Rip Off

Does anyone really beleive that a timeshare purhcased from a developer is a good deal. Cant say investment as its not an investment. Cant say its a good vacation plan unless you want to go to the same place, at the same time. Cant say you can trade anytime you want( has to be an opening) cant say you can always rent it out for your maintence fee, cant say there will not be a special assessment. Only thing I can say is anyone who pays the full amount $15,000 plus for a new unit needs to have his head examinted. Its getting so bad that you can now buy up a timeshare for one (1), yes $1.

Do people realize to successfully trade a unit, you need to belong to a timeshare trading company, $149.00, and if they cant use your unit, then you might have to join another exchange companly. there is an exchange fee $120 plus, there is your annual maintence fee 5-800 per year, and there is no guarantee a unit will be available when and where you want to go.

My suggestion is to check out the TUG rentals or many other sites that are yelling "Rental Available $300 for the week." I dont recommend anyone own a timeshare, even if its free.

Yes I am disgrunted, besides the management thinking they own the resort and give little or no support to the owners, plus losing several weeks because you can not sell, rent, or use it, I am now willing to offer my Timeshares for sale for the cost of a good tent.

Thanks. Rentals are more economical. I get it.

I agree that it is very tough to ever make an economic arguement in favor of buying from the developer, that's why I never have.

But a resort like Morritt's on Grand Cayman where a one bedroom can be had resale for $2000 or less all in (even cheaper if you get lucky on Ebay) makes a compelling economic argument.

For $620 a year you get a week that rents for $900 or so on web sites and would cost $1600 to rent "retail". And you pick the week you want rather than hope you can find it.

So you have a two year return on investment (ROI). That's better than venture capitalists hop to acheive with their super high risk portfolios.

If you are very flexible, especially for last minute, rentals are also great and can be very affordable.

I go 4 times a yet to one of my Caribbean resorts. It feels like home and I know everyone there. That's the nice part of owning.

Here's a place on TUG where you can get rid of unwanted timeshares:

Bargain Basement Timeshares

If is wasn't for the first timeshare we purchased from the developer, we wouldn't have the other 11 we bought resale. Yes, we learned an expensive lesson, but we own where we want to go, so we do not depend on trades. You can use DAE and Trading Places, with no enrollment fee, if you want to vacation in a different resort. We have used both timeshare-friendly companies with great satisfaction. We are happy with our timeshares, and would never be content in a hotel/motel room again. We love our kitchens, living rooms, balconies, laundry facilities, and yearly trips to Hawaii, Florida and Las Vegas...thank you very much!

That Depends.

smsgt said:

Does anyone really beleive that a timeshare purhcased from a developer is a good deal.

Click to expand...

Some folks seriously think paying full freight is OK when it's to buy Planet Hollywood Towers -- The No. 1 Timeshare In The Whole U.S.A.

Who'd a-thunk?

-- Alan Cole, McLean (Fairfax County), Virginia, USA.​

Singing the the choir . . . sorta!

Most here will support your "don't buy from developers" mantra . . . but many, myself included, did buy our first TS from a developer somewhere. In my case, worse yet, I bought a RTU (right-to-use) timeshare that was only good for 20 years. So after buying for around $6,000 and paying MF's for 20 years (plus two or three years of SA's right at the end of my term), I had nothing left to own. With that being said, I am not bitter, angry or feeling "ripped off" because I did have 20 years of wonderful vacations to some absolutely great places that otherwise I would have never traveled to . . . including Germany and Hawaii.

It was through my initial TS ownership that I had the chance to sample vacationing at first class resorts and making sure that I did take time every year to get away from my normal rat race life. As my 20 years of ownership was nearing the end, I knew that I needed to find some way to replace it. Fortunately for me, I didn't buy retail (although I did sign a purchase agreement and later rescind). I found a timeshare in the area where I wanted to buy (Williamsburg) and with the same developer (Fairfield). I paid a fraction of the price I had signed a contract for and was very happy with the price. With that said, I also know today that paying $5,000 even on the resale market was probably a bit more than I might have found it if I had shopped around. But I was happy with that purchase . . . and still am today.

Since that first resale purchase, I have bought two more resales, including one in Hawaii. While you and others may feel that owning, even at resale prices, isn't worthwhile . . . I have found that for what I own and the wonderful places I've been fortunate to exchange to . . . I'm very happy and know I'm getting plenty of real value from my ownership.

To each their own, that's for sure. I'm sorry that your ownership (assuming you do own) hasn't been satisfactory for you and your family. There are plenty of people in your same boat. Lives change . . . priorities shift . . . and yes, vacation ownership is a luxury that not everyone can afford in spite of the best of intentions when first bought.

