If you want a great piece of financial advice that will save you thousands of dollars, one of the best is to never purchase a timeshare. While timeshares sound quite appealing, especially when you are at the resort and listening to the timeshare sales agent, the reality is that they come with so many risks and hidden traps that you will rarely come out of owning a timeshare with even half the money you invested into it. Your best bet is simply to stay away from ever buying timeshare unit. Here are a few reasons why timeshares are nothing close to being the deal that they pretend to be:
New timeshares are always being built: one of the biggest risks with timeshares that people don’t understand is that they will age over time. As the timeshare ages, new timeshares will be built in the area. When the new timeshare is built, the maintenance fees for that timeshare are usually fairly low. As a timeshare grows older however, the maintenance fees for the timeshare increase. What ends up happening is that older timeshares usually have much higher maintenance fees than the newer timeshares. This is often where people find themselves in the timeshare trap and find it difficult to sell their timeshare. Who wants to pay more in maintenance fees for an old timeshare when there’s a brand-new timeshare with lower maintenance fees available?
If you must take a loan out to pay for your timeshare it is a terrible deal: Loans for timeshares come with some of the highest interest rates out there. If you don’t have the money to pay for the full cost of the timeshare, and are therefore forced to take a loan out for a timeshare, the timeshare immediately becomes a terrible deal. The interest costs for buying the timeshare will skyrocket the overall price while the timeshare is decreasing in value. Even if you have the cash upfront to pay a timeshare in full, it’s questionable whether a timeshare is really a good deal, but if you have to take out a loan it’s guaranteed to be a terrible deal.
Timeshares are a depreciating asset: If you ever hear anybody tell you that a timeshare is an investment, run away as fast as you can. Timeshares are depreciating assets, and you should never invest in a depreciating asset. That is to say, timeshares lose value each year that they are in existence. Even though timeshare sales representatives are not supposed to say that timeshares are investments these days, they still try to give the impression that purchasing a timeshare is a sound financial move. Timeshare sales representatives will often call a timeshare a “life-quality investment” which can confuse the issue. Timeshare sales agents will always try to make a timeshare sound as good as possible, but it’s important to remember that a timeshare is the farthest thing from a good investment.
You can find the exact same timeshare for over 50% off: It continues to be a buyers market in the timeshare industry. There are far more people wanting to get rid of their current timeshare then there are people who are looking to buy a timeshare. Timeshares can often be found on the secondhand market at well over 50% off the price that resorts charge for the exact same timeshare units. Doing a simple Internet search will produce a large number of timeshare owners that are looking to unload their timeshare at the resort you are interested in at huge discount. It is as simple as that.
You are going to lose money when you sell your timeshare: it isn’t hard to understand that if there are people who are willing to sell their current timeshares for 50% or more off what they paid for them, you are not going to be able to be able to sell your timeshare at the full value that you pay for it. It is extremely difficult to resell timeshares even in the best of times, and the difficulty is compounded under the current economic conditions.
These are just a few of the risks and dangers of owning a timeshare. The truth is that there are many more, and far more negatives than there are positives to owning a timeshare. If you ever have the inkling that you want to purchase a timeshare, do thorough research and see exactly what your getting yourself into before you commit to buying one. If you do the research, you’ll find that a timeshare is not nearly the deal that you once thought it was.
Sounds like you are speaking from personal advice. Don’t take that as bad as that’s the most knowledgeable type of advice. I’ve traveled a lot and been exposed to those pushy timeshare people. Often I’m just too busy to be bothered, but sometimes I’ll hear their speech as most will offer something in exchange for just listening to them. I’ve gotten some really neat prizes, but in the end you must wonder if the price you paid is really worth it in your time and then dealing with a really pissed off salesperson when you tell them no.
My general advice I try to live by is not to buy anything unless I went out specifically to get that particular item. If someone comes to my door, calls me at home, or approaches me on the street then they are out of luck. That’s saved me a lot of mistakes.
When my husband and I got married he had three of these stupid things. They are completely useless. We should have gotten personal thank yous from the owners of all the resorts that he helped fund. We are trying to get rid of them now, and finding out that not only are they worth nothing, we have to pay closing costs to dump them. It is the biggest scam ever and it really should be illegal. They told him that he could pass them down to his children. That’s the best reason to get rid of them so the kids don’t have to deal with trying to get rid of these retarded things.
I couldn’t agree more. Fox Run Timeshares just tried to ruin my credit. I moved and didn’t get the invoice so they turned the account over to Meridian which is a subsidiary of Interval, a timeshare exchange company. So Meridian filed with the credit agencies right in the middle of my application for a mortgage. NEVER purchase a timeshare. NEVER, especially from Fox Run. Fox Run sucks.