Timeshares seem pretty cheap nowadays. What happens if you buy all the slots, such that you are the timeshare owner for the entire calendar year? Do you then own the property outright, or do you still have to pay timeshare fees to the timeshare management company?
You would have to still pay the fees to the company - they are for maintenance of the common areas, mostly. And they are calculated pro rata per week/unit, so they’d be astronomical.
You would also be a huge fool - the cost of all those units added together would probably buy you several properties outright. You would owe no association fees, and would be able to have them rented out through a management company. If you paid cash in a good vacation area, you could make a tidy profit.
For example, last I checked, a studio unit at the MGM Signature in Vegas costs about $140,000.00. They handle all furniture, linens, etc., and take a cut of the rental profits, and you get the difference in income. Not really all that profitable, but even buying three or four of those would be a better deal than all the timeshare units.
(I never owned a timeshare, but some of my friends do.) My guess is that you are presuming that those fees are merely to cover the administrative costs of scheduling who gets to be in each property and when; in your scenario this would be totally unnecessary and your question would make sense. But my bet is that scheduling is only a very minor portion what those fees are for, and that most of it is for general maintenance and upkeep of the exterior portions of the property, much like in a condominium. Those costs would still be very relevant to your situation.
The company my parents have a timeshare with has at least one retired couple who own 50 weeks. The reason they don’t own 52 is that 2 weeks a year everything is shut down for yearly maintenance. They still have to pay maintenance fees. It’s not all at the same place either, they might spend 2 weeks in Branson, 2 weeks in Nashville, 2 weeks in Hot Springs, etc. Two weeks a year they visit family or friends. They don’t own a house.
I guess my question was relating to a single facility/house/condo/etc., such that you owned every single slot for that property. I’m guessing the answer is still no. Do timeshare owners get voting rights like homeowner’s association members do? If that’s the case, I suppose that if you owned enough “timeshares”, you could guarantee a win vote for a motion to dissolve the timeshare arrangement and distribute ownership rights to the (sole) timeshare slot owner for the property.
I don’t own any timeshares.
I am by no means an expert on timeshares, but I do have a one week timeshare in Hawaii, and I can share my limited knowledge from that. First, there are full time owners in the facility. They have purchased their units outright, pretty much like you would buy a condo (i.e. you own the interior; pay maintenance fees, taxes, etc; the facility covers the exterior, utilities, property upkeep, etc.). The full time owners have their own governing body, separate from the time share owners. The timeshare units were recently remodeled with new furniture, kitchens, etc. Owners would not get the benefit of that, as they are responsible for their own furniture, etc.
Like you say, timeshares are going pretty cheap right now, and you could reasonably buy up a full year’s worth of timeshares for less than half the going price of a full ownership. The difference is in the maintenance fees, which are a monthly expense for the owners (I think well less than $1,000 per month). For the timeshares, not only would you be responsible for all of the weekly fees, which run closer to $1,000 a week (remember I am talking Hawaii here), they would all be due at the beginning of the year. That’s a pretty big hit every January. If you only planned to keep this going for 3 or 4 years, you could probably come out ahead taking that route, but that also assumes you are able to sell your timeshares in the future for what you paid for them. In this market, that is a huge risk, in my opinion.
There is also a scheduling issue, which may or may not be a problem. (This may not hold in other timeshares, but with mine, although I have a week, it is not a fixed date; I can request any week within a 4 month range.) Although I technically own one week of unit 6403, depending on when I get my request in, I may be put in an equivalent unit in order to get the week I wanted. Unless you get your request in early every year (or possibly have an inside with the staff), you could wind up moving from unit to unit throughout the year.
Not my area of practice, but I reason thusly:
When you buy a timeshare, you are buying the right to use the property for a set period of time. You do not acquire an ownership interest in the property. It’s similar to renting. At the end of your agreed time, you have to leave. Same deal if you buy all the time share slots for a particular property–essentially, you have rented it for a year. When the year is up, you must leave. The owner still has his property, and can do with it as he pleases…continue to do timeshare deals, sell it outright, remodel, etc.
Note I may be way off base. Relying on this post may get you in deep doo-doo with most of the free world.
missed the edit window. In regards to voting, there are number-of-units * number-of-weeks sold votes in total, so your 52 votes wouldn’t take you very far.
I am by no means an expert on timeshares, but I do have a one week timeshare in Hawaii, and I can share my limited knowledge from that. First, there are full time owners in the facility. They have purchased their units outright, pretty much like you would buy a condo (i.e. you own the interior; pay maintenance fees, taxes, etc; the facility covers the exterior, utilities, property upkeep, etc.). The full time owners have their own governing body, separate from the time share owners. The timeshare units were recently remodeled with new furniture, kitchens, etc. Owners would not get the benefit of that, as they are responsible for their own furniture, etc.
Like you say, timeshares are going pretty cheap right now, and you could reasonably buy up a full year’s worth of timeshares for less than half the going price of a full ownership. The difference is in the maintenance fees, which are a monthly expense for the owners (I think well less than $1,000 per month). For the timeshares, not only would you be responsible for all of the weekly fees, which run closer to $1,000 a week (remember I am talking Hawaii here), they would all be due at the beginning of the year. That’s a pretty big hit every January. If you only planned to keep this going for 3 or 4 years, you could probably come out ahead taking that route, but that also assumes you are able to sell your timeshares in the future for what you paid for them. In this market, that is a huge risk, in my opinion.
There is also a scheduling issue, which may or may not be a problem. (This may not hold in other timeshares, but with mine, although I have a week, it is not a fixed date; I can request any week within a 4 month range.) Although I technically own one week of unit 6403, depending on when I get my request in, I may be put in an equivalent unit in order to get the week I wanted. Unless you get your request in early every year (or possibly have an inside with the staff), you could wind up moving from unit to unit throughout the year.
each state and each timeshare is somewhat different. Some , you get a general right to use, others an actual deed to a specific unit. They are allowed to sell only 50-51 weeks and you would still be subject to the association bylaws and the per week maint. fees which can be huge when you multiply by 50. Some resorts allow whole ownership and that too me would be a better deal than buying 50 weeks as it would operate on a separate association with all the whole ownership units. So if you have that kind of money, why not buy a vacation home outright, then you could recover some costs by renting it out, just get a really big deposit!