Villa La Estancia, Cabo

We are looking for an owner that is willing to do an exchange or possibly rent us the A side (1 bedroom) for the week of October 13 – October 20, 2007. We would be willing to trade our week of July 14 – 21 or are willing to rent. If you interested please contact Dick Zitzow at cz3871@alaska.net.

Labels: Trade weeks

Interesting facts regarding your “Home by the Sea” and the developer (Villa Group)

By way of introduction, my name is Don Widdifield, my wife Joni and I are fellow owners at Villa La Estancia. Some of you we have met, others we have not, we look forward to meeting everyone. We are not currently affiliated with any group other then a HOA with, hopefully, complete solidarity.
We absolutely love our home at VLE, there are many really great things about OUR resort, every time we leave we can not wait to get back, but have some concerns about the way it is being managed by the developer, (Villa Group).

We have worked with other owners in the past regarding many of the issues related to management of our homes. In the last few months we have been on the outside of the process looking in, and below are some of the issues we have seen.

Maybe you have other issues that are not on list?

Did you know?

• The Villa Group has started selling “all inclusive passes” to Villa Del Palmar and Villa Del Arco guests, to use our pools and decks, swim up bar and La Parilla restaurant, (the developer keeps proceeds).
  
• The Villa Group is extending the restaurant La Parrilla onto more of the common area pool deck, see above issue, (owner property), without reimbursement, creating less deck chair area for owners.
  
• The Villa Group agreed to many common sense homeowners rights in our December Homeowners meeting, and have now reneged on all agreements, including declaring the elected Homeowners board invalid.
  
• The Villa Group now owns only approximately 10% of the Villas, but controls 100% of the resort, (owner Vigilance committee have all resigned due to non-compliance with rules by Villa Group).
  
• The Villa Group held back Christmas bonus from employees that work for homeowners, (paid by all of us), until the homeowners demanded that OUR employees be paid their money.
  
  My intent is not hope for a removal of the Villa Group, as they do have expertise in resort development and management. I only want to inform other owners that may not be aware of issues, and to hopefully transition from the developer control to homeowners control ASAP.
  
  Our resort is an incredibly beautiful place and I want to see it remain that way, under the democracy of a real HOA.

Someone mentioned to me that a new restaurant in town, Puerto San Lucas, is owned by the family of a VLE employee -- Carla, the pool area supervisor. You'll recognize Carla around the pool; she's the nice lady wearing a distinctive straw hat.

I had a chance to try out Puerto San Lucas tonight and had an great dinner of rib-eye steak and lobster. The atmosphere of the restaurant is very nice and the dinner was amazing. Prices are reasonable (for Cabo) and the service was excellent. The restaurant is easily on-par, if not above-par, compared with most of the well-known restaurants in the area.

The restaurant is located just north of Pepe's and Zapata restaurants, on 20 November. From Zapata, head north a block and then east one block. Plenty of parking, as the restaurant is off the main drag.

I'm glad I could give a good mention of the restaurant on the blog.

I have written a new newsletter, and have e-mailed it to the folks who are listed in the voluntary owners directory. I have also posted it here. You can post a note in response by clicking on comment below.

If you will be at VLE during June and would be interested in hooking up with other owners, please enter your schedule as a comment to this post. This will help owners to plan social gatherings, etc. and will contribute to a sense of community at VLE.