Launch HN: Ancana (YC S21) – Fractional ownership of vacation homes | Hacker News Reader

Launch HN: Ancana (YC S21) – Fractional ownership of vacation homes

83 pointsrblack44153 comments

Hi, we're Andres and Ryan, the founders of Ancana (https://en.ancana.co/). Ancana is a marketplace for buying fully managed vacation homes through fractional ownership.

Demand for vacation homes has driven up their price, putting these properties out of reach for most buyers, who only plan to use the home a few weeks a year. This pushes many people into timeshares, which are notorious for hidden fees, pushy sales tactics, and difficulty to sell. With Ancana, you can own a 1/4 or 1/8 share of the home and split expenses with the other co-owners. If you buy a 1/4 share of a home, you have access to it for 3 months of the year. For each property we set up the investment trust, find qualified co-owners, and handle the entire real estate purchase transaction. Costs are split amongst the co-owners, and we take care of the furnishing and ongoing property management.

We accomplish this by creating an investment trust for each property and dividing it into individual, purchasable shares that represent ownership in the property. We furnish each home and find and vet the co-owners. Once all of the shares of the property are sold, we retain no ownership stake in the property and transition into the role of property manager, ensuring the home is well maintained and handling any issues that arise. Unlike a timeshare, Ancana owners own a real asset (the property) versus a block of time. If you decide you want to sell your share, you are free to do so at any time, either through us or on the open market, and capture any appreciation the property has accrued.

Once you own one of these homes, our goal is to make scheduling visits to the property as easy and equitable as possible. Our scheduling system breaks a 12-month booking window into "high-demand" dates/seasons and "general" stays. Each co-owner selects 1 high-demand date before additional bookings are permitted. Priority order is determined by the owner's purchase date (1st buyer gets 1st choice, 2nd buyer gets 2nd choice, etc), with the order rotating each year (2nd buyer gets 1st selection in year 2, 3rd buyer gets 1st selection in year 3, etc.). Outside of the initial high-demand selection process, co-owners are free to book the property anywhere from 2 days to 12-months in advance, up to their allotted days per year.

We'd love to speak to any of you that are curious about fractional ownership or have any ideas for where we should go next or how to improve our offering!

View on HN

As someone who has sat through several of them (and has bought a few), this is exactly, almost word-for-word (right down to the references to the complaints about the rest of the industry) the elevator pitch for every timeshare/vacation ownership scheme ever.

> Unlike a timeshare, Ancana owners own a real asset (the property) versus a block of time.

Like literally every timeshare/vacation ownership scheme I’ve seen other than in places where there are legal constraints (like Mexico’s limits on foreign ownership of certain real property) that get in the way involves deeded fractional ownership of specific real property. This is, again, false differentiation.

The only thing somewhat novel here seems to ve the limitation to no less than eighth shares and the initial high-demand date guarantee (obviously the former being key to permitting the latter.)

Another real point of differentiation is that (at least from your pitch, and people that have these features tend to highlight them in their basic pitch) is you don't seem to have a relationship with a network of exchange properties besides the deeded property, which is great for people who want to spend 6+ weeks a year, every year, in the same vacation spot, but less so otherwise.

Thanks for the feedback. One of our biggest challenges is in overcoming the gimmicks timeshares use to hook customers. My parents have had a few different timeshares, some of which were great, others complete scams. They've been incredibly successful in building huge businesses with these tactics. It really comes down to what you are purchasing, when you can use the property, and how you resell.

With timeshares you are purchasing a block of time in a condo/resort with dozens or potentially hundreds of people. With Ancana, you are purchasing a share of an actual home with a small group of people. You own a piece of the home you are staying in, not a deed to a piece of a resort. Co-ownership is a concept that has been around for a while (a couple people in the comments have shared their experiences), but this has typically been limited to friends/family. We aim to make this accessible to everyone.

With timeshares you get access to the property for fixed weeks. With Ancana you have ongoing access to the home. you can plan a vacation 8 months from now, or a last minute getaway this weekend. Timeshares do not offer this flexibility.

Selling your timeshare is typically a nightmare. There are entire industries built around helping people get out of their timeshare contracts. Resorts have a vested interest in keeping you hooked, because the more buyers they get the more money they make. With Ancana, you are free to sell your share whenever and however you'd like. Since there are a limited number of co-owners, Ancana has no vested interest in making it hard to sell. We'll assist in helping you find a buyer if you'd like.

We appreciate your feedback as a timeshare owner. It really is helpful for us to understand these different perspectives and to try and differentiate ourselves more from a standard timeshare

Sigh... Every timeshare starts this way and ends up in the same place once they need to get profitable...

Even then they're not all bad: I had friends who owned a $$$ place on the California coast but liked to travel so they bought a Wyndham timeshare and used it all over the world and loved it.

How do you deal with potential scheduling conflicts if timeframes are not dedicated and known across the owners?

This is a top focus for us from a product perspective. What's interesting through our research is the overlap is probably not as big as we assumed. Some people want to use the home for special occasions (bdays, anniversaries), which can be spread out throughout the year. Some want it for holidays, others have their own holiday traditions. The demand is more evenly distributed than we anticipated.

