The National Association of Realtors (NAR) survey showed vacation home sales hit a record 1.07 million in 2006 representing 14 percent of all homes purchased last year. Sales of luxurious shared ownership homes showed a similar trend according to Ragatz Associates.

Timbers Resorts has earned an excellent reputation as a developer of private residence clubs and high-end boutique resorts. We recently spoke to David Burden the founder and President of Timbers resorts about the companies resorts to date and its future plans.

Portofino club has introduced a new membership option that lets members participate in the increase in value of the membership fee.

Portofino has introduced a new luxury destination club - the Continental Collection. This is the third club for Portofino and complements their Signature Collection, with $1.2m homes, and the Portofino Collection with $2.5m homes.

This article compares the financial aspects of owning a luxury second (or third or fourth) home to being a member of a destination club. It includes a spreadsheet to let you compare the economics of these two popular forms of vacations for wealthy families.

About a month ago, the two destination clubs entered into a reciprocity agreement to allow each others members to use some of their luxury vacation homes. We checked in with both clubs on how this was going.

With each of the destination clubs having different fee structures it requires a little math to put them on a par to compare the cost per night. This article walks through the calculation and provides you with a downloadable spreadsheet showing the calculation for most of the clubs.

The newly public AvantAir has recently partnered with Century Bank to offer a financing package for fractional aircraft buyers.

The Markers has just announced an investment in Private Club Network that gives Markers members access to the 192 private golf and country clubs in the Network. In addition members of the Private Club Network can try out The Markers Club with a specially priced preview "experience".

We recently talked to Vicki Vorhees, the President of Premier Destinations to find out the latest details on this luxury destination club. The club has just launched its membership program in January this year and is in discussions with 15 charter members.

In a first for a destination club, BelleHavens just launched GreenHome, an energy conservation program for its portfolio of luxury vacation homes. Many of the homes are already well on the way to conversion to being energy efficient and the club overall will be carbon neutral.

The Waldorf=Astoria, owned by Hilton hotels, announced that it plans to build a 50-unit luxury fractional Waldorf=Astoria component within the Lake Las Vegas Resort in Henderson, Nevada.

Exclusive Resorts recently announced a membership financing plan that allow members to defer payment for up to 5 years on up to 80% of their initial membership fee. Members who join under the payment plan have all the other full rights of membership.

High Country Club, one of the lowest priced destination clubs, has recently announced a new Associate membership level. For an initial membership fee of $30,000 and annual dues of $3,500, members can use the clubs properties for up to 15 nights a year.