Up North Revisited

With fractional ownership, the buyer actually gets a deed for a quarter interest in the property. The weeks rotate (unlike a time share,where you get the same week every year) so that one year you will get the first week of every month, the next year you’ll get the second week of every month, and it rotates for holidays as well. Buyers get more time in the vacation home, and they are building equity.

Association Assist

For many, the silver lining of a vacation home is obscured by a dark cloud. The home away from home comes with a hefty amount of chores away from home. Decks need staining, lawns need mowing, boats need to be put in, and all too soon taken out again. Visiting friends find themselves press-ganged into seasonal labor on a gulag with scenery. Although for many,spiffing up the cabin is a labor of love, for just as many it is something of a deterrent.

Enter association-maintained properties. For buyers who want the vacation home without the vacation chores, developers have been masterminding a condo-like system where everything from maintenance to the trouble of renting is done by the association. Grand View Vacation Properties is developing The Cottages at Roy Lodge on Roy Lake near Brainerd, which are designed with a view to creating rental income for owners. Owners of the three-bedroom, three-bath properties will enjoy beach access, boat rental, golf discounts, and dining discounts.

“People love the idea of having a cabin, but don’t really care to spend a beautiful weekend staining the cottage or cutting the grass,”says Minneapolis-based Coldwell Banker Burnet agent Kevin Escher. He’sassociated with Tamarack Point, by developer Property Focus, LLC, of Edina,which will feature thirteen arts-and-crafts cottages fronting 1,800 feet of lakeshore on Cable Lake, near Hayward, Wisconsin.

Ronnei notes that more and more people are extending their weekends to four-day stays, and some stay at their vacation home for three or four months of the year. Technology makes it possible for homeowners to keep in touch with work. Retirees are tempted to stay longer in properties that are luxurious and easeful.

“With technology the way it is now, we can have many of the same things at our cabins as we have in our home: cell phones, high-speed Internet, satellite TV, surround sound, and all of the toys that you can store in your garage,” Escher says.

Grunewald agrees: “Many people have the ability to work fromtheir second home through the Internet. Instead of just staying Friday through Sunday, they may come up on Thursday and leave Monday.”

Luxury cabins and townhomes that feature all of the comforts and gadgets of home and where the association takes care of the most onerous duties become ideal residences: distant from the cares of the work-day world,but provided with many of its life-enhancing amenities, and most importantly,none of the labor. “The managed-property program is so popular because there’s no lawn to cut and there are great amenities, swimming pools, golf courses,beaches, rental boat slip. All of those things come with it,” Ronnei says.