Wednesday, December 28, 2011

What is the Value of a "Used" Timeshare?

Yeah, I hate the term "used timeshare" as much as anyone, but for now, it will have to suffice.

If you spend any time reading timeshare group forums or any of the so-called "consumer experts'" columns out there, you would think that a "used" timeshare is worth next to nothing and that they are next to impossible to sell.

Wrong on both counts.  I'm talking about an "average" timeshare here, by the way not some renovated motel on the East Coast of Florida that hasn't been properly maintained in 10 or 12 years.

Many years ago when I was a salesperson and blissfully naive in the ways of timeshare, I held fast to the thought that "if you bought a timeshare 10 years ago for $15,000 and then sold it to someone 10 years younger than you, the timeshare should still be "worth" close to the $15,000 because they will get years of vacation out of it."

Naive perhaps, but when you look at what a timeshare is and how it should be used, there's nothing wrong with that logic.

Somewhere in the history of timeshare, it was "decreed" that timeshares don't hold their value and that they aren't worth anything on the resale market. 

I have yet to figure out who "decreed" that and more importantly, why everyone today clings to that decree.

Everyone in the industry; developers, government agencies, legitimate resellers, owners groups, HOAs, individual owners and writers and bloggers need to band together and come up with a new "decree."

Who is with me?

1 comment:

Dubai said...

You could have purchased a timeshare after you had a distinct approach for by yourself or your family while in the past. As time goes on, situation adjust and you also may not want that timeshare in any way.