Consumers who want the luxury of having a second home at the beach or in the mountains, but don't have the money to plunk down on the choicest properties, now have an appealing alternative: half ownership. Like other shared ownership ventures, Halfshare.com gives customers the chance to get a piece of the good life, but at a much lower cost. Unlike traditional timeshares, which pioneered the concept of fractional ownership, Halfshare.com buyers aren't purchasing time in a hotel or resort, but an actual home—and all the benefits that go with owning it. Along with sharing costs, buyers share profits if the value goes up. And depending on the terms both owners agree to, the property may generate rental income, too.
Getting started is as easy as logging onto Halfshare.com, where members can browse listings of available properties throughout North America. Halfshare.com can match them with other prospective buyers based on tastes, backgrounds, interests, hobbies and lifestyles through the Buyer Match Plan. Potential co-owners can arrange to meet one another online, by phone or in person to determine if they’d make a good match. Once buyers select a property, Halfshare.com's Tenants-in-Common Agreement takes care of all the details, formalizing legal concerns and each owner’s rights. “It spells out what is expected in terms of financial arrangements, seasonal time sharing, rental revenues, re-sale, property maintenance and repair, among other pertinent details.”
Although the real estate market is currently in a bit of a slump, demand for sandy beaches, mountain air, cultural attractions and picturesque scenery isn’t likely to wane any time soon. Which means that making vacation homes affordable, fraction by fraction, could be a worthwhile start-up in almost any region frequented by tourists looking to make themselves at home. (Related: One-stop shop for transumers and Fractional supercar ownership.)
Website: www.halfshare.com
Contact: www.halfshare.com/contact_us.cfm
Spotted by: Susanna Haynie
Fractional owership has certainly been growing rapidly and there are now over 250 fractional developments in North America, plus many more when you add in all the shared individual homes.
At the high end the most luxurious fractionals are often referred to as private residence clubs. For lots of background informatin on these, the amenities and services they offer, see http://www.sherpareport.com/prc/.
The same in South Arica. The upward growth of 5* resorts allow for a great Fractional Ownership market. A new project that has just been launched and located near Durban called "Sabuti". Find out more @ http://sabuti.com.
Perhaps a viable idea...but the company you featured doesn't seem to have any properties listed. I just looked at properties on or near water, and all the listing were sold in 2005 or 2006. So, is this company really making a go at it? For one, I noticed a fractional ownership cost starting at $750,000. How affordable is that?
It’s an interesting web site – not sure what they charge for matchmaking service. It doesn’t say. Using the analogy with dating agencies, they appear to operate rather like an old style personal matchmaker rather than an on-line dating agency. I recently found a website called yours2share that offers the “on-line dating agency“ type of service free of charge.
As well as allowing you to find like-minded people with whom to share the ownership of property and anything else that is high in value like boats and aircraft, yours2share is also interesting in that it helps people find partners for fractional rentals. This page explains it well. I think there is huge potential for people to get together and share things – just think about all the second homes and yachts that are idle for 11 months of the year. It’s just a case of find someone like-minded with a compatible requirement – just what the web’s made for.
Thanks for the mention, I'm glad you like http://www.yours2share.com. I think the page you were refering to might have been http://www.yours2share.com/static/rental.shtml
The J Walter Thompson agency identified fractional as a key consumer trend to follow in 2008.
Check out http://www.fractionallife.com for the encyclopedia of fractionals and for all you transumers out there, visit the exhibition totally dedicated to fractionals - http://www.fractionallifeexpo.com