Are they worth it?

rachela19 wrote:

Are timeshares actually worth buying?

Depends if you like being pampered at a resort. Cost is alot more paying for a hotel. Low cost timeshare is the way to go. Then exchange the time and go where you like to vacation.

lynnk31 wrote:

I am still not sure, my husband and I own weeks adn points. We thought we could rent out our points to help off set the cost. that is not happening. Currently we are looking to see our points and keep our weeks. We own a business and do not get to travel these days, so right now I would say no it is not worth it, because if you do not get to travel, you have to pay the annual fees anyway. Hope this helps.

Rent your weeks and rent your points or equivalent point weeks at below market rates to defray your maintenance fees. When you retire, or the business can afford management to let you have more time off, you will enjoy wonderful vacations at reduced overall costs. Stan.

stanleyf5 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

I am still not sure, my husband and I own weeks adn points. We thought we could rent out our points to help off set the cost. that is not happening. Currently we are looking to see our points and keep our weeks. We own a business and do not get to travel these days, so right now I would say no it is not worth it, because if you do not get to travel, you have to pay the annual fees anyway. Hope this helps.

Rent your weeks and rent your points or equivalent point weeks at below market rates to defray your maintenance fees. When you retire, or the business can afford management to let you have more time off, you will enjoy wonderful vacations at reduced overall costs. Stan.

I have tried several places that say they will rent but they do not. Can you give me any suggestions on how to do this. It is reall fustrating. Thanks Lynn

lynnk31 wrote:

stanleyf5 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

I am still not sure, my husband and I own weeks adn points. We thought we could rent out our points to help off set the cost. that is not happening. Currently we are looking to see our points and keep our weeks. We own a business and do not get to travel these days, so right now I would say no it is not worth it, because if you do not get to travel, you have to pay the annual fees anyway. Hope this helps.

Rent your weeks and rent your points or equivalent point weeks at below market rates to defray your maintenance fees. When you retire, or the business can afford management to let you have more time off, you will enjoy wonderful vacations at reduced overall costs. Stan.

I have tried several places that say they will rent but they do not. Can you give me any suggestions on how to do this. It is reall fustrating. Thanks Lynn

================ Lynn,

Could you please tell us in which point system you own (RCI, Diamond/Sunterra, Wyndham, etc). There are various ways to rent your points and it varies from system to system. For example, with the exception of your home week, RCI does not allow you to rent a unit obtained by RCI Points.

If you in a system, such as Diamond you can book any resort in the system and rent the unit. If so, then you might want to check out the RedWishes and the Rentals Wanted section of TUG to see if anyone is looking for unit you might have access to.

mike1536 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

stanleyf5 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

I am still not sure, my husband and I own weeks adn points. We thought we could rent out our points to help off set the cost. that is not happening. Currently we are looking to see our points and keep our weeks. We own a business and do not get to travel these days, so right now I would say no it is not worth it, because if you do not get to travel, you have to pay the annual fees anyway. Hope this helps.

Rent your weeks and rent your points or equivalent point weeks at below market rates to defray your maintenance fees. When you retire, or the business can afford management to let you have more time off, you will enjoy wonderful vacations at reduced overall costs. Stan.

I have tried several places that say they will rent but they do not. Can you give me any suggestions on how to do this. It is reall fustrating. Thanks Lynn

================ Lynn,

Could you please tell us in which point system you own (RCI, Diamond/Sunterra, Wyndham, etc). There are various ways to rent your points and it varies from system to system. For example, with the exception of your home week, RCI does not allow you to rent a unit obtained by RCI Points.

If you in a system, such as Diamond you can book any resort in the system and rent the unit. If so, then you might want to check out the RedWishes and the Rentals Wanted section of TUG to see if anyone is looking for unit you might have access to.

