Dream Lodge Group

lollypark

No

Yes, the post by Marcus59 (the investor) sounds ominously like the marketing speech given at presentation. I was not aware of £100k investments. I was informed that at that level of investment you would have to 'buddy up with another investor to buy a £200K lodge. Therefore any returns would be shared. This scenario threw up a whole load of risk issues e.g. the financial stability of this other unknown investor etc. My 'eyebrows were raised' at the inaccurate Return on Investment calculation made by Marcus. I would indeed know how much exactly I was receiving per month on such an original investment sum of £100K, The lodges do indeed depreciate over time. The ongoing maintenance fees e.g. decorations and breakdowns (not covered by guest bonds), have also not been mentioned as part of the balance sheet calculations. The Terms & conditions did not make clear what the breakdown items would be and what exposure the investor would have to these meet these costs. There was just a vague mention. The park may have been around 50 years but Companys House records show the present director/owner has not had interests in this site for that length of time. This is indeed the 'honeymoon period' as this investment model for this particular company is relatively new. I was informed that very few investors are in Year 4 of the investment. On the subject of selling after 3 years, the fees mentioned by the lodge company to sell on your behalf were at levels far in excess of a high street estate agent (citing their level of expertise in this area as a reason). This would massively reduce any RoI you might have made in the preceding 3 years. Also Marcus59 do not believe everything sales staff tell you. I would advise anyone as part of their due diligence to ask to see externally audited accounts. It is an unsecured investment with no Financial Services Compensation Scheme (FSCS) backing. As previously stated it is therefore inappropriate as the major investment vehicle for an old age pensioner to supplement their pension. If you are a wealthy individual and this would form part of a range of investment vehicles for your portfolio you may wish to take a punt. I have also noted that there are other Lodge companies running similar investment schemes.

jimjames

No

marcus59 wrote: »

If after the 3 years of guaranteed returns you want out you can simply sell your 100k investment or the lodge onto another investor/buyer, simple as that. .

Simple as that? Really? What if there is no other investor/buyer that wants your lodge, what happens then?

If I buy shares/funds I have a guaranteed sale at an agreed price on the stock market and can have the money in my account within 5 days.

You could be waiting months or years to sell a lodge with no guarantee of the price you'll get.

marcus59 wrote: »

However their staff tell me that they have NEVER sold a lodge for less than the purchase price so once again that seems like an old wives tale.

You could also read this as they've never sold a lodge after the original sale - their statement would still be true.

Albus

I owned a "Dream Lodge" and can speak from first hand experience about how the Dream Lodge Group operate and how well a lodge will keep its value.

I won the Dream Lodge at Norfolk Park in a competition in the Daily Mail. You can see the details of it if you Google "Dream Lodge - Daily Mail Competition".

The Dream Lodge Group claimed that it was worth £200k and they market this model of lodge to consumers at that price.

Having (in an amazing stroke of luck) won the lodge, I decided to sell it. I was saving to buy a family home and I needed some cash more than a holiday home in Norfolk.

The Dream Lodge Group made a lot of exaggerated claims about how quickly they would be able to find a buyer for the lodge. They also tell buyers how well a lodge will hold its value.

The fact of the matter is that my lodge was on the market for a year without selling – despite the return being offered to me from day one being £100k – i.e. just 50% of the price of the lodge.

In the end, after all efforts to sell the lodge at this massive discount had failed, it was further discounted and I received £75k for it. That is just 37.5% of its value. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate that I was able to sell it at all. After all, why would anyone want to buy a second-hand lodge when they can always buy a brand new one?

£200k to £75k in the space of a year is an immediate depreciation of 62.5%. Had I invested £200k of my own money in the lodge, I would not regard that as being a particularly great investment. I should add that, in this time, the lodge was not used once. £125k was wiped off the value of my prize before so much as a kettle had been turned on. I dread to think what sort or depreciation a used lodge would suffer from.

In the end, I am still lucky – I won the lodge in a competition and I was able to liberate some cash for a deposit from it. However, had I spent my own money on a lodge, thinking that the cash would always be there for me and my family, the experience would have been absolute misery.

paddyrg

No

Albus wrote: »

I owned a "Dream Lodge" and can speak from first hand experience about how the Dream Lodge Group operate and how well a lodge will keep its value.

