What Timeshare Maintenance Fees Don't Do

Over this past weekend I read an article I where one of the points was "timeshare maintenance fees insure the resale value of a timeshare."

Took me back to my timeshare selling days where I was taught by management types to say, "Yes, the fees occasionally do increase.  Because if they don't go up every now and then, what do you (the client) think is going to happen to the value of the property?"  At which point my client would nod and say "Ah, the value of the property would go down."  And everyone was happy.

This is, obviously, wrong on many counts.  The "value" of the property has little or nothing to do with the fees being charged.  And absolutely nothing to do with the cost that the resort is charging for the property on the primary market.

Unlike a car or a house, both cases in which the upkeep and maintenance play a large part in the "value" of the product, particularly on the secondary market, timeshare does not operate that way.

I'm certainly NOT advocating against these necessary fees and I am certainly NOT advocating for consumers to not pay these fees, but I am tired of the talking heads in the community getting coverage for things that aren't true.

Maintenance fees are a necessary part of OWNERSHIP.  They are not there to insure the resale value of a timeshare.