But there will be conflicts no doubt. Our approach is to make access to the home as equitable as possible. Each co-owner can select their priority dates before the general booking window opens. This ensures each owner has access during high-demand times. Outside of the priority booking window owners are free to book anywhere from 2 days to 1 year out and can see which dates are available. We also limit the length of a stay so that even during high-demand times, multiple owners can enjoy the property.

Wondering:how do you get the right to do that if you do not own the place?

It's hard to believe a timeshare can really compete with keeping the money and then spending it when you want at the resort or hotel you want to spend it at when you want to spend it.

"Just say no" seems to be the answer for me.

I once stayed at a timeshare that a friend of mine had. I think, for her, it was maybe a forcing function to go there on a schedule. Earlier I was in a ski house which was nice but more bounded.

But personally I've never seen the attraction in a vacation house. Maybe it can be temporarily more cost effective but even if you have exclusive use of a room--which isn't the case with a traditional timeshare--I'm really skeptical that any potential savings are balanced by "Where do you want to go this month/year?"

One area we differ from a timeshare is an Ancana home is an investment in real estate. If the property increases in value, you capture the appreciation and if you decide to sell you make a profit.

People are finally realizing that's not a good reason to buy a house. If somebody wants to bet on real estate prices going up, shouldn't they just buy shares in a REIT?

It really only makes sense to bet on appreciation if you can leverage yourself into a property. I.E $200k down payment on a $1mm home means you’re making x% appreciation of the $1mm on a $200k cash investment…

Otherwise your best bet is just throw the money in a more liquid, synthetic vehicle like a REIT

> You own a piece of the home you are staying in, not a deed to a piece of a resort.

Which piece do you own? Is it like I own the roof, but someone else owns the roof, and a different person owns the floor?

My family owns 1/4 of a vacation house through an LLC. Some issues that come to mind are:

- Can an owner rent out their time? Who gets the rent money? How much is reserved for maintenance because renting will incur higher maintenance costs.

- What happens if one owner can’t carry their weight on taxes or insurance? Our house is beach house so insurance is ridiculous — we rent it out during the summer to cover it and use the house during the rest of the year.

- What if there are disagreements about how much to invest in the house for upgrades, maintenance, etc?

- Is there a system through which owners can buy or trade time with other owners?

- If you need to sell, how do you do that?

- What happens if one owner passes away and their share is now owned by multiple people?

Thanks for sharing! The co-ownership model has been around for a while, but usually has been limited to friends & family. Really great feedback on some of the challenges you've faced.

- Rentals: this is property dependent. Some of our homes are located in communities that have explicit rules regarding short term rentals. For homes not governed by these rules, the owners are free to vote on whether they'd like to allow renting the home when it is not used. We leave it up to the owners for the exact reason you highlighted above - renting can lead to higher maintenance costs and other issues. Proceeds from the rental go to the owner putting their time up for rent. The income is first used to defray an owner's monthly costs, and the rest is given directly to them.

- Costs: Property costs are split amongst co-owners based on their ownership stake in the home with no markup. This tends to keep costs fairly low for each owner, but in the event an owner does not pay their portion they are in violation of the contract and subject to forfeiture of their share. Again, the fees for these homes in mexico are reasonable compared to the US and the costs are made clear and transparent to the buyer at the time of purchase.

- investments: routine maintenance is handled by Ancana using the reserve fund. For other upgrades, the owners put it up to a vote. Depending on the size of investment, there are different vote thresholds that need to be met to move forward.

- buying/trading: currently we make it easy for co-owners of the same property to trade scheduled visits. We do have plans on opening this up for all Ancana properties, but it is not something we have built out yet. Stay tuned!

- selling: An owner is free to sell at any point after owning the home for 1 year. We are happy to assist in this process and list the fraction for sale to our network of qualified leads. But if an owner prefers to use their own agent or sell it through their own network, that is great too. Once a buyer is found, we take care of the vetting and legal process for transferring ownership.

- Similar to other real estate, your ownership of an Ancana property can be passed on to beneficiaries. In this case the new owner(s) are still bound by the original investment trust and responsible for payments. We don't limit ownership in a fraction to a single person, so it is up to the new parties to decide how they want to handle ownership and using the property

> For other upgrades, the owners put it up to a vote

2 vote for, 2 vote against. What now? All of the examples you listed are even splits (2 vs. 2 or 4 vs 4). Who resolves a dispute in the case of a tie?

A majority of owners need to agree before moving forward (so 3-1 or 5-3 in the examples you gave). The threshold increases for more costly expenses

So 2 people in agreement can just gridlock everything in a 4 person unit forever? That seems broken.

If all it takes is two (out of four) to decide something, the other two could immediately rescind the decision. It has to be a majority.

In most bureaucracies gridlock is not a bug, it’s a feature. It forces wider consensus.

What if they don't put out the money for the cost of upgrade because they didn't vote for it?

Can an owner sell to anyone they like or do the other owners have a say in this?

I co-own a building and one of the partners is looking to sell his share. I have first right to purchase and a majority vote is needed to approve a new owner, so the rest of us can collectively block a purchaser we don’t like.

I've always heard this is a great way to doom a friendship. Are you ever at odds with the other owners? I can imagine if you've planned your summer around a family vacation and the previous guest trashes the place (or breaks something making the place unusable) it could get ugly. Or worse yet, it is no pets and one owner starts bringing their dog.

In my case, the other owners are extended family, but it can be a bit tricky. We have some of this stuff codified in the LLC but we have the house professionally cleaned in-between owners by the same cleaning company that does the work when we are renting it.

