Two Silicon Valley attorneys, Trina and Philip O, discuss why they invested in Equity Residences.

It's interesting to learn how they first came across Equity Residences. Trina was looking on VRBO for a vacation rental in Maui and came across the Equity Residences villa. As she looked into the company that owned the villa, she and Philip became interested in the company and started to do their due diligence for investing, noting:

I actually did a lot of research on other funds as well, that have done similar things, but I think this fund, equity residences is totally different from the others because of the focus not only on providing amazing luxury vacation experiences, but also on the economics and the returns to investors, so the fact that we don't have an annual operating fee and they rent the properties out when they are not in use by partners, was a very compelling reason for us. The other funds in this space do not do that.

Investment

Philip discussed his views on the fund structure:

I think the sort of introspective thinking they've done about how the fund should work, and making sure that if you don't have time to take a vacations they will even continue to kind of pay you a dividend, is really a creative approach to getting investors to put their money into a partnership like this. Even if they are not going to be able to maximize their vacationing. And so by providing an economic return through a dividend in lieu of taking vacation weeks, it's really a creative approach in my mind to making the economics work for everybody.

Philip really summed up his views on the investment aspect by saying:

I just encourage people to check it out, you know, it depends on what's the best fit for you, but when we're looking for a different way to vacation, this was interesting to us because we're going to pay someone anyway, to vacation, whether it's a hotel or you know getting a place on VRBO. So to the extent that we could use our investment, leverage our investment and get it to be less expensive to be able to stay in a place but also enjoy much nicer places.

The Vacations

In talking about their vacations at the fund homes, Trina states:

The opportunity for us to invite family and friends, to vacation with us, you know it's sort of my dream, but before equity residences it was hard to make it happen, because everybody had a different opinion or idea on where they wanted to go and how much we should spend. And now for us we can now say, hey we have got these great properties come join us, you don't have to spend a dime on lodging and so that's made it a lot easier for us to connect with family and friends.

And commenting specifically on their stay at the funds Park City residence:

Park City is fantastic, there's I think 6 bedrooms on over 4 or 5 different floors. We cooked meals, we were there for a week, 6 out of 7 nights we cooked and we took turns cooking. Had great conversations around the dinner table, which seats 10 or 12. So It was fantastic, really good experience.

Watch the full interviews in the video above.