Hopefully you will find someone to take your TS off your hands so that you will no longer be frustrated by your ownership.

smsgt said:

Does anyone really beleive that a timeshare purhcased from a developer is a good deal. Cant say investment as its not an investment. Cant say its a good vacation plan unless you want to go to the same place, at the same time. Cant say you can trade anytime you want( has to be an opening) cant say you can always rent it out for your maintence fee, cant say there will not be a special assessment. Only thing I can say is anyone who pays the full amount $15,000 plus for a new unit needs to have his head examinted. Its getting so bad that you can now buy up a timeshare for one (1), yes $1.

Do people realize to successfully trade a unit, you need to belong to a timeshare trading company, $149.00, and if they cant use your unit, then you might have to join another exchange companly. there is an exchange fee $120 plus, there is your annual maintence fee 5-800 per year, and there is no guarantee a unit will be available when and where you want to go.

My suggestion is to check out the TUG rentals or many other sites that are yelling "Rental Available $300 for the week." I dont recommend anyone own a timeshare, even if its free.

Yes I am disgrunted, besides the management thinking they own the resort and give little or no support to the owners, plus losing several weeks because you can not sell, rent, or use it, I am now willing to offer my Timeshares for sale for the cost of a good tent.

Click to expand...

One must remember that in order for there to be cheap resales, there must be someone who paid the full rate from the developer. In many cases, by buying from the developer, you are able to get the time and resort that you really desire and all the perks that the developer offers not available resale. I am sure there are numerous happy timesharers who have bought multiple units from the developers.

Bill

I purchased my first timeshare in 1993 from the developer. I didn't know any better. I never made that mistake again. At one point over the last 14 years we have owned 10 different weeks of timeshare. We now own 4 weeks. Sold the rest on Tug.
I am a little discouraged with the whole thing now also. The MF has gone through the roof. I think when we first belonged to RCI an exchange was $59 now it is $164. That is a large increase. I find it increasingly difficult to get good quality exchanges.
I have thought about selling the last 4 of our timeshares. Just a thought right now.

brennumtimesharer said:

One must remember that in order for there to be cheap resales, there must be someone who paid the full rate from the developer. ... I am sure there are numerous happy timesharers who have bought multiple units from the developers.

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You are correct. I recently joined TUG, and to be honest, I was not aware of the resale market for timeshares for the past 5 years since my first purchase. Both of my purchases have been from developer. However, I've been looking for resales through a bunch of different sites that TUG boards suggest, and I haven't seen resale prices for my 2 resorts at or below what I paid (yet) for my villa type, season, etc. So I'm happy. I'll still be happy in 50 years when I'm 80 and still going to 3 or 4 5-star resorts per year on my 2 weeks.

My wife and I say all the time, that our timeshare purchases were the best items we ever purchased. We wouldn't have gone on as many trips and stayed in such wonderful locations without them. Like a previous poster wrote, hotels don't really cut it anymore, just on business trips.

Like previous posters, our timeshares have provided places to stay so that vacations are possible, with kitchens, laundry facilities, and all the comforts of home that hotels can't provide, and at reasonable prices. Yes, mfs go up, but so do room rates at hotels, and the timeshares are still less expensive, at least for us, traveling with 4 or 5 people, depending on the vacation. We had pretty well given up on Hawaii, for instance, because everytime we priced a vacation package, it knocked our socks off. We got the idea of timeshare possibilities from my aunt who mentioned that my cousins vacationed every year in Hawaii because of their timeshare. That got us looking on ebay, and we've been enjoying Hawaii, and some other places, ever since.

Marty

Secret Benefit

I never bought from a developer and now own 6 timeshare weeks. Because of timesharing, I have memories of travel experiences with my mother and kids that I would never have made the time for. Timesharing forces you to go on vacation. That is the best benefit!

smsgt said:

... Only thing I can say is anyone who pays the full amount $15,000 plus for a new unit needs to have his head examinted. Its getting so bad that you can now buy up a timeshare for one (1), yes $1.

... I dont recommend anyone own a timeshare, even if its free.

Yes I am disgrunted, besides the management thinking they own the resort and give little or no support to the owners, plus losing several weeks because you can not sell, rent, or use it, I am now willing to offer my Timeshares for sale for the cost of a good tent.

Click to expand...

I don't think the TUG top ten resorts at prime weeks fit the above description very well at all. Our rationalization to buy from the developer was for a winter home, weeks in a row, the unit we wanted, no moving, where we will winter in retirement. We don't exchange, our renting experience is nothing like that described. We paid top dollar, we love what we have, is it a financial investment, no. Is it a great luxury that we'd do again, yes. Anytime you can get just what you want for less money, great. Anytime you get less than what you want for less money is a matter of choice. Resale or not if you buy because it is cheap and you "think" it is a good deal in my opinion your taking a bigger risk than buying exactly what you want and paying for it. If you want a guarantee you can buy a top quality, prime week, fixed unit, fixed week, otherwise you can get in line.