Some of the issues that get people the angriest have been silly stuff. Like one person using more than their fair share of the storage shed, etc.

If it looks like a timeshare and smells like a timeshare, it’s a timeshare. If there’s no secondary free market to sell these “fractional ownerships” it’s just forced rent I can’t resell.

You should have read the post before commenting.

> Unlike a timeshare, Ancana owners own a real asset (the property) versus a block of time. If you decide you want to sell your share, you are free to do so at any time, either through us or on the open market, and capture any appreciation the property has accrued.

“Open market” yeah right

and as others have pointed out many timeshares say this exact same thing.

That doesn't mean there is someone willing to buy it on the other end.

demand for this model of ownership is exploding. From a buyer's perspective there is no functional difference between the primary and secondary market. It is certainly more liquid than a timeshare and in most cases easier to sell than an entire home given the lower upfront and maintenance costs

What open market? There's no liquidity there.

One way to look at this is unlike a timeshare, Ancana has no ownership interest in the property. Resorts own the property and sell you access to that property. At the point all of the shares are sold, we become property managers. You don't have to sell the share back to us like you do with timeshares - in fact, we don't purchase shares back. You are free to list your fraction with an agent of your choosing or sell to your own network at whatever price you desire. Given that we have a large list of qualified leads, we are happy to list your fraction for sale, but that is not a requirement.

Curious why you think there is no secondary market for these homes. The primary market is exploding for this model of ownership and given the limited inventory of vacation homes on the market, we think the secondary market is also going to be very large

Who becomes owner of a person's share if he stops paying maintenance fees?

Ancana steps in and takes over the share and finds another buyer. Other co-owners are protected in this case.

> free to list your fraction with an agent of your choosing or sell to your own network at whatever price you desire.

What if one co-owner chooses to sell to someone whose intention is to sub-let as a party house?

That's what Ancana takes care of, and what you entrust them to take care of. Some would involve lawyers instead. I certainly would.

You can't lean on a start-up to provide prudent legal advice and protection. Its not what start-ups are good at.

Our investment trusts are legally binding and created by attorneys. Each prospective buyer is more than welcome to have these agreements looked at by their own lawyer if they'd like.

Are the agreements standardized and publicly viewable now?

I'm not sure they should be. As a customer, I wouldn't want everyone poking holes in it. Also, seeing a new version of it, could cause unnecessary headaches (it also could let me know of stuff that's really important, but they should communicate that another way).

That said, I do like standardized agreements in a lot of situations. I just am not sure it's best for these.

Why wouldn’t the agreement be standardized at least per country or jurisdiction?

For clarity, I’m not asking to see contracts with peoples names or addresses. I’m asking to see what I would assume to be the actual terms one would be entering regardless of which specific property or others involved.

Sure, they would have a standard version of it. If you don't have access to it, it isn't relevant to you that it's standardized.

I have clarity. I don't think it would necessarily be good to let everyone scan it for vulnerabilities. They would need to clean it up more first. With web apps, even if the app is open source, the server config will often be hidden.

Otherwise, on some forums they might discuss how to take advantage of a timeshare, or how to get more out of the company managing it. Things like making extra by putting it on AirBnb or VRBO and not taking pains to avoid disruptive parties.

More access, more scrutiny.

Ah security by obscurity thats really clever.

It's already a thing, though. "Fractional ownership" is a mouthful. I would probably call it a "timeshare" unless I needed to be specific, when I'd call it a "fractional ownership timeshare".

https://luxuryfractionalguide.com/fractional-ownership-vs-ti...

Right, the fractional ownership model has been around for decades. We are making it more accessible and streamlining an otherwise complicated process.

As you can see from this thread, the assumption by many is that we are a new take on a timeshare. But like your linked article demonstrates, there are many important differences between fractional ownership and timeshares. So while it rolls off the tongue easier, we want to distance ourselves as much as possible from a timeshare. Appreciate the feedback, we'll continue to refine how we talk about our model!

To me it just sounds like you’re trying to avoid a 4 letter word. Even if your model is completely different, it’s so on the periphery of timeshares that I think you really need to find a different term. Maybe one that’s less “accurate” and one that’s a brand all its own. Might be worthwhile to learn how AirBNB has described themselves over time. Their name at least plays on something familiar but makes it different. Ancana means nothing to me. Maybe there’s something in between? Or another metaphor you could pick?

I propose: CloudHomes.

Nomadomicile

haha love it

At least the Incompatible Timesharing System offered free tourist accounts.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incompatible_Timesharing_Syste...

Make it for digital nomads who are willing to pay a monthly fee to build equity on the properties.

Offer not just vacation homes but homes that are big enough to have 6-10 people co-working and co-living.

Instead of having 4 families splitting a house for 3 months, every participant has the right to live in the house or to rent it out.

Create a market for them so that they can trade their shares. Make it easy for people to sell their shares for co-owners.

Make it international, focusing on places that are reasonably developed and with good climate: southern Europe and the Caribbean.

For the past 5 years I've been unsuccessfully trying to convince my very risk-averse wife (civil engineer) that digital nomads are going to be an increasingly powerful market. If you are willing to do any of that, let me know so that I can quit my job and apply to work with you. :) If not, please let me know what problems you see with it. I've been thinking about this for quite a while and the pandemic made it even more appealing to me.

