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Confusing headline. The story seems to be: There's a new startup called Pacaso selling timeshares. Like most people who sell timeshares, they loudly claim they
by Lazare 5y ago
Confusing headline. The story seems to be:
There's a new startup called Pacaso selling timeshares. Like most people who sell timeshares, they loudly claim they aren't timeshares at all. Unlike most people who sell timeshares, they also ignore all laws against timeshares.
Because we live in the dumbest timeline, because they claim to be a tech company and not a timeshare company, this means they are now worth a billion dollars.
I guess I shouldn't be surprised; timeshare promoters are well known for sleazy tactics and lies, so... (Mind you, they might well be an unusually good timeshare company, if you actually like timeshares for some reason.)
- game_the0ry 5y agoThanks for the tl;dr. I love NPR, but this click-bait title rubs me the wrong way. Actually the whole article rubs me the wrong way. I wonder if Pacaso paid the writer and this is really just marketing disguised as news. Ugh, NPR, why?
- qzw 5y agoNPR tries too hard to come across as neutral, responsible journalists sometimes. Once in a while I'd like them to just call something bullshit outright. But I guess that's what got us to this age of incivility, so maybe NPR's way is better.
- bluGill 5y agoThe best way to deal with BS is to not cover it at all. However controversy is a story that sells, so even seemingly neutral journalists will manufacture controversy just to get a story to be neutral about. You see it in all the vaccines stories that manufactures anti-vax sentiment in various groups.
- qzw 5y agoTitle of pitch deck: Uber for Timeshares
- maxsilver 5y ago> Because we live in the dumbest timeline, because they claim to be a tech company and not a timeshare company, this means they are now worth a billion dollars. Well, we let the taxi service pretend to be not-a-taxi, and get away with it. We let the hotel service pretend to be not-a-hotel, and get away with it. Since no one is enforcing any reasonable rule of law, it's only a matter of time until 100% of all businesses follow suit. "We're not a hospital, we're a healthcare sharing service". "We're not a restaurant, we're a meal sharing experience". etc.
- joshuaissac 5y agoDoes Uber pretend to be not a taxi? At least in the UK, they are just a private taxi company with an app instead of a phone number, and their drivers are licensed taxi drivers.
- cool_dude85 5y agoYeah, for years and years they were operating in regulated markets where they didn't have any medallions and didn't follow rules and regulations set out on taxis.
- kungito 5y agoYeah because in many "regulated" markets the market was fixed so that taxis can have limited supply and hence insane prices. In Croatia they changed the law after Uber came to deregulate taxis and it's way better now than it was before while other countries protected the insane taxi mafias
- dspillett 5y agoThat the laws/regulations were (effectively? intentionally?) rigged to ensure high prices, doesn't at all invalidate the claim that Uber ignored laws/regulations. They are also accused of ignoring more general laws/regulations around worker pay/benefits/health that are not related to regulations specific to taxi services.
- bob33212 5y agoThe business model doesn't seem honest. I doubt they really want to buy 3M homes and sell that to 6 people at 500k each. There isn't much of a market for that. More likely they want to find a way to circumvent short term rental laws and then charge a premium over Airbnb for short term rental access in locations that Airbnb cannot rent. On paper that company could be worth billions. Then they sell it before investors realize the legal tricks they used only work for a short while.
- ttul 5y agoIt’s definitely no substitute for AirBnB. They’re buying houses worth millions and assisting groups of people to buy them together. The truth is that most people don’t spend that much time in their second home, so a 1/4 or 1/8 share is likely more than enough. In Whistler, BC, such fractional ownership is common. And it’s true ownership on title, rather than a form of rental like a time share.
- ajsnigrutin 5y agoBut you don't buy a second home to timeshare it... you buy it so it's yours, filled with your stuff when you come there and always accessible. 500K for basically an airbnb, where i have to pack all my stuff, to go there for a week, then pack stuff, to go home is pretty useless to me.
- slownews45 5y agoThere is a huge market for this. People have been doing informal versions of this for a long time. ie, a well off family will have a second home, but it's actually shared between 6 families in the family (second generation) who use it in various ways. Grandparents go up, kids visit with grandkids, then kids and grandkids stay etc. Boats are often bought in a partnership - and frankly it's more fun becuase your budget for ownership is literally 4x - so you can do / pay for whatever, cleaning, maintenance etc. Various forms of fractional aircraft ownership. Folks with money are not total idiots. A fixed asset sitting is a waste. In the house case, you want a place that becomes a regular part of your routine, a place your kids know, a place your friends start to know. 1/4 ownership is not 1 week a year. It is months in the year. You know the local restaurants, the hikes and bike rides etc. I've independently been sent hey, look at this place, from two different people now who are on this app. You can get a MUCH nicer place than you can get alone for $400K. A place you could have a big group over to visit etc, a place for families to get together.
- silisili 5y agoThat writeup gives really strong WeWork vibes. Guess we know where this is heading...
- metalliqaz 5y agoheh, great summary, thank you.
- 1MachineElf 5y agoI appreciate that on mobile the line wrapping of your comment text resulted in: There's a new startup called Pacaso selling timeshares. Like most people who sell timeshares, they loudly claim they aren't timeshares at all. Unlike most people who sell timeshares, they also ignore all laws against timeshares.
- TeMPOraL 5y agoUgh, I'm trying not to be cynical, but: > There's a new startup (...) selling $Thing. (...) Unlike most people who sell $Thing, they also ignore all laws against $Thing. Because we live in the dumbest timeline, because they claim to be a tech company and not a $Thing company, this means they are now worth a billion dollars. It's becoming a kind of a recurring pattern.
- rootusrootus 5y agoMakes me want to lose my scruples, figure out the next $Thing, get fantastically wealthy from it, and retire.
- beamatronic 5y agoPick some laws and regulations and find a way to ignore them at scale
- ggggtez 5y agoI will say it gave me the idea to turn my own house into a corporation. Or maybe I should go the "my house is actually a church" route. Oh, the possibilities.
- blacksmith_tb 5y agoI wonder what the property tax implications are, I guess the 'co-owners' all split it up somehow. I would have thought that even without any laws against timeshares per se that zoning laws would prevent what on paper are 'corporate offices' from being plunked down in residential neighborhoods.