The 10th Annual Ragatz Associates Fractional Interest Conference was held at the Fairmont San Francisco, March
29th through March 31st, 2010. The event was co-hosted by the Registry Collection. The conference covered just about every area pertinent to fractionals, including feasibility, design, financing, legal issues, marketing, sales, management, exchange and implementation.

While attendance was lower than in previous years, Ragatz Associates President and Founder Richard L. “Dick” Ragatz, Ph.D. was pleased with the turnout considering the state of the economy. “A third of attendees were new developers; a third were veteran timeshare attorneys, marketing and sales professionals, and designers; and a third were experienced developers,” says Ragatz. “The new developers coming for the first time were very enthusiastic about the information they received,” continued Ragatz. “The group that receives the most value in terms of education is, obviously, the new developers, because the Fractional Interest Conference is the only central source anywhere where they get a comprehensive A to Z education about the industry. For the experienced developers, the value is more in the networking and hearing war stories from other people who are in the industry – and maybe gleaning a few new things in terms of product design or marketing and sales approaches. There’s a different value proposition for each attendee – the conference is still the central source for knowledge in the industry – there’s no doubt about it.”

Despite the attendance being down – and it still is the largest conference of its kind in the world – the ambience was more upbeat than at the past two years’ conferences. “At this year’s conference more people were anticipating a comeback in the market,” says Ragatz, “although unfortunately it has not occurred yet.”

Keeping with tradition, the conference kicked off with a Fractionals 101 session covering a broad range of topics at an introductory level. And while the event revisits certain topics each year, Ragatz says this year’s meeting was infused with additional information on consumer behavior and the consumer decision-making process, along with a greater emphasis on new approaches to marketing – “especially Internet marketing,” notes Ragatz. What’s more, about half of the speakers presented at the Fractional Interest Conference for the first time.

The singular presentation at the meeting was when Ragatz gave his annual state-of- the-industry report. The major news out of this year’s study was the decline in sales volume by about 43% due primarily to lack of consumer financing and the general economic conditions. On the positive side was the fact that prices on a per-square-foot basis, perweek
basis and per-share basis did not seem to drop nearly as much as other types of residential real estate, especially
whole ownership resort real estate. (A full printed version of The 2010 Edition of Ragatz Associates’ State of the Fractional Interest Industry report, describing current conditions of the industry in the United States, Canada, Mexico and the Caribbean, is now available. You can purchase it at www.ragatzassociates.com.)

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Tags: Fairmont San Francisco, Ragatz Associates Fractional Interest Conference, Registry Collection, Richard L. �Dick� Ragatz