Love some of these ideas! We are getting a lot of interest from digital nomads looking at this not just as an investment in a vacation home, but as a remote office for a few months a year. We are looking at how we can better serve that market, would love to chat as it seems like you've been thinking about this for a bit. Shoot me an email (ryan@ancana.co).

Many of the homes are big enough spaces to use for coworking, but not always ideally furnished as such. It could be interesting to tailor some homes for this exact use case. Interesting.

The rental rules depend on the property. Some of our homes are in communities with rules governing short term rentals. For the others, we leave it up to the owners to decide as a group whether to allow renting the home when not in use.

We definitely see an opportunity for people to trade time in different homes. With the affordability of many of our properties, we think some people will buy shares in a few homes and bounce around. Anyway, would love to get in touch and pick your brain

I wonder if something like this could help with residency through investment visas, etc. I mean, I know nomads are nomadic by definition so maybe some wouldn’t care much about long-term residency but I’d imagine a lot of American digital nomads would be happy if they could get a foot in the door for EU residency for example.

Not even needed. After the pandemic, many countries (e.g Costa Rica, Croatia, Malta) are interested in attracting remote workers and are offering year-long, renewable visas, some of them waiving any kind of tax-residency requirement. It is a smart move for them, because it basically treats nomads as perennial tourists with high spending power.

That’s interesting - I’d heard of Iceland and Costa Rica doing that, didn’t realize any EU countries were doing the same. I couldn’t tell from a quick Google search if “residence” under Malta’s digital nomad visa would qualify one towards any further EU residence or even future EU citizenship or if it’s just like you were there as a tourist for a long time.

I was a digital nomad for 2 years. Just got back to SF a month ago. I don't think it's going to become a powerful market soon. It really wears you out.

I don't think it is a permanent lifestyle, but I think that there will be a growing share of people who will have a stage on their life (post-College, single and flexible enough in regards to location requirements) where such a lifestyle makes sense.

Individually, yes, I agree that after a while most people will eventually settle down back in their home countries or a place more similar to their native culture.

However, imagine if such a system like a described existed and recent graduates from the US, Canada and Northern Europe went on to live 3-5 years in areas with a lower COL but at the same time allowed them to build equity on a home.

I'm your target market as I'm currently investigating this with 3 other friends. Honestly, I wouldn't trust a commoditized service for this. It requires honest discussions with friends, a trusted lawyer and a trusted accountant. I want to personally know the parties I'm dealing with because often times disputes can be handled with gentlemen agreements or through those trusted contacts.

Also using an automatic scheduling system like the one described to set up the dates when there's only a handful of fractional owners doesn't make sense to me either. Information about individual preferences should be gathered.

This is great feedback, perhaps our explanation wasn't clear. The scheduling system isn't automatic, each owner has the flexibility to book stays whenever they'd like (the booking window is 2 days to 1 year out). What we try to do is make sure that each co-owner gets access to the property on the dates that matter most to them. To accomplish this we give each owner the ability to select their priority dates before the general booking window opens

Friends and family have been entering into these type of agreements for years. If you have a group that agrees on the same property we think that's awesome. Our solution isn't for everyone. But we are trying to make this co-ownership opportunity available to everyone. Especially those who want to invest in a property but don't have a group to go in with them.

In terms of disputes, we agree that most can be handled through simple communication. Our platform allows for this. Many of our owners like the idea of having Ancana there to act as a go-between for issues that do arise and to set rules that everyone can agree to.

Good luck with your home buying adventure! What areas are you looking at?

Makes sense, best of luck! Hopefully my direct and honest feedback is helpful as you navigate your business model.

I'm looking at Costa Rica, BVIs and Medellin.

Absolutely! Your comment and another on this thread inspired us to explore extending our product offering to include people who already have their co-owners in mind and are just looking for help with a property search and setting up of the investment trust. We'll likely move into greater LATAM in the next year. Feel free to drop me a note if you ever have any questions about the search or process, we'd be happy to help (ryan@ancana.co)

I wonder if there is a way to game your system. For example instead of buying a 1/4 fraction, someone could set up two LLCs each owning two 1/8 shares. With the way you rotate the priority order from year to year, the person would get "first choice" two times within one cycle. Getting first choice two times for 1/8 each is superior to first choice one time for 1/4. For example the weeks around very popular vacation dates (Christmas) would get picked out twice each cycle by the same person.

That aside, I wonder if this model would open up some interesting rental opportunities: instead of occupying the property, co-owners could rent out their blocks of time, and get a return on their investment in the fully-managed property.

Unrelated: you say: «Ancana owners own a real asset (the property) versus a block of time» But I wouldn't emphasize this too much. After all, on the surface co-owners get the same utility as a time share: they have to reserve their "block of time".

Nice arb!

Love the creativity! Fortunately (or maybe unfortunately from your perspective), Ancana creates the LLC for each home so people can't game the system. We do allow people to buy more than 1 share of any home, so that would get you access to additional dates.

In terms of rentals, we 100% agree. Some of our rentals are in communities that have their own short-term rental rules. But in other properties we let the co-owners decide if they'd like to allow rental of the property when it's not in use. In this case the rental income could defray the monthly costs or go straight to the owners.

