Taking a break from programming improvements for FractionalExchange.com due to a new project that’s consuming our programming energy for the time being. Anomalies (bugs) will be dealt with and corrected, of course, in due course.

September 10:

Starting work this week on a new module for FractionalExchange.com: fractional real estate listings (for sale). We’ll have Developer, Realtor and FSBO listing capabilities.

A module such as this starts life as a sketch on a legal pad. It’s something we’ve been pondering for over a year, but just now taking shape. An hour spent sketching, an hour meeting on where we’re heading and then another hour determining the data fields that we’ll program for. And now, off to the coding races with hopefully not too many “uh ohs” along the way as we discover things we hadn’t thought of during the initial design specifications.

Some companies spend a huge amount of time upfront with analysis and design. We’re lucky enough to be nimble enough and know our goals well enough that we can spend a half-day on analysis/design and then begin programming, fine tuning the design along the way.

September 3:

Great reviews at the Fractional Summit for our iPad work. A soft launch at this event, but judging from the responses looks like we’re on to something here…

August 30:

Last minute bug fixes over the last weeks related to the iPad programming. Unveiling the iPad tomorrow in Miami at the Fractional Summit.

August 10:

iPad development work is almost completed. This work is being done to pioneer a new concept for the sales offices of our affiliated resorts: ditching “coffee table” books that show exchange options and instead, utilizing Apple’s stunning iPad to display exchange possibilities within the FractionalExchange.com network. Pioneering work.

July 19:

Took some time off of major work, but time to delve back into new modules. Our work for the next few weeks will involving coding a portion of the website for display on Apple’s iPad. Fun stuff.

June 17:

Cool new promotional code invitation module completed and installed. Fractional owners can now click-and-create memberships quickly at participating resorts.

Working on different visual presentation for the “resort-level” view, introducing tabbed information as a visual element. We’ll make the change live and likely refine from there.

June 16:

Translation option added. Thanks Google, you saved us a ton of work.

Started programming of a new promotional code invitation system for use by fractional resorts. When completed, this system will create a membership quickly and efficiently for new members referred from participating/affiliating resorts.

June 10:

Several weeks spent working on our renewal billing module. Almost there.

Donate-a-Dream™ page added to our website.

May 19:

Our team spent most of April traveling, but returned with a renewed focus on website improvements. From scratch, we wrote a messaging module that will now allow us to communicate directly with our membership (in full, a subset or just certain members). We can now send newsletters and important announcements. Previous to this, we’d been limited to certain pre-programmed administrative messages related to new member sign-up, exchange offers and renewals.

We also instituted an easier way to log in to FractionalExchange.com for our members. Each and every email that is sent out will have a custom login link in the signature/footer line.

And, big news, we received our official trademark registrations for our name, logo and tagline. We spent a day updating our logos, graphics and communications to reflect the change from SM/TM status to ® status!

April 8:

New exchange search programming. Switched from an additive process (find where you want to go) to a subtractive process (show everything, then filter/narrow down the selection). This new search capability includes the ability to filter/narrow selection using many parameters (bedrooms, number of people a property will sleep, resorts, activities). We also added the ability to sort listings by date added (great for looking for listings that are new to the site) and by “most popular.”

March 18:

We’re working on implementing the ability to filter listings. For example, selecting “beach” and “fishing” will filter for those properties meeting that criteria. Select “3+ bedrooms” and you’ll narrow the selection further.  Unfortunately, we don’t have ANY properties that show when “beach” and “skiing” are selected (wouldn’t that be nice!).  Hoping to have this new feature implemented within a week.

Another improvement we will be implementing is the ability to brand individual listings. A listing may be part of what we call a “Fractional Residence Collection,” a group of homes that have been fractionalized and branded under the auspices of a development or fractional company; the individual listing will have the option to carry the brand of the FRC. This offers the opportunity for the member to display the brand, thus displaying the quality (and management) of the property listing, as well as gaining exposure for the brand.

March 12:

Created the ability to have default listings for resorts. With this improvement, members may select from pre-defined templates and save time in creating their listings. There’s even the option for default, resort-provided photos that members may use.

Created the ability to have a “default” photo for a resort. In the event a listing doesn’t have photos (yet), the default resort image will appear at the city- and resort-level viewing of listings. In the event there is no default photo, a “Image not available” placeholder will appear (this is unchanged from our original software version).

March 5:

Created, tested and implemented our invitation system. With this system, a resort can provide us with names and email addresses of their fractional (or other) owners and we’ll send out a personalized invitation to join, complete with personalized link and default listing templates (which they can edit to suit).

February 27:

Enabled bulk proposal sending for members. This improvement allows members to easily send an exchange proposal to all (or selected) listings in a particular city and/or resort with one click of the mouse. This improvement saves time by eliminating the repetitive sending of exchange proposals, one-by-one, to all listings in a city and/or resort.

