World travel with timeshares
Friends often tell me their timeshares have changed their lives and allowed them to travel and visit resorts that they feel they could never afford. Years ago, my parents purchased a timeshare at Hilton Head, SC. It afforded them not only a close-by place to vacation (they lived in Charleston, SC) but also provided them a plum timeshare to swap for visits to ski resorts, Vegas and other beaches.
A friend with a timeshare in Hawaii relishes her time on the islands. She carefully plans her time in Hawaii and has opted to swap her place several times. She has always been able to rent it should she not be able to take the time off. Though her friends warned her about the perils of timeshares, she looks at her purchase as one of her smartest moves.
Timesharehotdeal.com, one of the largest collections of timeshare properties and dealers, has these tips for anyone interested in looking into timeshares.
Don’t Ignore Your Urge to Travel
Have you ever been bitten by the travel bug? It seems that when the little guy starts chattering, he’s difficult to quiet. But that get-up-and-go spirit is a good thing. It’s what keeps us going. The anticipation of our next vacation is what helps us get through the daily grind, and knowing that you’ll be able to secure budget-friendly lodgings wherever you’d like to travel is a comforting, yet liberating notion. That’s why many frequent vacationers have decided to buy timeshare.
Go Anywhere and Save Money
Whether you’re purchasing a vacation home in your favorite locale so that you can return again and again, or you’re looking you use your timeshare to travel the world, these vacation properties will secure you with prepaid, weeklong accommodation wherever you decide to travel. In addition to being extremely flexible, timeshares also tend to be much more budget friendly than other lodging options because they allow owners to share the economic responsibility of a vacation property.
Buy Timeshare with a Vacation Club or Exchange Company
If you’re interested in using your timeshare to travel the world, you’ll want to ensure that it’s affiliated with either an expansive vacation club (like Bluegreen, Hyatt or Hilton, for example) or a far-reaching exchange company (RCI is the largest and therefore offers the most flexibility.) While the two methods differ, their main goal is the same. They both strive to make it possible for owners of affiliated timeshare properties to trade their week at their home resort for a week anywhere within their respective networks. With an affiliated property you can explore the Mayan ruins of Mexico one year and the rainforests of Peru the next for the same price.
Save Even More When You Buy Timeshare Resale
You can find excellent deals on timeshares for sale when you buy resale. With resale you’re purchasing from a previous owner, rather than directly from the resort. As such you won’t have to deal with any aggressive sales pitches and you can often save thousands. Consider timeshare resales for a lifetime of adventures across the globe.
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3 Responses to “World travel with timeshares”
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Could you have written a more blatant PR piece for the timeshare industry? Would have been nice if you mentioned that most consumer experts consider timeshares to be a bad investment.
Why not include some of the negatives such as:
- In most cases, once you buy a timeshare, you are often on the hook for annual maintenance fees, even if you manage to sell it, because most contracts maintain recourse against the original buyer.
- You have no control over rising annual maintenance fees or assessments.
- They are very difficult to sell at anywhere near the original purchase price.
I have found that I could always find rentals significantly less than than the amortization of the purchase price and maintenance fees of comparable time shares. Why lock yourself in if it isn’t economic.
If you purchase a timeshare Direct from the resort then YES you will not be making an investment and you will end up paying to much. That being said, timeshares can still save you thousands of dollars on annual vacations if you do a little research. There are multiple timeshare forums out there where people post on a daily basis about how much they love their timeshares. If you don’t believe me type in timeshare forum in google and visit a few. Personally I enjoyed staying in my timeshare unit in FL vs any hotel I ever stayed in and paid about the same or less than a high end hotel.
I must agree with Mr. Leocha. We have purchased three timeshares–all as resale units. We trade all three and have enjoyed weeks all over the USA. We’re gathering up the courage to try trading internationally, now. Contrary to the first post, most consumer experts do not consider timeshares to be bad investments IF YOU PURCHASE THEM ON THE RESALE MARKET.
We purchased all three of ours for less than one would have cost directly from the resort. All of ours are Red time and have excellent trading power. I would recommend to any considering purchasing even a resale unit to thoroughly research the market prior to final purchase. Pick people’s brains–those who own and use/or don’t use their units and learn why, how, when.
One of our units we purchased from a California real estate broker who dealt only with California timeshare resales. He was fantastic–answering all my questions, walking me through so much; and we’d not even purchased from him yet. We did, though and are not sorry.
Yes, there are maintenance fees involved and you must consider those annual fees as part of your vacation week cost. However, we have yet to stay in a resort, knowing what our total cost was and know we could have done as well or better in a hotel–we could not. No, we don’t eat all our meals in our timeshare unit; vacations mean eating out. So, we usually eat one meal/day out and utilize the kitchen for the other meals. We almost always have friends with us (we almost always are able to trade for a 2 or 3 bedroom unit). You simply must take the time to learn and work within the timeshare trading system.