Timeshares – always a rip-off

Never buy a timeshare from a developer who is selling them on the primary market.  It’s best not to buy one at all, but if you must– buy on the secondary market.  Resale’s average 15 to 25% of developer cost, but can often go for pennies on the dollar.  Timeshares in Orlando for under $100 total cost are plentiful.  There are always people on eBay listing timeshares for sale for $1 or even one penny!  Check it and see!

 

Here is a direct quote from my book published in the year 2000, followed by an update for 2009:

 

“When it comes to timeshares, you might want to avail yourself of some of the free bonuses they offer to bribe you into listening to their spiel, but don’t even consider for moment buying one.  Timeshare companies have been known to offer free stays at their place with meals included, merchandise and even cash to pull you in.  If their offer is worth $50, for instance, and costs you an hour of your time- that’s a pretty good trade-off.  I’m assuming that if you made much more than $50 per hour, you wouldn’t be reading this.  However, people who actually buy timeshares are like people who buy lottery tickets, they apparently don’t understand basic math.  If you pay $10,000 for a one-week timeshare (typical cost in Orlando), the seller is making $10,000 X 52 (=$520,000) for the sale of that unit.  In case you are not familiar with Florida real estate values; that’s about 10 times the value of a luxury suite-sized unit.  That’s how they can afford to give away lavish gifts to hundreds of prospects who don’t buy.  Analyzed another way, if you were one of those rare persons who actually kept your timeshare for as long as 20 years, then the $10,000 would allocate to $500 for your one-week per year use.  But you also have got to pay maintenance fees- a conservative estimate would be $200 per year.  That would make the daily cost for your week $100.  At that price you could rent a luxury suite in Orlando, with money left over for meals.  If you kept the unit less than 20 years (a far more likely scenario), your daily cost would go up drastically.  If you think the salvage value of the unit would be enough to be worthy of entering into this calculation, check the newspaper classifieds of resort areas, and call the sellers to see if they have had any nibbles.  To minimize the amount of time you have to spend for your free bonus, don’t try to convince the salesperson that he’s offering a bad deal.  He’s on a straight commission and has a pat answer to anything you could say.  Just politely make it very clear that under no circumstances are you the least bit interested, you only came for your bonus.  It’s illegal for them to refuse to give it to you, and he will want to move on to a better prospect once he is convinced that you are not a prospect.”

 

2009 update:

 

·         Please note if you put the word “timeshares” and the word “scam” into Google, you will get 438,000 entries.  That should give you a hint to stay away.

 

Not convinced yet?…

 

·         As of 4/21/2009, if there were 489 timeshares available on eBay for $100 or less; 67 available for under $100 in the Orlando area alone.  Keep in mind that these are resale’s of units that folks typically paid $8,000 to $15,000 for.

 

·         Per the following blog, http://www.timeshareinsights.com/blog.php, the average price of a timeshare in the primary market in 2008 was over $18,000.

 

·         Here is a time share users group devoted to time share users desperate to sell: http://tug2.com.  Here are some statistics from that site:

 

·         For a list of 32 time share units in central Florida available for sale for a price ranging from $.01 (that’s right! one penny), to $500: click here: http://bit.ly/3tVd3

 

·         You can also rent a timeshare in central Florida for as low as one penny per night, see: http://bit.ly/y99Qk