We’re presently introducing Donate-a-Dream™, a new program aimed at supporting selected charities.

The 2008/2009/2010 recession caused financial support for many charitable organizations to decline substantially. By donating weeks of use at participating resorts, FractionalExchange.com is able to help provide valuable financial assistance to charity and at the same time, provide lodging at incredible fractional properties to winning purchasers. Many of the properties are not available for rent, making the lodging opportunities offered very unique.

Through Donate-a-Dream™, individuals and companies desiring to support charity are able to purchase incredible vacation opportunities, either directly or through the charity’s event program. In the future, we will maintain a list of the travel opportunities available, along with contact information for the charity offering the item for sale.

The Club features ten units located directly on Mission Beach. Each unit is being sold in 1/8th shares (6.5 weeks), with prices starting at $279,000.  Located just steps from the sand, The Club offers contemporary beachfront living. As a testament to the quality of the offering — and the incredible location — Sales Advisor Megan McGarty shared with us that they’ve already sold twelve fractional shares in just a few short weeks.

The fractional model is alive and well in the post-recession environment. In fact, we expect fractional to gain market share (vs. traditional whole-ownership resort- and second-home properties) as families make the decision to purchase only the amount of time that they can use (rather than buy 52 weeks of time).

Owners at The Club are eligible for membership with the Elite Alliance, a luxury collection of nine resorts that offer exchange. Owners are also eligible for membership at FractionalExchange.com, allowing them to use their keys at The Club to open doors worldwide.

The Residence Club on Mission Beach is a wonderful and stunning boutique property, located on some very precious real estate: on the beach in San Diego’s Mission Beach. An excellent execution of the fractional model.

Photo of our presentation booth.

Paul Nabor (l) and Evan Julber (r) at Ragatz Fractional Interest Conference 2010 (Ron Wright in background)

2009-Fractional-Interest-Report_EN_NorthCourse

Sales of fractional ownership residences buoyed the Pitkin County market in 2009, even though some of the projects hit tough times. Total sales by fractionals were $181.88 million, or 260 percent over 2008, according to Land Title Guarantee Co. The strong performance matched 2006 in dollar volume.

The number of transactions involving fractionals increased 19 percent, from 228 in 2008 to 272 last year. The Residences at The Little Nell led the way with 95 sales for $133.07 million in 2009. The Hyatt Grand Aspen had 72 sales for $11.98 million.

The Aspen Highlands Ritz-Carlton Club had 40 sales for $6.32 million. The Dancing Bear Lodge had 30 sales totaling $21.65 million.

This improvement to our website is made in conjunction with our programming of defaults for what we refer to as Bulk Listings. Bulk Listings is an invitation process where we, given a list of names and email addresses from an affiliating resort HOA (homeowners association), send invitations to join (to HOA members) and provide a path to easily create the member listing at FractionalExchange.com.

Most of the month of February, 2010 has been devoted to the programming and testing necessary to implement this improvement on the FractionalExchange.com system.

Vacation Nation: The Complete Guide to Timeshare, Private Residence Clubs, Fractionals & Destination Clubs

Clarion Review: “Sorting through vacation offerings can seem daunting to potential participants. In Vacation Nation, Elaine Joli reviews the pros and cons of timeshare, private residence clubs, fractionals and destination clubs. She shows the readers how to systematically explore these options by using a method she calls the Discovery Model. This model helps readers organize the myriad details they must know to ensure that a vacation property will work for them. The author presents the nuances of this complex subject objectively, and the book offers readers a rational approach to considering such a purchase.”

Destination Clubs in general have either failed due to the economic slump of 2007/2008/2009 or have been forced to reevaluate their business model and adjust annual dues higher in an attempt to break-even on operational costs of providing services to club members. Previously, profits from new member sales at many clubs were subsidizing operating costs; when new membership sales slowed down (or stopped), cash flow problems began to arise at many of the destination clubs.

Exclusive Resorts remains the leader in the industry and appears to be well managed, but apparently was not immune to the economic slump.

Sherpa Report’s article, summarizing a recent CNBC interview of Steve Case: http://www.sherpareport.com/destination-clubs/steve-exclusive-resorts.html

The attraction of a destination club is the availability of many properties to use for vacation use. In a similar fashion, FractionalExchange.com works to put owners of vacation properties in contact with one another so that the keys to one vacation home may open doors to thousands of other vacation homes.

“The reason that entrepreneurs are so important to the economy is because their very existence and success depends on one key factor: Effectively solving other people’s problems. Need some new product to make your life better off, or something that already exists but you want it cheaper, better, faster, or more conveniently to make you better off? The entrepreneurs are at your service. ”

The statement is a precise description of why we put the effort into launching FractionalExchange.com and could easily be incorporated into our company’s mission statement.  Hmmm…. something like “Making life better for vacation property owners by offering a better, faster and more convenient method to exchange use…”?

Mark Perry: http://mjperry.blogspot.com/

— Evan Julber