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Comment by mbesto | Hacker News Reader

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.

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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)

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

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