The Hideaways Club Plans For The Future

Fresh off selling 20% of their ownership to investors Jonathan Feuer and Nick Bettany, The Hideaways Club has large plans for the rest of 2009.

"I think a lot of people were considering buying their own home are now considering fractional. We seem to not be experiencing a drop off, but in fact doing better than what we were," began Chris Moody, the Director of Sales at The Hideaways Club in an exclusive interview with The Veras Group.

The Hideaways Club launched early in 2007, marketing themselves as "Europe's first private residence owners club." Unlike the more traditional United States destination club model where members join with a "right to use" membership stake where they can access the club's properties but with no ownership in the properties, The Hideaways Club members do own the properties in the club's portfolio. Founders Mike Balfour, John Lovering, Stephen Wise, Patrick Henchoz, and Helmut Schön launched the club with European members in mind, planning their property acquisitions to all be within a four hour flight from the United Kingdom.
Despite the club's initial plans to acquire properties all within a short area of the UK, The Hideaways Club is looking to expand further to other select areas outside their original target.

"We are expanding into Asia and Africa," said Moody. "At the moment we have bought some of the properties but have yet to announce them to our members. We are looking to expand further across other Asian destinations. By the end of the year we should be close to 30 properties. We currently are at 16 properties that we have announced and have some others that will be announced shortly. Every six members we buy a new house, and looking at the rate we are taking on new members, we should be pushing 30 properties by the end of 2009."
With real estate prices falling on a global scale, The Hideaways Club is anxious to add select properties at strong values to their portfolio.

"I don't think it is drastic as in the states, but prices have come down in some areas," Moody said. "Certainly we are able to get some very nice properties for some very good rates. We are not looking to buy cheaper properties since we want to maintain our standards, so we are essentially able to buy better properties now than we could have last year. Our properties are all decided upon by our founders. They have very specific ideas about what they want, so while all the properties are very different, they share the same characteristics. Certain number of bedrooms, accommodations, location, quality of finish. Generally we just try to be consistent."

With less than 20 properties including those not yet available to members, The Hideaways Club would need to add approximately 60 new members over the next seven months to approach their 30 property goal. This ambitious mark may begin with the addition of a notable British tennis star the club plans to announce soon, adding yet another member to the many notable destination club sports members throughout the industry. The Veras Group will follow up with the report as it is announced.

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