Why do wealthy investors ‘test drive’ luxury second homes with short holidays before they buy?
Developers of luxury resort properties now entice potential buyers of second properties with ‘try before you buy’ stays to see what they are getting
When couple Marty Smith and Tracy Park, residents of San Diego, California, realised there children would soon be leaving home, they began an international hunt for a beach house.
“I had been travelling to the Caribbean for 20 years, but it wasn’t until I saw a show on television about [the Caribbean beach resort of] Placencia that I even considered Belize,” said Smith, 53, founder of RMS Capital Solutions, a direct lender to California real estate investors.
The couple searched online and found a development that looked promising, then made a call to one of the property agents they had seen on television.
“It turned out he offered a four-night ‘discovery tour’ to a new place called Itz’ana, so we booked it,” Smith said.
The couple’s April 2016 stay included a jungle tour to see jaguars, river tubing – floating along on giant rubber rings – and a romantic dinner on the beach.
They spent nights in a temporary waterfront bungalow, 75 feet (23 metres) from the Caribbean.
“After that first dinner we made a deposit on a 3,375-square-foot (313 square-metre) two-bedroom [property] with two pools,” Smith says.
The house is being built on precisely the same spot where they spent those first nights.
