Many, many, many years ago when I was a struggling timeshare salesperson, blissfully ignorant of anything but what my sales trainers had drilled into my head, I was often met with this question from my clients: “Can I sell the timeshare if I don’t want it anymore and for how much?”
The answer was always the same: “Yes, you can sell it. Let me ask you this, how much can you sell 25 years of hotel receipts for when you’re done vacationing?”
The first part of the answer was, and remains true. The right to sell your timeshare interests is part of the full bundle of rights. As to the so-called resale value of the timeshare, I never presented the timeshare as an investment and since resale value is based on many things, including supply and demand at any given time, I could not and did not provide a number, but rather reframed the consumer’s question.
20 years later, it strikes me that both the industry and the owners have forgotten about my reframing question about hotel receipts. I think it’s high time we get back to looking at the truth.
No matter what you pay for a hotel room over the years and no matter if there’s any inflation in that rate, the fact of the matter is that if you vacation and stay in hotel rooms, the cost of those accommodations is money spent not to be recouped. None of it.
If you instead choose to purchase a timeshare, depending on many factors including what type/brand involved, you have a choice to sell it when you’re “done” with it and possibly recoup a minimal amount. What is a minimal amount? Let’s use $1,500 as an example.
If you purchase the right timeshare for your needs, you’ll probably have nicer/better/roomier/more luxurious accommodations than a typical hotel room you’d normally stay at. The resorts will probably have more amenities and if you’re smart enough to avoid the oh so incorrectly named “concierge” people pestering you for a sales pitch, oh sorry a resort overview, every time you check in, your stay will be better than a hotel in the area.
Don’t get me wrong...you will pay for this. You’ll probably pay more than you would for a hotel. That’s your choice. If you believe the money saving pitch your salesperson plied you with without doing any research, that’s your fault. Generally speaking, you pay more for nicer things.
But here’s the thing; I don’t know where or when the price you could sell your timeshare after 20 years became such a big deal. So what if you paid $20,000 for it and could only sell it for $1,500. I assure you that box of hotel receipts can not be sold for $1,500.
There are much bigger issues to deal with...the restrictions that developers place on secondary market purchases comes to mind. More on that in a future post.
2 comments:
Forget about selling....You can give them away. The place has turn so getto with the free vacationers you can enjoy it.
Seems fair to give a 20 year analysis and amortize your cost over that time. Having little recovery is understandable. The "investment" served it's purpose. The real killer is the value of a timeshare after one year. It's the same thing. If an owner has a change of health, loses a spouse, loses a job - then the 20 year analysis goes out the window. Timeshares depreciate in a straight line - straight down.
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