Timing the Bottom of a Market

Most of you reading this message are either long-time WorldMark owners or prospective owners trying to “get the lay of the land” before making the plunge into ownership. Regardless of your owner status, the reality is we are in a bear market for WorldMark credits as of this writing. In other words: This is perhaps the best time in many years to make take the jump into the market for more credits because the pricing and selection of memberships available has never been better.

“What’s going on?” you might ask. The portfolio of properties you can vacation at is continually expanding as are the amenities of the newest resorts coming on line. This seems like a good thing, (it is) and it seems as if this that would cause prices to rise (it has-but only at the retail end of the game.) Membership is above 261,000 members and climbing, so more and more people are coming to understand WorldMark is for real and Ownership really does confer some outstanding vacation opportunities to the traveling public. These demand indicators suggest pricing should be going up, yet prices seem soft and there appears to be a lot of sellers in the market.

No question about it, many of our prospective buyers are monitoring our website, some of them every day, looking for that deal of all deals. We get tens of thousands of folks looking at our site every month, and over half of them are repeat viewers who came directly to the TLS page. They know who we are and what they do. They weren’t searching; they came right to our door. While we try to make our website informative and fun, I know better than to think these folks are just reading up. They’re shopping, but aren’t ready to commit until they sense the bottom is at hand.

Here’s the deal: In early November, 2006, Wyndham modified (very slightly in our view) the WorldMark program as it is offered at their retail sales offices. This modification, called Travel Share, has, in a word, devastated the after market for WorldMark credits. I don’t say this lightly, nor do I say it judgmentally. The nature of business is to seek profits, and Wyndham is chasing profits by incrementally changing the nature of its retail offerings to discourage their customers from becoming mine.

For many months after the introduction of Travel Share our listing inventory grew. Historically, we’ve maintained around 300,000 credits in inventory and turned that in a 30 day cycle. Our challenge was to be able to secure enough credits in inventory to offer to our many buyers. Post Travel Share, we reached a peak inventory of just over 1,100,000 credits. Price softening was one way we could manage that inventory back to today’s level of 424,000 credits in inventory. Knowledge was another. As more prospective owners see through the fog of Travel Share to the core value of WorldMark credits, credits sales in the aftermarket have begun to pick up again.

Frequent visitors to our TLS website can see this plainly; prices are lower today than they were 5 years ago. For the cautious among you, I encourage you to abandon your quest to buy at the bottom of the cycle, BECAUSE YOU CAN’T TIME IT ANY BETTER THAN FINANCIAL FOLKS CAN TIME THE BOTTOM OF THE STOCK MARKET!
Be content with a great deal and top off your WorldMark account before you plan your next vacation.

Let us help! To spur sales upward and to provide liquidity for your fellow WM owners who need to sell, we’re offering FREE CLOSING COSTS, a value of $250, on all purchases thru the end of 2007. Help us close out another great year by setting yourself up, at bargain prices, for a lifetime of vacation memories.