Research Report · May 2026
Between March 7 and April 18, 2026, we surveyed 247 individuals who had completed their first fractional ownership purchase in the previous 14 months. Respondents were sourced through three operator platforms (anonymised throughout this report) plus direct outreach to publicly-known fractional buyers. The questions covered acquisition rationale, year-one experience, what surprised them, and what they would do differently. The full anonymised dataset is available on request to qualified researchers and journalists.
Headline findings
- 87% of respondents said they used their share more than they had projected pre-purchase.
- 68% said the operational simplicity exceeded expectations; 9% said it was worse than expected.
- 91% would buy again. 43% were already considering or had already acquired a second share.
- The most-cited regret: "I should have started this five years earlier."
1. Who answered
The 247 respondents skewed slightly older than the operator-reported median fractional buyer (49 vs 47), with a wider home-country distribution than we expected from a sample of this size. The geographic split of acquired property was 38% Spain, 22% France, 17% Portugal, 12% Italy, 7% UK, 4% other (Switzerland, Austria, US).
| Buyer home country | % of sample |
|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 31% |
| Germany | 18% |
| France | 12% |
| United States | 9% |
| Belgium / Netherlands | 8% |
| Spain (domestic) | 6% |
| Switzerland | 5% |
| Italy (domestic) | 4% |
| Other | 7% |
2. Year-one usage was higher than expected
When buyers were asked at acquisition how many nights they expected to spend at the property in year one, the median answer was 32. The median actual year-one usage was 41 nights. The gap was concentrated in shoulder-season trips that owners hadn't planned for at acquisition but found themselves taking once the friction of organising trips was removed.
A second pattern: 22% of owners reported "significantly more" usage by family members other than the named buyer (children, parents, siblings) than they had imagined. Several said this was the single most positive surprise of year one.
“I bought it for me and my wife. Within six months my parents had used it twice and our two adult children once. The property became a family asset in a way that wouldn't have happened if it had been a holiday rental.”
3. Operational simplicity was the most-praised feature
68% of respondents rated the operator's handling of day-to-day property operations as "significantly better than expected." Among the 32% who rated it merely "as expected" or worse, the most common complaint was a lag in resolving non-urgent maintenance issues — typically things flagged via the operator app and addressed between owner stays rather than during them.
Of those who had previously owned a whole second home (38% of the sample), 96% rated the operational burden of fractional ownership as "dramatically lower" than their previous experience. Several explicitly compared the experience to "running a hotel from a distance" under whole ownership versus "arriving at a club" under fractional.
4. The four most-cited regrets
When we asked respondents what they would tell themselves if they could go back to the day before signing, four answers came up repeatedly enough to count as patterns rather than noise.
| Regret | % of sample |
|---|---|
| "I should have started five years earlier." | 34% |
| "I should have engaged a cross-border tax adviser before signing, not after." | 21% |
| "I should have visited the property in winter, not just summer." | 14% |
| "I should have read the operating agreement more carefully on exit mechanics." | 11% |
5. The portfolio question
43% of first-year owners said they were already considering or had already acquired a second fractional share. The pattern in the second-share decisions was overwhelmingly toward a different country and different property type — coastal owners adding city, ski owners adding coastal, beach owners adding mountain. Only 6% of those considering a second share were planning to add another property at the same destination.
This points to a portfolio dynamic that wasn't visible in operator data three years ago. First-share buyers are increasingly using the initial purchase as a learning experience for what was historically presented as a singular decision. The operator infrastructure — booking apps, transparent cost statements, secondary market data — supports this iterative approach in a way that whole-property second-home ownership never did.
6. What we got wrong, and what's next
Two methodological caveats. First, our sample skews toward owners who completed their purchase rather than those who explored fractional ownership and chose not to buy — we have no read on the "considered and rejected" cohort. Second, year-one experience may not predict year-five experience; we plan to revisit this cohort in 2031.
The next survey, planned for early 2027, will widen the sample to 500+ respondents and add explicit comparison cohorts (first-time buyers, repeat buyers, sellers exiting their shares). If you're a journalist or researcher working on a related story, the anonymised 2026 dataset is available on request through our contact page.
Methodology summary: 247 respondents, March 7–April 18, 2026. Survey administered online; median completion time 14 minutes. Sample sourced through three operator platforms (collectively representing approximately 60% of European fractional inventory) plus direct outreach. No respondent compensation. Respondents identified by anonymised numeric codes. Full methodology and anonymised dataset available on request via the contact page.
Citation: Co-Ownership Property (2026). The 2026 Co-Ownership Owner Survey. May 2026.