Never is a very big set...

The blanket statement “Never buy from the developer” is just wrong. I’ve presented 5 actual timeshares, over the years here on TUG, where we bought from the developer, Marriott in these cases, and shown where we sold them for at least a break even and 3 with a nice profit – real money.

I'm certainly not the only Marriott owner to have sold their unit for more than they paid. I've read countless examples over the years here on TUG.

It boils down to just numbers – if you do a spread sheet and make some intelligent guesses it’s not hard to justify buying a Marriott from Marriott just about any time – at least for a Platinum and above weeks. The question is really how long to hold.

The more time you take to understand the timeshare sales cycle and how the developer’s prices are related to the resale market the better your educated guesses as to whether buying from the developer makes sense.

Then there are the special cases where you can get a very hard to get holiday week and negotiate special concessions from the developer. Buying a timeshare from the developer is like buying a car from the new car dealer – who the heck pays the sticker price? There are ways to drop that price and if not get other concessions out of the developer. Once they smell blood in the water they can go crazy.

All things being equal a mature timeshare resort does indeed favor buying resale over the developer. The break even time is just a year or so. However you may never get that holiday week you want.

Oh, buying the correct week is very important too. The hottest week at a resort is the week you should buy - assuming you can use it at other times at the resort without penalty. That holiday week, like a Christmas week, is expensive for a reason - it has the most demand and when it comes time to sell it there will be an eager resale market willing to pay you a premium over just an ordinary high demand week.

E.g.
A Marriott holiday ski week resale price is about 80% of Marriott's price. A normal Platinum ski week is just 60%. That holiday week will sell much faster resale than the normal ski week - assuming you set a price point that is reasonable.

DVC can also work buying from the developer, so long as you sell before the ROFR music stops playing.

I have no regret buying my first from the developer and then 3 more from resale.

The "investment" still is cost effective if I can use the weeks for say 20 years and pass them to my love ones.

I can stretch my points and weeks to about 7 weeks of vacation in a year. I need more holidays (now 6 weeks a year from work) and an additional income from a part time job to finance my addiction to vacation.

The NCV sales staff described their product as a "pre-paid vacation" and nothing else. That was post 911 when they were really hurting. I like that explanation. If the cost (whether developer or resale) isn't worth the pre-paid vacation value, then pass.

While I agree with Perry regarding Marriott, I'm watching them carefully. Much has changed in the short years since we bought at NCV.

Pat

I bought 4 of my 5 from developer, and I know I got a great deal on each one, when you consider the ton of MAR points I got and how much value I got from them.

The problem is today, you don't get the same deal, so I agree, its almost impossible to recommend buying from developer today.

Regards.
Joe

Attitude means everything...

Of course the developer never has to worry about folks losing or making money on their timeshare – they just start to mention “Pass it down to your heirs” and the subject of resales is sidestepped. Granted, using that criterion the final cost of timeshare ownership is never considered; you can justify buying ANY timeshare from ANY developer that way.

Then there is the 13.99%+ interest rates they charge to finance the 73% of all their sales. That doubles the cost of timeshare ownership over the 10 year finance period.

There are many ways to lose a lot of money buying a timeshare from the developer; there are a few smart ways to make it profitable. The steep learning curve is well worth the effort in monetary terms and vacations.


I used to view timeshares as a pre-paid expense – then I just viewed them as an investment and demanded much more from them.

For those of you buying from the developer have you ever considered this:

You would have gotten that free gift NOT buying the timeshare – make the deal contingent on getting a total of 3 gifts – the one you would have gotten plus 2 for buying the timeshare. If the gift is not to your liking ask the sales manager to give you something equivalent in value – if they want the sale they will do back flips if you make it the deciding factor. If they turn it down then they are the ones that did not buy your deal.

There are a lot more things you can do to squeeze out every penny you can from the developer – you just need to make your demands know to them.

congrats to Perry for making money on a timeshare which is rare enough let alone buying it from the developer. I think that is the rare exception and far from the rule.
Too many people want a like new, gently used car, no one wants to take the 25% hit off the showroom floor but somebody has to take that hit so there are the like new cars available.
Timeshare is no different. If you just look at ebay for example, there maybe 2000 timeshares listed for sale. for whatever reason, divorce, death, money troubles or someone just bought it for $1 and is now trying to sell it for $2, someone somewhere paid full price for that.
The developer deserves every penny he gets for his product, it is a free market society. If someone could build it better and sell it cheaper and still make a profit the would have done it already.
It is the developers/manufactures/retailers obligation to get the most out of his product. As a consumer it is my obligation to research and understand my purchase, then buy it for as cheap as I can find.
I have a fair knowlege of supply and demand. I try to be an informed consumer, I excercise my consumer obligation everytime I make a purchase. I inform family and friends when I think I can educate them about an upcoming purchase. BUT I DO NOT tell them after the fact that they could/would/should have saved a bunch of money if they would have bought it somewhere else. Everyone is entitled to feel good about their purchase, after all they made it. They had the opportunity to do their due dilligence, and for whatever reason decided not to.
Back to timeshare, The developer and marketing staff spend millions to create a nice product, then try to convince us that we need it and if they can sell it to 10% of the people (they tell you 1 in 4 buy) on tours then i say let the free market work.