We have Sunterra points (5000), 2 red weeks with Sunterra at Powatan in Williamsburg and one floater week at Edgewater in Cape Cod. What happens if you book the week and can not rent it? Do you have time to cancel and not loose your points/week. I really have no idea what I am doing. Your help is great. thank you so much for taking the time. Lynn

lynnk31 wrote:

mike1536 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

stanleyf5 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

I am still not sure, my husband and I own weeks adn points. We thought we could rent out our points to help off set the cost. that is not happening. Currently we are looking to see our points and keep our weeks. We own a business and do not get to travel these days, so right now I would say no it is not worth it, because if you do not get to travel, you have to pay the annual fees anyway. Hope this helps.

Rent your weeks and rent your points or equivalent point weeks at below market rates to defray your maintenance fees. When you retire, or the business can afford management to let you have more time off, you will enjoy wonderful vacations at reduced overall costs. Stan.

I have tried several places that say they will rent but they do not. Can you give me any suggestions on how to do this. It is reall fustrating. Thanks Lynn

================ Lynn,

Could you please tell us in which point system you own (RCI, Diamond/Sunterra, Wyndham, etc). There are various ways to rent your points and it varies from system to system. For example, with the exception of your home week, RCI does not allow you to rent a unit obtained by RCI Points.

If you in a system, such as Diamond you can book any resort in the system and rent the unit. If so, then you might want to check out the RedWishes and the Rentals Wanted section of TUG to see if anyone is looking for unit you might have access to.

We have Sunterra points (5000), 2 red weeks with Sunterra at Powatan in Williamsburg and one floater week at Edgewater in Cape Cod. What happens if you book the week and can not rent it? Do you have time to cancel and not loose your points/week. I really have no idea what I am doing. Your help is great. thank you so much for taking the time. Lynn

I have stayed at Edgewater on Cape Cod a number of years ago. It was quite nice. iI you book a summer week well in advance of summer, you should have no trouble renting the week. I am not familiar with your other location, but Williamsburg has many resorts, so that may be more difficult. Stan.

lynnk31 wrote:

mike1536 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

stanleyf5 wrote:

lynnk31 wrote:

I am still not sure, my husband and I own weeks adn points. We thought we could rent out our points to help off set the cost. that is not happening. Currently we are looking to see our points and keep our weeks. We own a business and do not get to travel these days, so right now I would say no it is not worth it, because if you do not get to travel, you have to pay the annual fees anyway. Hope this helps.

Rent your weeks and rent your points or equivalent point weeks at below market rates to defray your maintenance fees. When you retire, or the business can afford management to let you have more time off, you will enjoy wonderful vacations at reduced overall costs. Stan.

I have tried several places that say they will rent but they do not. Can you give me any suggestions on how to do this. It is reall fustrating. Thanks Lynn

================ Lynn,

Could you please tell us in which point system you own (RCI, Diamond/Sunterra, Wyndham, etc). There are various ways to rent your points and it varies from system to system. For example, with the exception of your home week, RCI does not allow you to rent a unit obtained by RCI Points.

If you in a system, such as Diamond you can book any resort in the system and rent the unit. If so, then you might want to check out the RedWishes and the Rentals Wanted section of TUG to see if anyone is looking for unit you might have access to.

We have Sunterra points (5000), 2 red weeks with Sunterra at Powatan in Williamsburg and one floater week at Edgewater in Cape Cod. What happens if you book the week and can not rent it? Do you have time to cancel and not loose your points/week. I really have no idea what I am doing. Your help is great. thank you so much for taking the time. Lynn

============== Lynn,

You should be able to rent your Cape Cod and Williamsburg units (especially if they are two bedrooms). Book summer weeks for both of them and start advertising. Some sites I use are RedWeek, TUG, My Resort Network (free) and Vacation Timeshare Rentals (free). My Resort Network has a section to rent units such as Sunterra, but a user searching these sites will probably search for a specific destination and/or resort, before doing a general “points” search.

How do you get information on how and worth of the points when buying resale points? I am very interested in doing so but don't know how points to buy. Any help?

lance64 wrote:

How do you get information on how and worth of the points when buying resale points? I am very interested in doing so but don't know how points to buy. Any help?

