caribbeansun

I just wanted to relay my personal experience thus far with Equity Estates.

Aside from a miscommunication which was quickly cleared up I've been impressed with the folks at Equity Estates.

Rob, apparently not content with exchanging emails and phone calls flew to Canada to meet with myself, my DW and some friends as well as a couple of other prospects which is quite impressive.

I have a small mountain of paperwork to go through as they've provided us with the not inconsiderable review material referred to in the post by the moderator of these forums. In addition they've provided complete audited financial statements, copies of appraisals of their properties from a 3rd party and a lengthy offering memorandum in addition to the marketing materials.

They do have an interesting program which I've not had sufficient time to fully digest. They are in start up mode which of course brings along with it a set of risks. The upside on that is that they didn't purchase any homes during the run up and are now cash rich in a down market which is a good place to be.

DC4MS

That is impressive, did you see their impressive sales book?

caribbeansun

Yes, I have it at home along with a bunch of other data I've not yet had a chance to review as we had courier issues (not EE fault) that unfortunately meant I didn't receive it until a few moments before we left the house to meet with Rob and didn't look at it after our meeting last night.

Oh, and Rob picked up the tab for a wonderful dinner and spent over 4 hours talking with us, explaining their program, showing us their current portfolio of properties and sharing personal photos of a property he personally visited within the last month.

smbrannan

Did you get one of their viewfinders?

I met with him yesterday afternoon. He told me he was heading to Kitchener but I didn't suspect he would be meeting with caribbeansun.

caribbeansun

Hmmmm...First Canadian Place...what are the odds of that?

Scary small world at times isn't it?

And yes, we got viewfinders - kinda took me back to childhood days but an interesting idea nonetheless.

Kagehitokiri

welcome to the forum smbrannan.

3DH

OK, I am confused -- is a "viewfinder" like the old View Master? (The reference to childhood days leads me to that conclusion.)

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

caribbeansun

That would be the one.

3DH

Neat-o! I am assuming it came with a photo "disc" of properties?

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

smbrannan

Two actually. One with professional photographs; same ones you see on their website and in the now famous presentation package.

Another one with pics taken by members at their properties. Real people enjoying the membership.

Let'sGo

I am in the process of researching the DC marketplace. EE is high on my list. In fact, I'm almost sold. I have been talking to many in the DC arena, and I have to say, Rob has been one of the most responsive and helpful.

Went to a cocktail reception at the NYC EE property last night. Didn't get a chance to meet Rob (he's traveling elsewhere), but i met the CEO Philip Mekelburg and various staff members and members. Very impressed with what I heard.

FYI- The property is a 3 bedroom, 3 bath on East 57th street. Great space, great layout, great decor. They had at least 30+ people in there comfortably. If the catering and bartending are any indication of the service that can be expected of EE- then's it's 5 star!

Joe M

I was wondering what the availability for the "hot" locations are in the high seasons. Such as Turks for this winter? Does anyone know?
Thanks

DC4MS

Here is some info when I asked this question in May

Adam showed me a real-time spreadsheet of their seven property availability and it looked very good as far as I could tell. There was tons of summer weeks available for 2008 and some of the major holidays were still wide open. It appeared that their Turks and Caicos property was the #1 requested property followed by New York.

A quick calculation showed that there was an astounding 81% availability for the next 12 months (May 2007-May 2008), 71% availability for the next 90 days, 69% for the next 60 days, and 80% for the next 30 days. Adam informed me that their current member to home ratio was 5:1 but their maximum ratio would probably be 7:1 and that they would put a limit on leasing to 30% of their total homes. I was also impressed to see 90% availability for Bachelor Gulch and 85% availability for Deer Valley for the next 12 months. Naples, Florida appeared to be the least popular property in their portfolio.

They place a 23 night reservation limit on members at any one time and can even accommodate reservations five years in advance. They have a lottery system set up for the ever popular Christmas and New Year holidays and guarantee that if you don’t match any property during those two weeks, they will place you in front of the line for next year’s lottery.

3DH

That is a nice touch!

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