tjk2134 said:

congrats to Perry for making money on a timeshare which is rare enough let alone buying it from the developer. I think that is the rare exception and far from the rule.
Too many people want a like new, gently used car, no one wants to take the 25% hit off the showroom floor but somebody has to take that hit so there are the like new cars available.
Timeshare is no different. If you just look at ebay for example, there maybe 2000 timeshares listed for sale. for whatever reason, divorce, death, money troubles or someone just bought it for $1 and is now trying to sell it for $2, someone somewhere paid full price for that.
The developer deserves every penny he gets for his product, it is a free market society. If someone could build it better and sell it cheaper and still make a profit the would have done it already.
It is the developers/manufactures/retailers obligation to get the most out of his product. As a consumer it is my obligation to research and understand my purchase, then buy it for as cheap as I can find.
I have a fair knowlege of supply and demand. I try to be an informed consumer, I excercise my consumer obligation everytime I make a purchase. I inform family and friends when I think I can educate them about an upcoming purchase. BUT I DO NOT tell them after the fact that they could/would/should have saved a bunch of money if they would have bought it somewhere else. Everyone is entitled to feel good about their purchase, after all they made it. They had the opportunity to do their due dilligence, and for whatever reason decided not to.
Back to timeshare, The developer and marketing staff spend millions to create a nice product, then try to convince us that we need it and if they can sell it to 10% of the people (they tell you 1 in 4 buy) on tours then i say let the free market work.

Click to expand...

Actually the stats are 1 in 7 for the timeshare industry. For Marriott it might be 1 in 4 and for one of their top producers making $300k+ a year it's 1 in 2. The average gift is now about $450 when they throw in all the costs * 7 = $3,150 in free gifts for EACH sale! You deserve half of that at least.

Selling a timeshare is VERY hard to do. It's just that reason that once you show interest in buying they start to weaken. Take a simple fact that the last week of the month is a great time to buy a timeshare from the developer - they have cut off days either on the last day of the month or on a day of the week - like the last Thursday of the month. Drop by on Monday and they are all worrying about making quota or want to break a new sales record so they can win a trip that they always seem to have running.

The more you understand your opponent the better your chances of you winning.

P.S.
I have stats too - most developers turn down my offers; some take it. You won't know until you present them with a deal. They are so taken back by this approach that we invariably meet with the entire sales team there - they don't know how to react to a knowledgeable customer.

This thread discusses the reasons why you might want to buy from the developer. thread

As a general Rule, buying a timeshare from a developer is not a good deal... but there are always exceptions.

There are those that will return to their home resort & week every year - for whom the exchange fees and RCI or II membership fees are irrelevant.

There are those that will return every other year, but want to guarantee what unit they are in those years.

There are those that buy early, pre-construction, and are confident that the resort will be wildly popular, and thus difficult to trade into when they want to go.

There are many good reasons to buy from the developer, even if most don't apply to 99% of timeshare owners. Not all resorts in all weeks are available as resales, let alone for $1 on eBay.

There are many more reasons to own rather than rent too, both with fixed AND floating weeks. Each has its benefits. Many of the reasons for choosing to rent also apply to summer homes - yet how many people own those? They can also apply to buying a car vs leasing. I actually had someone insist yesterday that leasing a car made more sense than buying because a new car is more enjoyable, and if you lease, at least you still have some cash vs. paying off a purchase over 3 years, even if you do have to start a new contract after those 3 years. Me, I'll just buy the off-lease car, and run it into the ground over the next 10 years, and keep MY cash too.

I think that it is funny that the OP has a thread that has a blanket statement such as this - and then no follow-up - seems as if they have other motives...

I actually purchased a Developer week (SVO) after buying 3 resale weeks (also SVO) - I must be either really stupid or perhaps came up with a deal (like Perry discusses) that made it worthwhile. You wil have to search for the thread (Hotel-based section, WKV) that discusses this experience...

Regardless - TSing is not intended for the OP who has remained silent after flaming.

The OP seems to have an ax to grind.

However, I have bought Six DVC contracts directly from Disney since 2001 and have made a PROFIT on all of them.

I bought a Westgate ski week and a Marriott via resale and can now sell for a PROFIT.

I did not plan on making a profit, I was just a well informed buyer.