If You Have Ever Dreamed of Fractional Home Ownership –Even for a Second — Tonight is Your Night, Baby

Surely you’ve dreamed of second home ownership but like me, you are a perpetual tire kicker OR you worry that you won’t use the home enough, the maintenance will drive you batty. Second home owners sometimes corner me at parties and say, hey you with your damn fetish for multiple home ownership, it’s helluva lot of work. We just spent our entire weekend painting our second home — thanks a lot.

I get it. We do own a second home — well, lot —that’s part of what I call a condo ranch in Johnson City. It’s a shared ownership ranch because these fingernails don’t chop cedars and split fence. I want a second home with all the luxury, without all the work. I want horses to ride and groom when I fancy, but not every day. Let the ranch manager worry about the Longhorn.

Still: man does not live by the ranch alone.

The Fairmont Private Residences at Ghirardelli Square, which I have raved to you about before, is coming to town. We are having a sip n see party for select readers of CandysDirt.com and SecondShelters.com at a private home in Highland Park to learn the nitty gritty of Fairmont fractional ownership. Fred Karpik will be here from San Francisco answering the tough questions. For example, a friend asked me today something crucial: what are the maintenance charges and how much can they go up? We will be asking all this and more, and of course I’ll blog it all. Current owners will be on hand to tell us how much they like or dislike their property.

Fractional ownership makes so much sense to me. Though we love it, we have been to our Hill Country lot once this year. Our children live out of state and we go visit them, or we visit family on the other coast at the beach house in Maine. What’s happened to our home ownership needs is they have changed. We want less, but more. Like most folks our age, we can travel now that our kids are grown, and our family home is filled with family only a few times a year. Then you get that tax bill as we did today and you say, well, I cannot say what I said. It may make more sense to have a smaller home in Dallas and a part-time place out where our kids live. A fractional ownership at Fairmont Ghirardelli gets me 35 days a year to visit my son and daughter-in-law; last year, I visited them for a total of about 15 days in Cali. That would give me a place to stay in San Francisco, private storage for a warm coat and wine, a  car with driver in town, and flexibility to use another Fairmont Private Residence Club the other 20 days.

And to be honest, who gets more than 35 days of vacation a year, unless you are retired?

Plus the location of this property in unbeatable — and TOTALLY unaffordable for me if it were not fractional.

I think this makes total sense. We have friends contemplating the same thing as they eye fractional ownership of homes near their flock. Are they an appreciating asset? Probably not. At least you get a deed, and can will your deed to your estate, so your heirs can continue to enjoy it. There is no better legacy than leaving a second home for your children and grandchildren to enjoy. And at this one, Fairmont does all the work, from cleaning and electrical to maintenance and repair. Email me at Candace@SecondShelters.com if you’d like to attend or have any questions about fractional vacation home ownership — or pop us a question right here in the comments!