You also need to determine if you want a specific point system. RCI, Diamond, Disney, and others all use different point values for vacations and for exchanging. I can speak from experience about RCI, but even then my needs and yours may be different. How many vacations do you want to take each year? Where and when do you want to travel? Do you need to stay in 2 BR units or do you want to stay in high demand or Gold Crown resorts? All these answers have an impact as to how many "points" to buy.

mike1536 wrote:

lance64 wrote:

How do you get information on how and worth of the points when buying resale points? I am very interested in doing so but don't know how points to buy. Any help?

You also need to determine if you want a specific point system. RCI, Diamond, Disney, and others all use different point values for vacations and for exchanging. I can speak from experience about RCI, but even then my needs and yours may be different. How many vacations do you want to take each year? Where and when do you want to travel? Do you need to stay in 2 BR units or do you want to stay in high demand or Gold Crown resorts? All these answers have an impact as to how many "points" to buy.

Hi, We have owned a timeshare for almost 20 yrs. It works for us, we keep the weeks we want, sell the ones we cannot use. Or rent a red week for big bucks and go somewhere else with the cash. Options, everybody has different wants in a resort. Have not stayed in one (RCI) we did not like. We are on the rotating week schedule.

If you rent out timeshares, please don't undercut the market and cut your own throat by asking less than your maintenance fees. At the very least, ask what you are actually paying and some "profit" toward your original investment is by no means unreasonable. This does not mean one rental week must cover several weeks of ownership, of course. (Though a very high value week might do this now and then!) MD

My Resort Network may have been free but I recenty started an ad there and paid $19 something. Still, that isn't bad. MD

Look for point systems that have a lot of the resorts within system that you want to travel to. We purchased Wyndham because it had tons of locations we wanted to go to, and the points were dirt cheap (resale) compared to other systems. We purchased from holidaygroup.com and was extremely happy with the outcome. We have used it every since to go on a mini-vacation every month. We started out with 154,000 points that would get us a 2bedroom for 1 week within Wyndham and potentially 4 weeks within RCI. Over the years we purchased more and are now at the number that allows us a monthly weekend trip and 2 weeklong trips. We now own 605,000 points and purchased it for about .01 per 1K points.

carvana wrote:

jayjay wrote:

rachela19 wrote:

Are timeshares actually worth buying?

As someone else stated, it depends on what you want out of the timesharing experience. If you desire to go to the same resort every year, then you have the choice of either buying there or renting from a current owner. If you decide to buy, make sure you buy on the resale market. There are literally millions of timeshare resales in the marketplace.

If you should decide to buy then be aware that you are responsible for possible rising yearly maintenance fees and possible special assessments forever or until you sell it. Ownership is passed on to heirs upon death who may not be pleased with such an inheritance and it's yearly oblifgations.

Also, ownership and it's yearly obligations, can become an albatross around one's neck depending on life changing circumstances.

If you're buying just to exchange, be aware of the cost of joining a big exchange company such as RCI or II and the fees of membership and exchanges (they seem to rise each year).

However, Redweek has implemented their own exchange company that seems to be a very fair system as they assign points to your timeshare ownership and Redweek membership fees and exchange fees are very reasonable compared to the Big Two (RCI and II).

My suggestion would be to rent a timeshare where you may possibly like to own before committing to timeshare ownership, because ownership is a long time committment (maintenance fees).

JayJay has made some good points and I essentially agree with his posting except the statement that "Ownership is passed on to heirs upon death who may not be pleased with such an inheritance and it's yearly oblifgations" I disagree with that statement. Most states have provisions in their probate codes that allow a prospective heir to decline to accept an inheritance especially one that could be an "an albatross" around their neck. For example, Texas has Section 37A in the probate code that allows a prospective heir to disclaim any inheritance. Most states have something similar. I own a red week that cannot be given away even with an offer to pay the next two years fees and no charity will accept it. You can rest assured that week will not be listed in my will and that my children will be told to specifically disclaim any interest in that particular timeshare at my death.

