DC4MS

Here is a new Destination Club that is more like a mutual fund.

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Fund to raise $129 million for vacation homes

Friday, January 12, 2007

Atlanta Business Chronicle - by Lisa R. Schoolcraft Staff writer

Fund to raise $129 million for vacation homes - Atlanta Business Chronicle:

An Atlanta firm plans to raise $129 million to buy luxury vacation homes for its investors.

The money will be used to buy up to 50 luxury homes in North America and Europe, each with a value of at least $2.5 million. Accredited investors, with a net worth of at least $1 million, will have use of the homes for at least 30 days a year, said Philip Mekelburg, CEO of Equity Estates LLC, which is putting together the fund. "It's essentially a mutual fund, but instead of stock, people who invest get to enjoy these homes."

In turn, Mekelburg and Adam Capes, president, are setting up the first five properties. They include a three-bedroom apartment in midtown Manhattan, and homes in Pensacola Beach, Fla., Los Cabos, Mexico, the Turks and Caicos, and Deer Valley, Utah. The New York City home is being designed by Stephen Pararo from Pineapple House Interior Design in Atlanta.

Fifty percent of the homes will be beach locations "because that's what people really seem to want," Mekelburg said.

So far the fund has raised about $4.7 million with 13 investors, all of whom must pay $150,000 per share, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Both Mekelburg and Capes are investors in the fund, which will have a total of 300 members, he said. Other investors, mostly from Atlanta, include "a lot of doctors, lawyers, small-business owners and real estate developers. People who like traveling well."

The homes will be maintained by Equity Estates until the portfolio is sold in 15 years, with proceeds going back to investors, he said.

The fund appears to be buying in prime vacation and resort destinations, said J. Lewis Glenn, president of Harry Norman, Realtors. "It's really an interesting concept," he said. "We're seeing substantial demand and appreciation for homes in these types of areas. It's being fueled by the baby boomers."

Vacation and investment home sales set records in 2005, the most recent data available, with second home sales accounting for 40 percent of residential transactions, according to the National Association of Realtors (NAR).

The April 2006 report, which will be updated in March, showed 27.7 percent of all homes purchased in 2005 were for investment and another 12.2 percent were vacation homes, the NAR reported.

Equity Estates' fund could be seen "as an investment first, with the icing being I can use one of these homes for vacation," Glenn said. "But I would want to know more about who these guys are."

Mekelburg is a former director at Peachtree Financial Solutions LLC, now a part of Peach Holdings Inc., a Florida-based financial assets firm. Capes is a founder of Jezebel magazine.

Georgia's own second/vacation home market is still seeing steady growth, too, said Frank K. Norton Jr., president of The Norton Agency in Gainesville, which caters to buyers of lake and mountain homes in northeast Georgia.

There are several factors driving the trend, he said. "People are still looking to diversify their investment portfolio and people are buying homes not just for investment, but for enjoyment."

Reach Schoolcraft at lschoolcraft@bizjournals.com.

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DC4MS

Here is a link to a review in Helium Report

Destination Club Profile: Equity Estates | Helium Report - Luxury 2.0 Guides and Reviews

DC4MS

After searching...I finally found their "hard to find" website.

http://www.equityestatesfund.com/cgi-bin/index.cgi

I actually found them via their web designer Rick Hoeye Interactive

Rick Hoeye Interactive - Atlanta web design, Atlanta web development and Atlanta design solutions.

Here is a "possible" Board of Advisor

About Janine Cifelli Representation

3DH

Interesting conflicts in the article you have in the first post and the Helium Rept. version... first shows $150,000 investment, HR shows $325,000 for a "full membership". Wonder which is accurate, or whether the first should have been noted as a "half-membership" and if the fee already went up a bit?

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"Boutique" is better! Another extremely satisfied LUSSO member!

Bourne

I vaguely remembered an article about another/same(??) Equity estates back from 2005-06.

Stockpatrol: Diamond Bay Holdings, Inc. - Name Games

Some details are similar....

Kagehitokiri

bumped

Adam

We are in no way affiliated with Diamond Bay Equity Estates. I believe they tried to launch a club many years ago, but we only discovered them after we had launched.

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Adam Capes
President
Equity Estates

Kagehitokiri

welcome to the forum Adam, thanks for the response

caribbeansun

Interesting math, I always thought that 13 x 150,000 = $1,950,000

DC4MS

I believe the FULL memberships were priced between $300-350k

Kagehitokiri

welcome to the forum caribbeansun

Adam

Please note that this article was from January 2007 and at the time a full membership interest was $300,000. We sold 15 full membership interests (including some half interests at $150,000) to raise our initial $4.5M. Today, we have over 50 members including half and full interests.

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Adam Capes
President
Equity Estates