Buying a Timeshare

Resort Timeshare Purchases

When purchasing from a Resort you actually buy the unit from the Developer. Developers are sometimes poorly financed, marginal operations, all the way to well-known corporations such as Hilton, Marriott, or Disney.

Most times a developer will hire a company that specializes in timeshare sales to market and sell the intervals to buyers. These companies will use financial incentives to people who attend these sales presentations. The incentives range from Gift Certificates to Free tickets to other amenities.

The marketing of a timeshare can cost close to 50% of the developers sale price. This might sound very shocking but a respected timeshare resort can easily support these costs. Consider this if the developer can build and furnish a unit for $150,000. By separating the unit into 50 one-week intervals he has a gross sale of $500,000 per unit. If half of this value is advertising ($250,000) and the cost to build was $150,000 that puts the cost per unit at $400,000 leaving $100,000 profit on each unit.

Advertising is very expensive and most people do not realize that this cost is transferred into the price you pay at the resort. This often makes it very hard to sell the unit after the fact. Consider this, if the unit actually cost $150,000 to build and the builder has a profit margin of $100,000 that puts the true cost of 50 units at $250,000 or $5000 per unit. If you purchase the property for $10,000 that means they are adding in $5000 in advertising cost into your property. As you can imagine when you go to resell the property you will most likely not get $10,000 for your resort.

In the next section we are going to talk about the timeshare resale market. On the resale market most resorts are priced under what the resorts are asking, this is to ensure a quick sale.

Timeshare Purchases from the Resale Market

When purchasing a timeshare on the resale market you are making the best decision you possibly can. The reasons are timeshares on the resale market can not include the advertising cost in the sale price. The main reason they can’t is because nobody on the resale market is going to want to pay for it. Some resorts will be priced at what the resort sells them for but this is usually because it is a top notch resort or supply of the resort is limited.

Vacation Property Resale’s has many great deals on time share resorts for sale and rent. If you are new to the time share industry and don’t know what you are getting we encourage you to rent a timeshare to see how you like it. If you are interested in purchasing a timeshare on the resale market you are going to get a great deal and save yourself thousands of dollars compared to buying from the resort.

Vacation Property Resale’s does offer buyer financing so if this is needed we can help you with the process. We also provide a closing company to take care of all the paperwork and transferring of the title.

What timeshare should I buy?

There are so many options when buying a timeshare these days that is can often be confusing. We are going to run down some of the options you have to help make your decision a little easier.

Fixed week

When you purchase a timeshare resort on a fixed week you really have to be sure that this week is a week that you can vacation on every year. Most times Fixed week units are on holidays like New Years. These units usually sell for a premium because having a locked week on a holiday.

Floating Week

The most popular option when buying a timeshare is the Floating week. This allows you each year to decide on what week you want to vacation. Because of this you must remember to make your reservations well in advance.

Membership or Vacation clubs or points programs

This has become an increasingly more popular option in the past few years. This is similar to a Floating week however your options expand to what resort you are interested in vacationing at.

Deeded units “vs.” Right-to-Use units

With a deeded property you have full ownership of that week or fraction of a unit. This also allows you to pass it down to your heirs and gives you more of a legal right to the resort incase something happens with the developer you would still have ownership. With a Right-to-use unit you lose some legal right to the property if the developer goes bankrupt. Also right-to-use units are only yours for a set period of time, so make sure you check how many years are left on the Lease.

Timeshare Lockout Units

With a timeshare lockout unit the floor plan allows you to lock a door and separate the unit into 2 separate subunits. This gives you great flexibility because you can split your unit and only use one part of it in a given year and bank the other section with an exchange company. This also means you can vacation at the resort for 2 weeks during the year instead of 1.