Membership Housing

Having been involved with several timeshares, the key component is that once the upfront payments are made, the developers have basically recouped their investment and almost everything after is gravy. So the developer here gets to sit on $4M until you leave AND is the legal owner of the property so if it appreciates, they get that as well. Good business model if you can get it.

 

What? I thought reverse mortgages were for those folks. Why would someone fork over $150k of their retirement for a place they're going to live in until they die? At that age, I want all my money in play, not tied up as a guaranteed inheritance for my beneficiaries.

My retirement condo/home will be paid off by the time I'm 65 and that $150k will instead cover many years of my cabana boy's salary.

 

I guess if the amenities are the draw they are pitching, and they set it as an alternative to a hefty HOA fee common in retirement communities, it becomes slightly less awful sounding. Around here, five hundred a month or more HOA fees are not unheard of in the more fancy pants communities. If you're paying twice that a year, but getting the money back in yer ten or so, there could, kind of, be an argument for some value to the approach - provided they aren't assessing more fees on top of the upfront. I'd still rather buy a unit ten times out of ten, but maybe that's the angle.

Edit: It appears they charge a "monthly service fee" of $250, so the argument is pretty thin.