLC

Kagehitokiri

glad to have you over here now Nick, cheers.

vineyarder

Nick - I agree that everything you said is quite impressive, but the question remains HOW? How can you offer better homes, better availability, better security, and better service at a much lower price point? If the other clubs were operating on a huge profit margin and you were choosing to operate on a lower margin, then I could understand, but if other clubs are running in the red or barely in the black on higher dues, etc., then HOW can your club offer such a good deal???

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Living in a vacuum sucks!

TravelGuy

Well Said. And as I posted above:

nick

Hi All,

I am unlikely to give away the secret in an open forum ;-) , i like to have a edge especially when you are smaller than the large guys.

In simple terms there are a bunch of reasons:

- large companies are usually very inefficient, and load up on unnecessary overheads, and when they have money pouring in they don't mind spending it ... we are very efficient and are not wasting money and layering on the people.

- We don't load up on debt as we are buying one property at a time in unique locations vs building a farm of same style homes in advance , so you are not covering our interest costs, and we carry almost no debt anyway, this adds a significant cost to the operations of a club, as does renting property instead of owning, so while in the short term this adds choice, it effects cost, and this is the main reason Tanner & Co went bust as we all know, as there is also a quality management issue.

- We are buying very smart, and within strict rules with some clever twists which has our average cost per home much lower than some, and also better locations, and better homes... i am not prepared to explain this in detail as it is one of our key edges.

The reality which ever way you look at it is we have almost no debt, and we have more than 14 times cover for our Members Deposits... so their money is quite safe ...

One thing to think about is what has happened to the property values of the clubs that have bought in markets that have fallen substantially or have no liquidity for sales ... who also have lots of debt to service ...

We have purposely stayed out of Markets like Florida, NY, Hawaii, and Mexico & South America & Caribbean etc until the markets dropped, as the ability to sell in these second home markets will be very restricted for some time, and prices have come of a lot ... e.g. property that was listed at 4.2 mill in Hawaii in now $2.9 and can be bought for $2.7, same in Miami a property we liked was $3.9 9 months ago , still has not sold, and is now $2.9 and can be bought for $2.7 or less ....

I personally would not want to have a Membership in a club that had huge stock levels in markets that are falling, and have not hit bottom yet, with banks holding lots of paper on these ...

All the markets we own property in are holding up well, or are still going up ....and we made sure we had substantial margin in the property to cover what we new would be a falling market, as we saw this coming so to speak 2 years ago, and we have waited until now, to start shopping in some of these markets ...

As we have been seeing what has been going on from a global perspective, when many US clubs are only US focused, so take the risk primarily in one market.

It is a good thing to have a global pool of property , vs all just in the US ..

Cheers

Nick