There is a sublte but important difference between how you can book time in an Ancana home vs. a timeshare. With Ancana you have the flexibility to book stays throughout the year, anywhere from 2 days to 1 year in advance. With timeshares you are typically locked into a block of time and oftentimes the same dates year after year. But this is great feedback on how we can further differentiate ourselves, thanks!

Your testimonial section of "happy customers" are just the stock headshot photos from this wix template. It's probably safe to assume that the testimonials themselves are fake as well? I'd suggest removing this section entirely as it comes off as dishonest and misleading.

Very dishonest indeed. Does YC not do any due diligence anymore? They seem like they’ve become a quantity-over-quality investment firm now, casting the widest net possible based on the strength of their reputation.

Seriously. Too many SaaSes getting greenlit, seems like their board of investors realized that rent collection is far more profitable than making good products.

It is worse considering this startup got its own Launch HN thread, instead of going to those threads where many startups are shared in batches.

YC is free to invest in whatever they want, but maybe they can stop the free hype threads on HN if they're moving into timeshares and similar crap.

Thanks for the feedback, this is an embarrassing oversight and was not meant to mislead. The testimonials are from actual Ancana buyers but we did use the Wix stock photos. Andres and I are non-technical founders and tried our best to stand up this Wix site as quickly as possible while we worked to develop a new website. Getting customer photos is a challenge, but we should not have made it look like these were our actual buyers. I've removed them while we fix this and apologize for the misrepresentation. And it won't happen again.

Why are you describing timeshares as if it's some sort of innovation?

I understand the confusion, but we are definitely not a timeshare. With Ancana you own real property, not a block of time. You have the flexibility to book stays throughout the year vs. annual bookings with timeshares. And if you ever want to sell your interest in an Ancana home, you can do so just like a normal home. If the property has increased in value, you capture that appreciation. With timeshares you are forced to sell your "time" back to the resort at highly discounted rates, not at market value.

That's how you sell timeshares, by describing your particular implementation as innovation, often by explicit misrepresentation of the existing ones or implicit misrepresentation of yours (describing others maintenance/management fees as expensive and/or hidden while you have and do not highlight your own fees of the same kind being a common example of the latter.)

I think it's unfair to critique by pattern matching. "What's wrong with this model" is what should be focused on.

My parents have been timeshare owners for years so I'm very familiar with the sales tactics resorts use. Regardless of how they spin it, all you really own is a block of time. With Ancana your purchase is a deeded right to the property. You are an actual home owner. Where the difference becomes clear is when you can use the property (fixed weeks vs. on-demand) and what happens when you want to sell the property. Resorts force you to sell your time back to them and they dictate the prices. With an Ancana home, we will help find a buyer from our network of qualified leads, or you are free to sell through an agent of your choosing or on your own. The market dictates what the property sells for, not Ancana. We retain no ownership stake in the property once all of the fractions are sold.

As for fees, we simply split the ongoing property costs amongst the co-owners with no markup. We do charge an annual management fee for administering and maintaining the property, but this is fixed and transparent.

> My parents have been timeshare owners for years so I'm very familiar with the sales tactics resorts use. Regardless of how they spin it, all you really own is a block of time. With Ancana your purchase is a deeded right to the property.

Most modern “timeshares” (the word remains current in common use though the technicalities have changed and the industry has mostly moved to “vacation ownership”) are deeded straight to the property and use this as a differentiating sales tactic to people's image of timeshares not being that way. I also have been a timeshare owner for years, and that's been the case with each except on in Mexico sold in blocks of weeks per year for a limited term of years because the market was largely international and Mexican law limits foreign ownership of coastal property.

> Resorts force you to sell your time back to them and they dictate the prices

No, they mostly don’t; that what is sold is freely marketable fee simple ownership is a heavily marketed feature of most. There are even real estate brokers that specialize in this market.

Though differentiating on the perception that most other vacation ownership options do this is very common in the industry.

Would it be accurate to say that Ancana is to timeshares as Airbnb is to hotels (a technical distinction without major practical differences to the end user), or would it be more accurate to say that Ancana is literally just a specific type of timeshare?

If the latter, does the elevator pitch of Ancana make it at least seem like a uniquely good/interesting timeshare implementation, or could the same description be applied verbatim to other major timeshare services already on the market?

> If the latter, does the elevator pitch of Ancana make it at least seem like a uniquely good/interesting timeshare implementation

I think using units that are individual homes with a small number of owners per property potentially has some interesting dynamics. The guaranteed ability ro reserve a (even if not the single most preferred) high-demand date each year is an obvious plus from that.

Conflicts within the ownership group, particularly over relationships to property management are very much a thing in shared-interest vacation ownership. Typically these are intense, political, but (for most owners) impersonal because of the size of ownership groups. With small-group ownership of individual properties, there would seem to be a possibility for those to be much more intense and personal, both because of the smaller group size that is involved and the greater sense of attachment/ownership of the specific property.

Because it's on the internet!

Quick UI issue I noticed - on the English version of the site, some of the text is still in Spanish. For example the banners on the top-right of the photos at https://en.ancana.co/properties say '30% vendido' etc, and the property description on https://en.ancana.co/properties/seis-encantos is in Spanish. (Also, the column title 'Completion Date' is repeated twice in the property details table).

Thanks for taking a peek! As two non-technical founders, we ran into some limitations using Wix. Fortunately, we have a new site launching in a week or so that we are pretty excited about that fixes the bugginess of the current site. Stay tuned!

