Welcome to All Deer Ridge Owners

Welcome to all owners of Deer Ridge Mountain Resort condos in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

My goal is to help all Deer Ridge owners to have a voice in the management and operation of your property.

Click on the TITLES of any of the following subjects to read the whole posting - and see the comments made by your co-owners. You can also type any term into the below search box, or any word or term in the search cloud.

Click the big image at the top of the page to return to the front page at any time.

Investment Analysis For A Rental Condo At Deer Ridge


Will you really lose $40,000 cash if you buy a rental condo at Deer Ridge and use Ridge Management Ltd?

Click To Download!

As an owner-occupied home, Deer Ridge is an incredible value with THE best view in the Smokies and great amenities.

However, several owners and would-be owners of Deer Ridge condos have asked me if these units are a good rental property investment or not. To help answer that question objectively, I had to analyze the real moving parts of buying and owning here.

Get my complete, detailed investment analysis based on buying a rental condo unit at Deer Ridge Mountain Resort in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

It shows what you MUST do to make money when you buy a rental unit at Deer Ridge.

Just click the picture or click Investment Analysis

Gross Negligence – Or Is It Fraud?

Legalese On

GENERAL DISCLAIMER FOR ALL PAGES AND POSTS

Note: The following, and the information on any and all other posts and pages by me about General Manager Joe Thomas, GGRC, RML and /or the Board of Directors and its members, or any related topics, are my personal opinions based on my ongoing investigation into the actions and inactions of the GGRC and RML Board of Directors and / or Joe Thomas, General Manager.

While I believe these allegations to be true based on my objective analysis, these opinions remain as only allegations until I, or others, prove things in court.

My goal is to offer all owners all the information and evidence that I have available so that everyone can reach their own conclusions.

Legalese - And Powered Wig - Off

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Every Dollar You Pay For Deer Ridge Is The WRONG Amount!

Please read the various posts here on this Deer Ridge Owners Blog - and see my evidence and analysis which I believe shows conclusively that EVERY dollar of HOA Fees, EVERY dollar EVERY special assessment, EVERY water bill and cable TV sent out for YEARS to ALL Deer Ridge Owners has been wrong!

In many cases at least ONE THIRD of ALL owners have been GROSSLY overcharged. My calculations show that I have been overcharged more than TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS in the past 50 months I've owned at Deer Ridge.

The Board has been WRONGLY and arbitrarily ignoring the requirements of the Master Deed and the Bylaws for YEARS.

If my analysis is correct, the Board has zero choice. They MUST abide by the Master Deed Percentages.

But they haven’t.

However, if the Board knowingly ignored the clear directives of the Master Deed and the Bylaws when allocating costs to various unit types, and overcharging certain unit types on a regular basis, my opinion is that the Board and Joe Thomas may have acted fraudulently.

If they have not been fraudulent, then they have been, at the very least, grossly negligent.

Read the various blog postings - and judge for yourself.

"We do not believe any group of men adequate enough or wise enough to operate without scrutiny or without criticism. We know that the only way to avoid error is to detect it, that the only way to detect it is to be free to inquire. We know that in secrecy error undetected will flourish and subvert." — J. Robert Oppenheimer. This includes the Board of Directors of Deer Ridge Mountain Resort.


Deer Ridge Rentals - How Well Did YOUR Condo Unit Rent in 2009 Using RML?

Did you rent your Deer Ridge Mountain Resort unit through Ridge Management Ltd., RML, for all of 2009?

Wonder how your unit’s performance stacked up against the other units for rental?  Well, here’s a chance to find out.

An owner of one of the 2-2 units at Deer Ridge provided me a copy of their year end RML statement.  Here’s what their numbers looked like for 2009 (used here with their permission):

2009 RML Performance for One 2-2 Unit


A Quick Analysis

  • Owner X had gross rental income on their unit of $14,454 for all of 2009.
  • In December, the income was $456 for 6 rental nights according to the above information.  This works out to an average nightly rental rate of $76.
  • Since this is a 2-2, let’s assume that the average nightly rental was $105 per night across the whole year.
  • This means that for $14,454 of gross income, this unit was rented for about 138 nights out of the 365 nights in a year.
  • This means that this unit saw an economic occupancy of only 37.7% – or conversely, a vacancy rate of 62.3% for the year.
  • These numbers are consistent with the entire Deer Ridge property as a whole, which has suffered from an average annual economic occupancy of only 39% for the past 8 years under the very questionable leadership of General Manager Joe Thomas.

Is Deer Ridge A Good Investment? / Bad Investment?

  • Owner X saw distributions for the whole year of $4,504.  This works out to an average monthly check to them of about $375 per month.
  • From this distribution, Owner X had to also pay:  Sevier County taxes, electricity, content and liability insurance, HOA fees and other maintenance from wear and tear and theft.  All of this added up to about an additional carrying cost of about $5,800 for the year.
  • This means, that Owner X lost about $1,300 for the year – not counting debt service.  This also does not include the costs for any of the thousands of dollars the board is requiring for the upcoming Asinine Assessment.
  • If the monthly mortgage payment was $320 per month, then the total LOSS for the year for Owner X was over $5,000!
  • If Owner X keeps their unit for 10 years – and these same trends continue, this means that the aggregate loss for them will exceed $50,000!

Does this make it a good investment – or a bad investment for owning a condo at Deer Ridge?

The answer to that is not quite so black and white – and needs a much more in depth analysis to reach a valid conclusion.

Because so many owners, and prospective buyers, want to know if Deer Ridge is a good or bad investment, my next post will be a comprehensive analysis and downloadable document – so you will finally KNOW the answer!

How Did YOUR Unit Compare to Owner X?

In the meantime, how did your unit stack up to Owner X?  What was your economic occupancy rate with RML?  How much did you REALLY end up making or losing on your investment in Deer Ridge when you count all the costs?

Please comment below – and stay tuned for the next post!


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