A growing trend in property investment over the last year or so has been the purchase of hotel suites, or, as our friends from the US like to call them, Hotel Condos.

The benefits of owning a Hotel Condo are as follows;

• Owners have a luxury holiday home with amenities such as a spa, health and fitness centre, fine dining, business centre, concierge and housekeeping all included. 
• Hassle free holiday home ownership.
• Rentals, upkeep and maintenance are all taken care of.
• Stay at your home for as little or as long as you like
•  Rentals should pay for your mortgage and then some.

The Worldquest resort in Orlando, in less than one year, has managed to set new benchmarks in Hotel Condo ownership. Here’s why

• Location, location, location! Worldquest is just one mile from Disney and you will be able to see the nightly fireworks from your condo.
• Location, location, location! Worldquest is close to the Orlando Convention centre which is the second busiest in all of the USA.
• Despite being in its first year of business Worldquest managed to achieve up to 84% occupancy rates. Some owners used their condos for themselves so their rates were obviously a little lower.
• It is managed (optionally) on your behalf by the Remington Group who manage over 8,000 hotel rooms in the USA.
• The revenue spilt is 60/40. You take 60% and Remington take 40% and look after all of your management costs.
• Worldquest is the number one condo resort in the Orlando region with Expedia.com. It is the highest revenue earner in Orlando for Expedia despite the resort being just one year old! Do you think they will continue to promote it?
•  98% of Expedia customers would recommend this hotel. See the visitors' comments link below.

The all important financials

Hotel Condos can be looked upon purely as an investment where owners are only interested in receiving a monthly profit and rarely, if ever, visit their condo.

Alternatively they can be seen as a part investment and part luxury holiday home where, depending on personal usage, your costs are all or partly taken care of and your longer term profit will be in the capital growth associated with the development and higher rental rates as times goes by.

Based on a 2 bed, 2 bath, 1300 square feet condo at $400,000

• Deposit will be 20 or 30% dependant on status
• Monthly mortgage will be approximately $1,400 (based on a 70% mortgage at 6%)
• Net average monthly revenue will be $2,146 (based on owners receiving 60% of an average daily rate of $140 with an occupancy of 84%) These figures are based on 2007 details and can be produced on request.
• Owners will make a monthly profit in the region of $750 and be able to enjoy all the benefits of owning a holiday home in one of the nicest areas of Orlando.

 Exchange rate fluctuations - really quite important!

There really never has been a better time to buy property in the US. Take this example.

• Today, £200,000 buys a $400,000 property
• 5 years growth at a conservative compounded 5% per annum turns $400,000 into $510,514
• Taking into account the cyclical nature of the exchange rate you sell your property when the rate is $1.5 / £ giving you a sell price of £340,000 and a profit of £140,000
• If you bought a UK property today for £200,000 and it grew by 5% over 5 years your profit would be just £55,000

We recognise there are a few ifs and buts to this calculation but now is the best time in 25 years to buy at a high rate and sell at a low rate.

Contact us now to make sure you do not miss out on this fantastic opportunity.