Bob Wengel joins Star Resort Group

Beginning April 15th Bob joined SRG as a senior executive and principal of the company. Initially, Bob will manage Meriwether Ranch and then assist SRG in expanding their project base from the current four to eight in the coming 12 months. This also allows Star to handle projects in the Eastern half of the country and the Caribbean.

Bob is the former COO of Diamond Resorts the major Las Vegas timeshare development company with annual sales of $180 million and over 1600 employees. He was with Diamond and its predecessor, Jockey Club, for 22 years.

A native to Butte, Montana Bob came back to Butte for some time off, and when he decided to get ‘back in the business’ Star met his requirements, and we welcome him.

He can be reached at : bwengel@starresortgroup.com and his cel is (406) 498-5606.

It’s been a month since the Ragatz Conference and the calls keep coming in from developers wanting to enter the fractional business. The good news is that most projects are not bailouts of unsold condos or condo hotels…at least the ones we have seen.

The relationship of share size and use plan is still not well understood and ill-started projects are destined for a tough time. We’ve seen a bunch of these. Also, as Ron Frank’s talk at Ragatz pointed out, there’s really very little known about how to sell a fraction, save those of us who have learned by trial and error over the years. The number of real estate brokerage companies who feel they can jump in and sell fractions is startling.

An interesting note from a fractional session at ARDA is to cover a co-brokerage commission into the marketing budget as a cost of lead generation vs. putting it in the sales, commission line. The sales team has to handle the client from front to back, so it really is a generated lead. That is if brokers ever refer in any substantial numbers!

Off to ULI week after next where we’ll see what the ‘big guys’ have planned.