Carvana

Carvana, I am a probate and estate attorney and I must correct part of your answer. At your death, an individual heir can refuse to accept your timeshare BUT here's the catch - if ALL your heirs refuse the timeshare, the executor/personal representative of your estate must by law do something with that asset. Sometimes I can get the timeshare company or transfer agent to accept the property back (and they'll re-sell it), sometimes I can sell it in the secondary market and sometimes, as a last resort if no one will take title, I'll deed an undivided interest in the timeshare to ALL the heirs and let them fight it out. The truth is that by law that deeded property does not disappear just because no one wants to pay the high annual fees.

points are better for trade, weeks are better to rent.

As Mike indicated, you need to know which point system you are dealing with and what a given number of its points will get for you. Think in terms of the unit size you would usually need and compare the point cost for such a unit in Red (high) time between different resort groups. Specifically, compare such units in approximately equal resorts: two Gold Crown or two Silver Crown resorts, for example. Bluegreen's Orlando Sunshine and Wyndham's Orlando International Resort Club sit side by side near the north end of International Drive. (Silver Crown resorts with RCI) The Wyndham 2 bedroom in "High" time (not Prime) would require 154,000 pts for a full week. At the Bluegreen comparable diggs would be 9,000 pts in the Phase 1 section and 12,000 in the newer Phase 2 building in Red time (not High Red Season). Phase 1 is Red all year. Once the points are set for a resort property, they remain the same, but newer resorts or added buidings may be set at a higher point levels because of higher construction costs or improved ammenities. To compare two newer Gold Crown Orlando resorts look at Wyndham's Bonnet Creek which gets 189,000 pts for a High week in a 2 bedroom and Bluegreen's Fountains which takes 13,000 pts for a Red week.

Notice that different companies use different terminology for equivalent seasons as well as having different point "weights". It takes close to 20 Wyndham points to equal 1 Bluegreen point just as it takes around 10 Mexican Pesos to equal 1 US dollar. Realistically, you should expect to pay more for each 1000 Bluegreen points than each 1000 Wyndham points but not necessarily at the 20 to 1 ratio because Wyndham has a larger number of resorts to offer you in locations Bluegreen may not have. We own with both and enjoy both. MD

Not the ones I owned. The maintenance fees are nearly the same cost of renting the places I had. The other big problem is the resale value I have gotten are half what I paid. Not a good investment and not a great savings while you own them either.

kurt12 wrote:

Not the ones I owned. The maintenance fees are nearly the same cost of renting the places I had. The other big problem is the resale value I have gotten are half what I paid. Not a good investment and not a great savings while you own them either.

"Not the ones I owned" is the operative phrase here...

For someone who buys a timeshare in the resale market at the right (low) price, located at a place they really want to (and can afford to) go, at a time of year they will want to repeatedly go there, timeshares can be GREAT. Personally, I think of it as a guaranteed time and place "reserved" for me each year for (over the long term) considerably less than I could possibly rent there (IF I could even manage to find a suitable rental AT ALL in prime time, when *I* want to go there).

That said, timeshare purchases, even in the resale market, are certainly very poor financial "investments". They will NOT accrue in value and maintenace fees will always increase AT LEAST a few percent each year. Also, buying a "weak week" with unrealistic dreams of "trading" it for something else is outright foolish, in my opinion. NO ONE gets to trade in rusty iron pipe and get solid gold bars in "exchange" (...no matter what a lying developer sales weasel might falsely claim).

tony241 wrote:

Are timeshares actually worth buying?

Are timeshares worth buying? If you are buying on the resale market (especially the $1 timeshares on Ebay) and you intend to use it each year, then yes, timeshares are worth it, however if you buy just to exchange (unless you are very flexible in where you choose to exchange to) then buying to exchange is NOT a good idea.

You have to remember that buying timeshares as an investment is a foolish game, especially in this economy .... and there are ever rising maintenance fees and possible special assessments to consider.

It's actually up to each individual and their intent if buying a timeshare is worth it.