Time-Share
Have you ever been offered a stay at a resort at an incredible price? And all you had to do was spend 90 minutes in a presentation on the resort's interval-ownership program? It goes something like this: At the presentation, you watch a promotional video, tour the property, then get the pitch: For, say, $20,000, you can invest in a lifetime of weeklong vacations. How can you resist?
If you do resist, prepare for a hard sell that takes hours. These people are trained to get you to buy before you have time to do the math. So let's do it now. Your $20,000 translates to more than $1 million per unit if all 52 weeks are sold. But the unit itself may be worth only $200,000. And it's a money pit of recurring fees: The American Resort Development Association says average annual maintenance costs hit $822 in 2012, up 5 percent from 2011. The vast majority of time-share owners can't unload their units for anything approaching what they paid. If you go to SellMyTimeshareNow.com, you'll find more than a thousand time-shares for $1,000 or less. These owners are just looking to get out of the maintenance obligations they purchased. Bottom line: Get a hotel room.