Timeshares have a weird mix of goals:

- Investment opportunity

- Potential rental income

- Personal enjoyment

and as a result seem like they don't really achieve any of those cleanly and this just seems like it kinda swirls those three around in a slightly different manner.

I was really hoping for something that was more of a larger scale investment business or something.

Don't forget there there's a whole industry associated with getting unhappy timeshare owners out of the deal. It's almost always a losing prospect, it's just a question of how much one has to pay to get out.

https://www.ramseysolutions.com/debt/how-to-get-rid-of-a-tim...

Oh no, another company that creates ghost houses full of vacation Appartments that nobody uses because they are "investments". Has it come to your mind that an increasing number of European municipalities issues punitive taxes if the Appartment stays empty for n days per year?

We actually think we'll have the opposite effect! Single-owner vacation homes are used less than 60 days a year and often sit vacant. With Ancana each owner purchases the number of shares that corresponds to how much they'll use the home. With multiple co-owners the home will be in use far more frequently

Can you help me understand the key difference here between this and Pacaso (I think from one of the Zillow founders)?

https://www.pacaso.com/

Very similar model. We are currently operating in different markets (US vs. Mexico) and are targeting different properties (Pacaso is going after ultra luxury homes). We also have slightly different approaches to splitting up the properties. Pacaso only sells 1/8 shares for all properties, where we also offer 1/4 or 1/10 shares for certain properties based on demand. On the properties side we partner with developers in addition to acquiring existing homes so we are able to sell interest in homes that are not yet built, where Pacaso is only going after existing homes.

Pacaso allows you to purchase more than 1/8 of a residence, you can purchase as many 1/8 shares as you like. So in theory you could easily purchase 1/4 of a residence.

Pacaso is also purchasing homes that are not yet built, for instance they’ve purchased two homes in North Lake Tahoe that are actively being developed.

I am a 1/8 shareholder of a property in North Lake Tahoe through Pacaso and I love the model. Best of luck to you.

We're fans of what Pacaso is doing. If nothing else they are proving out the market for this type of ownership model. Congrats on the home, I grew up an hour from Tahoe and have always dreamed of buying a home up there!

Where an hour from Tahoe? I lived in Gardnerville for a chunk of my childhood

oh nice! I grew up in El Dorado Hills, off of Highway 50

Ha funny, small world. Well best of luck with everything!

I would suggest looking closely at making shared ownership easier for friends and family, rather than a complex partnership of strangers. We know of people that would buy a vacation home together, but the purchase, management, maintenance and use scheduling is complicated enough to shelve the idea.

Really love this idea. We started Ancana to make this opportunity available to everyone, even if they didn't have a group of people they knew who wanted to co-own a home. But there is absolutely room to tailor a product for people who already have a group and just don't want to deal with the overhead of setting up the fractional model and ongoing maintenance. We're going to look into this, thank you for the feedback!

Having an agreement which sets up the terms of the dissolution of the enterprise up front will help save relationships.

I have a buy sell where the partner that wants to exit names their price and the other partner decides if they want to buy the other share at that price or sell their own. And then the remaining party is free to find a new partner or put it on the market.

> Priority order is determined by the owner's purchase date (1st buyer gets 1st choice, 2nd buyer gets 2nd choice, etc), with the order rotating each year (2nd buyer gets 1st selection in year 2, 3rd buyer gets 1st selection in year 3, etc.).

That's pretty awful.

Do early buyers pay a premium? Do late buyers get a discount?

Why not do a lottery? Or an actual cash based auction (proceeds go to maintenance fees... which is good for everyone)?

Curious why you think this is awful. The order rotates each year so for a home sold in 1/4 fractions, every owner would get 1st choice once in a 4 year period. Then it starts over again. All buyers pay the same rate, the priority selection rewards people who buy first, it's a benefit for moving fast.

We are contemplating a snake draft system if we decide to allow people to schedule more than 1 priority date each year. So if you go last on your 1st choice, you'd get 1st pick on your 2nd choice. Does that seem more fair from your perspective?

A lottery is an interesting concept, but it's only really equitable over a long time horizon. What if I got a bad luck fo the draw 3 years in a row? Scheduling is hard, and we are constantly looking for ways to improve so we really appreciate the feedback!

Is there any pre-draft conversation between owners or is it all an arms-length thing where each owner just starts seeing dates disappear on the calendar in Ancana?

Seems like with a good group of co-owners who understand each other’s intentions, they might plan around each other somewhat for mutually agreeable outcomes. E.g. if Owner 1 just wants a lot of time in the place in shoulder seasons for mild weather but Owner 2 specifically wants certain fall dates for an anniversary, the first owner could (inadvertently) screw the second owner if that wasn’t communicated.

Last buyer has to wait 3 years to get first pick. Yuck.

A lottery to set the initial order is fair to everyone.

If you want to find out what the actual cash value of picking first, second or third is then do an auction.

How does Ancana mitigate the low liquidity that is traditionally associated with fractional ownership models? How does an owner get out of a deal?

The fractional ownership model is taking off, look at Pacaso's success in the US. Just as there is strong demand for the primary sale, the secondary market will also likely see a a big uptick.