I won the Dream Lodge at Norfolk Park in a competition in the Daily Mail. You can see the details of it if you Google "Dream Lodge - Daily Mail Competition".

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.php?t=4652161 This was the competition as posted here :-) Congrats on your win, BTW.

Dallybally

Albus wrote: »

In the end, after all efforts to sell the lodge at this massive discount had failed, it was further discounted and I received £75k for it. That is just 37.5% of its value. I consider myself to be extremely fortunate that I was able to sell it at all. After all, why would anyone want to buy a second-hand lodge when they can always buy a brand new one?

Hi. Congrats on the win, and thanks for the info, I have been thinking of looking for some kind of holiday home and was looking at DLG as a kind of upmarket caravan site but definitely won't be speaking to their sales people now.

However, I might be interested in second hand if it's devauled so much so fast.

Where did you sell yours? There don't seem to be any used ones for sale that I can find, do they keep them quiet so that people buying new don't find out how fast / much they depreciate? Is there anywhere online you can view used ones?

paddyrg

No

Dallybally wrote: »

Where did you sell yours? There don't seem to be any used ones for sale that I can find, do they keep them quiet so that people buying new don't find out how fast / much they depreciate? Is there anywhere online you can view used ones?

I suspect this'll be inextricably linked to the claim from Marcus

However their staff tell me that they have NEVER sold a lodge for less than the purchase price so once again that seems like an old wives tale.

Which can be interpreted as 'the vendor controls the whole of the market and has an interest in selling new units at new prices'

Albus

Thanks.

The claims that you have from the DLG shills (these are not caravans which do depreciate and "... their staff tell me that they have never sold a lodge for less than the purchase price" are patently ridiculous. Are they seriously suggesting that someone who is prepared to pay the price of a brand new unit will, rather than actually buying a brand new unit and being able to choose their own options, instead opt to buy a used one that, at the very least, will suffer from wear and tear and will incorporate someone else's options?!

These things are not bricks and mortar and you don't own the land that they are sitting on so, no matter how well the skirting obscures their wheels, they will not hold their value, let alone appreciate.

But the issue with a lodge/caravan (whatever you want to call it) isn't just that it will suffer from depreciation. Depreciation is a gradual decline in something's value over a period of time. The real problem with these things is that their value on day one is only a mere fraction of the purchase price. The only people on the planet with the temerity to claim that the purchase price reflects their value are the DLG themselves - the same people who won't be able to realise anything like that purchase price when you come to sell one on.

Paddyrg is correct when he says that the DLG contol the whole of the market - but it's not just the market in new lodges. They also control the secondary market, to the extent that there are even any buyers to form one.

When you decide to sell what are your options? You could go to an estate agent but, as noted above, property doesn't typically come on wheels, so it's hardly ideal. I suppose that you could stick it on ebay but, again, that doesn't seem like a particularly appropriate forum and, in any event, you will still find that, on top of what you owe your estate agent or auction site, the DLG will take, as its fee, a percentage of the sales price which goes into double figures.

So effectively, you have little real choice but to sell using the DLG themselves as your agent - which is a completely opaque process. You won't see individual units marketed anywhere and they will not tell you anything about the sales price. They tell you how much you will receive from the sale (if indeed it can be sold at all) but not how much it will be sold for or how much they themselves are pocketing from the deal. In my case, they initially told me that I would get £100k (just 50% of its supposed value) but clearly even that vast reduction was insufficient to bring in a buyer. So far I have received just £75k from the sale of my brand new, unused "£200k" lodge, with the DLG point blank refusing to provide any details about how much it was sold for and what they have themselves pocketed from it. According to them, this is ok because they claim that the marketing guy used by the Daily Mail agreed this figure on my behalf, which of course he completely denies.

So anyway, you are unlikely to find a used lodge to be a bargain because, whatever the seller ends up receiving, the price will be inflated horribly by the DLG's cut. Bear in mind that you will also have to pay site fees to the DLG and these can comfortably top £4,000 a year.

Albus

By the way, I see that the Facebook protest page is back up now.

As a newbie, I can't post links but if you Google facebook "dream lodge protest group", it should come up.

doe808

No

I can.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Dream-Lodge-Protest-Group/840103709384704?fref=ts

Dallybally

And that was iPad grammar on "there" or my fat fingers I think