WHY BUY A HOTEL (RESORT) CONDO? Let me count the ways!
First, it’s an economical way to own property in Door County. Many hotel condos cost less than a five acre piece of land. It gives you a place to come to whenever you want. For busy times, reserve it for yourselves. Other times, you might call your resort on a Thursday night and find it’s not rented that weekend, so you can use it. Hotel condo units all have owners’ storage closets so you can keep things you will use here in your locked closet rather than haul them back and forth.
Second, you own your hotel condo for the entire year, which means you pay the real estate taxes on it, and you may be able to take that as a tax deduction. If you have a mortgage on it, the interest on that may be a tax deduction also, either as a second home or as a passive real estate investment. If you don’t stay in the unit more than 14 nights a year yourselves (coming for owners’ meetings, to make a repair, etc. do not usually count), the IRS may allow you to deduct a percentage of the expenses and a percentage of the depreciation. What percent depends upon the number of nights you used it compared to the number of nights it was rented out. So, much like your home, you can live in it and often get tax deductions.
Third, many hotel condos belong to RCI or Interval International, which are international exchange programs. For a small fee per year, you can be a member. You let them know which weeks you want to “bank”, as they call it, and what weeks you want to stay in someone else’s unit somewhere else in the world! Usually your only cost to stay in another unit is whatever they charge for towel service, plus a fee to the exchange organization, which averages out to be a small amount per day. Usually there are time equivalents, so if you bank four weeks in May here in Door County, that is considered prime time, and you can use a unit in Florida in January! It may happen that no one uses your banked weeks, so the previously mentioned charges would be your only expenses in a unit which probably rents for well over $100 a night. If someone does stay in your unit, it costs you a small fee per day for cleaning it for your guest, so you still have quite a bargain. There are RCI and Interval International resorts all over the world, and people who have stayed in units in foreign countries tell me they have always had top notch accommodations.
If you have any questions concerning hotel condo ownership, I'd be glad to help you get the answers you need.
-Liz Bylaska
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