An owner is free to sell anytime after owning the property for a year. You can list this like any other real estate holding. We can also assist in the sale if you'd like to tap into our growing network of interested buyers

What inspired you guys to go with such a long time window? Most of the timeshares I know are like 2 weeks out of the year, but here it looks like you get (for most properties) almost 3 months!! Do people really take 3 month vacations? And even if you broke it up into what seems like a more manageable vacation (something like a month max) that’s still 3 vacations a year!

Also, are the prices on your site the entire price of the house or the price of the share? Because if that’s the price of the whole house that is an insane commentary on how ridiculous US urban housing markets are!!!

It will be interesting to see what the remote first movement does to this. You could certainly see someone from Seattle spending 3 months in Mexico between Jan 1 and April 1 as a "working vacation"

Definitely. We've seen a lot of interest from people looking at these homes as remote offices. We're optimistic this trend will continue as people take advantage of no longer being tied down to a certain geography

Digital nomads.

As a co-owner, you get access to the property based on your ownership %. So if you own 1/4 of the property, you can use it for 1/4 of the year. This ownership model provides flexibility to book stays throughout the year vs. being locked into 1-2 week windows annually. You don't have to take all 3 months at the same time. In fact our scheduling platform does not allow for stays this long to ensure all co-owners get equitable access to the property on the dates that are important to them.

All prices are per share and based on the ownership %. Even still, the US housing market is bananas

How are you going to be different than Pacaso which has a lot of Zillow execs?

1) Some people here commenting that you should do this with family/friends. Certainly can work but people change with time. Much better to have a formal structure that will work with strangers. This will inevitably happen in case of changed circumstances of owner or family of an owner (death being the worst case. Unfortunately, most who use \a formal structure get it written by a lawyer who will not anticipate potential problems.

2) This sort of scheme should not be looked on as a financial instrument. Should only be seen as a discretionary/leisure purchase that must have use/enjoyment as its #1 priority. Having said that, we just sold the Lake Tahoe property of our first syndicate of this type after 40 years, and showed a decent rate of return after ALL costs were considered, and great vacations all that time. We had multiple changes of shareholder during the that time - almost all by word of mouth, as well as some founders in at the close. Key was getting the right agreement before getting too enthusiastic about a specific property.

How do you handle the situation where one owner refuses to make any investment in the property or doesn't pay for investments / costs?

This is a great question and we think one of the real advantages of our model. Because each co-owner owns an independent share of the home, they are protected if one of the other co-owners defaults on their payments. Ancana assumes responsibility in this case and if necessary we will take over the fraction and find another co-owner to purchase. The terms are laid out in the contract each co-owner signs

I don't believe this answers the question that was asked.

They are asking about upkeep not default

And if that owner of an "independent share" decides after purchasing the share that they don't want to do business with you? What about if they can't make it out to Mexico that year, and they want to AirBnB the property for those weeks?

I think he means maintenance costs. I own several rental properties, and I'm always coughing up large chunks of cash for water heaters, furnaces, AC units, rotting decks, and the like. What if an owner can't pay? Is there some sort of management reserve?

My bad, I think I misinterpreted your question! Each home has a reserve fund that is paid into by all co-owners. For standard fixes/improvements, Ancana will handle the work and pay for it out of the reserve fund.

If a co-owner stops paying their monthly fees, they are in violation of the real estate contract and liable to forfeit their ownership in the home. Similar to someone defaulting on their mortgage.

What is unique and refreshing about your pitch is that you're using contracts, but you don't use the blockchain! The environment thanks you, and you don't automatically sound like a charlatan shilling a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme. And you used a nice word like "bananas" to aptly describe the US housing market instead of cussing.

> you don't automatically sound like a charlatan shilling a get-rich-quick pyramid scheme

Well they don't automatically, but this is still very clearly just a shady timeshare ad.

Now where did I put my Buzzword Bingo card? I think I have a winner! What a singularly awful name, that didn't age well in the COVID era:

Crowdvilla will leverage blockchain to rejuvenate the timeshare industry

https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/20/crowdvilla-will-leverage-...

Someone's reinvented timeshares :)

Reminds me of when I accidentally reinvented a recruitment company

I'd say we are streamlining the decades-old co-ownership model more than we are reinventing timeshares :)

It's going to be a hard stigma to drop but best of luck to you and with the launch!

Agree, this is our biggest hurdle on the buyer side. But thanks for the feedback and support!

I think we should give these guys a chance. Maybe their communication needs a little work but to the people saying it's time shares in a different coat, we just don't know that for sure. Although I'm not saying your concerns are unfounded either.

Their model is unique and we don't know exactly how it's going to pan out. Personally, I think it might be promising depending on how it's done.

So, no presumption against the founders here, but what happens if Ancana folds in a few years? Each property’s trust still exists and everyone still owns their shares but they need to find a new manager for the trust? I have pretty much no knowledge of that industry - are there other companies ready to take over management of the property and allocation of dates in a situation like that?

That’s exactly how it works with Pacaso. I presume it’s the same for Ancana.

Yes, the trust remains in place and the legal rights of all the owners are unaffected. The co-owners can simply find another property management company. Even in the event Ancana is still in business but the co-owners are unhappy with our service for whatever reason, they can vote to drop Ancana and hire another company of their choosing

Just a small note: When I visit the URL provided (https://en.ancana.co/) the website content is in English as expected, but the title of the page is in Spanish ("La mejor manera de comprar tu casa de vacaciones").

