Compare it to a real estate investment and you will be glad you timeshared. My timeshare is on the Atlantic. Outside my room is a swimming pool and a separate whirlpool. I can put my flippers on and walk into the Atlantic. I am next to a 5 star restaurant. Mine cost 9000k and is worth more ,even now. This year I catch Fantsy Fest, I rent out half and use half. The part I rent pays for property taxes and gets me 4 or 5 hundred cash. I am not unhappy with it at all.
My home has dropped in value about 80 K in the last couple years.
Nobody discussed specifics. Someone expressed some doubts as to whether such a thing actually existed.
What about fractional ownership where you get 2 or 3 months use in a year? I’m thinking doing something in Hawaii during the winter but most condo associations don’t allow these shared arrangements.
Anyone have experience with owning a fractional?
You paid 9 million dollars for a timeshare?
My objection is that you are tied to the timeshare or to places where your timeshare company is. I like going cities, and the timeshare companies I’ve looked at don’t have places where I want to go. If your dream vacation is more or less the same kind of place for the next 20 years, then I think it might be good - assuming you buy on the resale market.
We have friends who are into it, and we stayed with them in their timeshare in Vegas. It was a nice place, not too far from the strip, but still not for us.
If you find a timeshare that fits how you will use it, it’s not a bad thing. But it’s easy to get into one that doesn’t match your lifestyle, and so gets wasted.
Many timeshares are for a specific unit, in a specific building, in a specific location, for the same week, year after year. So lets say week week 9(end of February) in Key West. Great.
For a couple hundred dollars a year (I think RCI membership is in that range) you can even swap your week for a week someplace else.
But what happens if you don’t like taking a full week of vacation, every year? Most time shares have either a Saturday to Saturday or Sunday to Sunday time. But it you want to take a long weekend instead of that full week, you are kinda screwed. You may well end up having the unit sit empty for part of a week.
Or say you decide in January that you are tired of Key West, and want to go to California instead. You might have trouble finding someplace desireable on short notice.
So, if you want to go for a full week every year, plan your vacations far enough out to allow you to move around, and can get a timeshare someplace that is desirable, they aren’t bad deals.
It seems to me that you’re rather satisfied with what you have. You should consider rephrasing your question. Not “Why are inherited properties or low-priced resales a bad deal?”, but rather “Are inherited properties or low-priced resales a bad deal?”
No, silly- nine thousand thousand dollars. 
I have no idea how much it cost him, but my father-in-law has the entire year of a time share in Mexico, and between all of the family members, they have 18 weeks in another unit in the same resort. Of course, my parents-in-law are retired, so they just pick up and go any time they want to, and it’s always there and available. The rest of the family uses all of the 18 weeks, too. My wife and I have gone there several times, and it’s saved us a bundle. Again, though, I have no idea how much is costs, since he doesn’t charge us. He’s a sharp fellow, though, and didn’t make the decision to purchase year until they were well entrenched in the first unit.
It is very nice.
When we bought our first timeshare, it was similar to what you describe. (Ours was week 8, though. :)) We used our “home” week about half the time, trading it in for other times and/or locations the rest of the years. It was in a prime area, so they encouraged trading by giving two-weeks-for-one the first few years, as long as we went somewhere else (not including Hawaii, the one place more desirable).
Since then, we’ve traded it in (at full purchase price) for a timeshare in a more flexible, point-based system. We can spend fewer points to stay less than a week or go somewhere the weather isn’t so perfect, or we can even trade those points for points of a different kind, that allow us to stay at normal hotels.
I had one in Disney. After the kids grow up it gets old. But it it trades easily. I have traded it for Key Largo, Islemarada,Marathon Key, and Cancun twice. You are not wedded to the same place.
When you get a timeshare you are into a swap membership. RCI is one of them. They send you a thick magazine showing all the places in the world you can trade for. For a fee of they will set up a trade at your request. They do all the work and send you info on what to do and coupons to use. It is very easy.
Well played.
Ok, point taken.
So here’s what I’ve got so far…[ul]
[li]$15,000 is the average price of a new sale.[/li][li]Timeshares generally depreciate, but level off at some point[/li][li]Maintenance Cost < Timeshare Rental <= House Rental <= Hotel Rental[/li][/ul]
Open questions:[ul]
[li]How long to they depreciate?[/li][li]At what rate?[/li][li]Do they have any residual value?[/li][li]What’s the cost to rent a unit?[/li][/ul]
I don’t know if there are useful factual answers to this, as it will depend heavily on the specific property.
So I’ve made myself an imperfect spreadsheet. Feel free to improve it, redistribute, or use how you wish.
It assumes that you’d take some lump-sum amount and put it in either a vacation timeshare or a mutual fund that you draw upon to take vacations. I also assume that you’d supplement the mutual fund with an amount equal to the maintenance costs each year.
You can play with the numbers, but if you make some reasonable assumptions, you should come out with this general idea:
Buying new is the worst decision. Renting is better than buying new. Buying a resale is better than renting, if you can deal with the planning/trading restricitons. Inheriting one is the best of all.
I’ve always thought that the ideal situation would be for a family to buy one together. If you have parents and 4 or 5 kids that can kick in on a nice sized one, you always have a place to gather for large family events and you know the people you’re sharing a space with for a long period of time.
I don’t think I’d be interested in sharing real estate with people I’m not related to or at least VERY friendly with.
My Key West timeshare has about 32 units. After a while you get to know them. Unlike most timeshares they come back years after year. The guy above mine is a doctor with 2 kids. next door is a lawyer from Pennsylvania. There is a couple from Vancouver, another from new Jersey. We communicate through Emails and have vacationed in other places with some of them. We go to bars and restaurants and charter boats together.
The one at Disney was different. It had hundreds of units. The neighbors come and go.
Hey buddy, spare a few bucks for a new Dope server?
With the timeshares that we’ve owned, it hasn’t been a specific suite; it’s basically a hotel reservation that we legally own. We get a certain size of suite each time, but it could be any of dozens of units.
I know that sounds like a lot, Joe, but you spend at LEAST 17 million on your family vacations throughout your lifetime. If you’ll look at this chart here…
[ul]
[li]Buy used, not new. You’ll get a bargain. (Or inherit - even better).[/li][li]Don’t think of it as an investment. Compare it to what you would spend for vacation accommodations. (How many years do you think you’ll use it divided by the price + annual maintenance. If you don’t normally take vacations where you stay in semi-pricey resort or city hotels then maybe it’s not for you?)[/li]Get into a system that trades. Look for a premium location to buy into so you can trade into premium locations. Otherwise you’ll always be cursing that you can’t trade for Hawaii/Cancun/Tahiti.[/ul]