Hmmm, is the dropdown in the upper right showing "EN"? We realize there is some bugginess on the site, we are non-technical founders haha. We have a new site launching in a week or 2 that will resolve all of these little issues. Thanks for taking a look!

How do you plan to handle maintenance, especially maintenance that can be deferred until it suddenly cannot, like foundation/slab issues, sewer line/septic replacement, site drainage problems, roof replacement, etc. The interests of the owners may not be aligned.

You property descriptions are in Spanish on the English version of the site. https://en.ancana.co/properties/casa-tortuga

The documentary "The Queen of Versailles" documents the wife of a time-share mogul.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LQW9Ks0GZUQ

Thanks for sharing.

FYI, the meta tags on your English site (<title>, <meta name="description">, etc.) are still in Spanish. For SEO and usability, you might want to update those to English as well.

Good luck with the venture!

Thank you for the feedback! We are in the process of launching a new site in the next week or 2 and will make sure this is fixed.

I've looked into getting a place in Mexico and one thing is financing. The only option is 50% down -- which is a big bummer.

Are you offering any financing that's more similar to a 15 yr or 30 yr mortgage?

Ya financing in Mexico is a big challenge. We do offer a financing option, but not for the entire amount unfortunately. We are actively looking to partner with banks and funds to be able to offer longer financing options. Stay tuned!

I think this is a great idea. I never understood why this isn’t a thing.

I thought this was owning shares in a managed Airbnb and you charged management fees. I agree now with the comments that this is essentially just timeshare in a different suit.

Woof, that was a lot of marketing speak to wade through to basically say "Timeshare-as-a-Service". I know you're 'different' (every startup is), but maybe honesty is really the best policy here. I feel like if you said this was a digital timeshare outright, it would feel less scam-like to the average person who doesn't know/care about this in the slightest. If you establish an honest basis of communication, then you can delineate all the ways you're different from the rest. Otherwise, this unfortunately reads kinda like a newspaper ad from a never-before-seen company.

One of our biggest challenges we face is in communicating how we are different from a timeshare. We focus on the 2 main differentiators we hear most from our customers: 1. ownership in actual real estate, and 2. the flexibility to schedule visits throughout the year. I think resale is another big point. One of the goals of posting on HN is to refine how we effectively communicate these differences, because the underlying model is very very different from a timeshare, regardless of how timeshares pitch themselves. Looking at the contract you sign with Ancana vs. a timeshare makes it pretty clear what you are actually buying. Appreciate the feedback, we'll continue to try and improve!

Personally, describing it as "own a quarter of a house" is a lot more meaningful to me than comparing it in any way to a timeshare. First of all, I'm not very familiar with timeshares except as a way to get roped into a two-hour sales pitch. Is Uber just a taxi-as-a-service? Well, yes and no. I've a big Pacaso fan and look forward to more innovation and transparency in this space.

this is really great feedback, thanks!

Intriguing idea. What does "property management" entail? Does Ancana take on the costs of major property failures, like a pipe bursting?

Property management = upkeep of the property, cleaning the home after each visit, handling of any issues that arise with the home or between owners. Each property has a reserve fund that all co-owners pay into (somewhat similar to an HOA). For small improvements and repairs, we'll take care of the work and pay for it out of the reserve fund. For larger home improvements, co-owners can put the issue up for a vote and if necessary will contribute their pro rata share of the costs.

A question to you for something you surely must have considered: why as vacation homes and not as investment properties? Is it a mortgage thing? I’d be happy to consider investing in a small bucket of houses, in some sort of tranche sense to diversify my portfolio but REITs are too large in general for me to understand the bucket and single homes are too illiquid.

We want people to use the home! Our goal in founding Ancana was to open up the vacation home market to more people. We see these homes as places to make lifelong memories with friends & family. A net benefit of our model is that your home is an investment - if you decide to sell and the property has increased in value, you capture that appreciation. There are other companies that make it possible to invest in a REIT-like vehicle, but that's not our focus :)

Okay cool. Just a product vision thing, then.

Are any of these properties available for U.S. buyers, or only to those that live in Mexico?

Yes! We have started focusing on areas that appeal the most to US buyers (Cabo, Tulum, Puerto Vallarta, etc). Most of our marketing to date has been geared towards the Mexico market but we are starting to reach out to US buyers as well!

You would probably make more money putting the property on Airb’n’b

YC shooting in all directions, not caring about brand at all it seems..

excelent!

If you ever relinquish majority ownership of this company in exchange for funding, it will eventually become "Timeshares But As An App".

Your approach might be more principled than the way timeshare companies operate. But it also sounds like you're leaving a lot of money on the table, compared to the way timeshare companies operate. And investors won't let that continue if you can't convince them that your approach will somehow make more money than timeshare companies.

We believe the market for fractional ownership will soon be much larger than the timeshare market. People want to own a real asset and with the trend towards remote work, demand for homes in desirable places is only going to increase. Our differentiation from timeshares is one of our biggest assets, so while I agree some may push us more towards this model, it is not in line with our goals or vision for Ancana.

Nice, I believe in Santa. Never let small minds tell you that your dream is a fantasy.

Your name implies otherwise :)

We started this company with a mission of making the vacation home market more accessible to people who are typically priced out. We're excited to see where Ancana goes, but pivoting into a timeshare company is not a direction we'll ever go.

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