Chapter 12
Find Your Special Timeshare

Where can you find a time­share? There are many places. And if you let it be known at enough places that you are con­tem­plat­ing buy­ing a time­share, a num­ber of time­share sell­ers may find you.

Resort Developers

Devel­op­ers of time­share resorts typ­i­cal­ly have an ongo­ing sales efforts that pro­vide incen­tives to vis­it and get a sales pitch. It’s just a mat­ter of answer­ing an ad or get­ting a phone num­ber and mak­ing a call. That’s how most peo­ple find a timeshare.

Resale Market

After one buys a time­share from a resort devel­op­er and needs to sell it, what is one to do? Well one sells the time­share into the sec­ondary mar­ket. This is also called the after mar­ket or resale mar­ket. The resale mar­ket is an idea; it’s not a place or enti­ty. Con­se­quent­ly, the resale mar­ket can take on many configurations.

The resale mar­ket might be online, in a local Realtor’s office, at a resort, or in the local news­pa­per. It’s sim­ply wher­ev­er time­share own­ers rou­tine­ly sell timeshares.

The con­cept of the used or pre­owned time­share does­n’t make any sense. I sup­pose when you buy a time­share in a new time­share resort from the resort devel­op­er you are buy­ing a new time­share. But devel­op­ers take back time­shares all the time in fore­clo­sure and through oth­er pro­ce­dures. They then sell such time­shares again at full price. At that point I sup­pose you could label them as used time­shares or pre­owned time­shares. In fact, time­shares are nev­er char­ac­ter­ized as new, used, or pre­owned. They are sim­ply time­shares rep­re­sent­ing a cer­tain peri­od of time each year that one has a right to use a unit in the time­share resort. Thus, it does­n’t mat­ter whether you buy a time­share from the resort devel­op­er or buy it from an indi­vid­ual on the resale market.

The impor­tant thing to remem­ber is to buy it in a legal­ly safe man­ner. Your best chance of being assured of buy­ing it safe­ly is to have it the trans­ac­tion closed by a firm spe­cial­iz­ing in time­shares closings.

The main point to take away from this dis­cus­sion is that a time­share you pur­chase on the resale mar­ket is just as good as time­share pur­chase from a resort devel­op­er. When buy­ing from a resort devel­op­er, you can usu­al­ly be assured that the time­share is free and clear legal­ly and comes to you with noth­ing that would inter­fere with your rights. This is par­tic­u­lar­ly true of the big resort devel­op­er chains.

When buy­ing from an indi­vid­ual in the resale mar­ket, you do not have these assur­ances. You need to do a lit­tle bit of inves­ti­ga­tion on your own to make sure that you are going to get a time­share that is free and clear and comes with no legal prob­lems that would inter­fere with your rights. Such an inves­ti­ga­tion is called due dili­gence. Although an escrow firm can do part of your due dili­gence, you’ll have to do the remain­der your­self or hire an attor­ney to do it. There­fore, you need to read the sec­tion on due dili­gence in Chap­ter 13, which out­lines some of the infor­ma­tion you will need to ensure that you are not buy­ing a time­share with liabilities.

You will find resellers on web­sites (and in var­i­ous locales) who have pur­chased time­shares from indi­vid­u­als and are reselling them to the gen­er­al pub­lic and col­lect­ing a mod­est prof­it for doing so. Many of these sell­ers have done dozens or even hun­dreds of trans­ac­tions with­out com­plaints, and you can rely upon what they tell you. If they make mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tions to you and com­mit fraud, they are crim­i­nal­ly liable. The best way to sep­a­rate the hon­est from the dis­hon­est is to look at their cus­tomer rat­ings on such web­sites as eBay. Or you can inquire as to their rep­u­ta­tions in local markets.

Unfor­tu­nate­ly, there is an over­abun­dance of dis­hon­est peo­ple work­ing the time­share mar­kets. Most of the fraud in the time­share busi­ness is com­mit­ted by oper­a­tors who offer to sell your time­share for you for a fee. Con­se­quent­ly, you don’t have to wor­ry as much when you’re buy­ing a time­share as you do when you’re a seller.

If you buy a time­share in the resale mar­ket, you may not get the same bas­ket of ben­e­fits as some­one who buys direct­ly from the resort devel­op­er. Chap­ter 15 cov­ers this in more detail.

What to Look For

The first thing to look for in a time­share is some­thing that sat­is­fies your vaca­tion needs. The sec­ond thing to look for is some­thing that sat­is­fies your secu­ri­ty needs; that is, legal arrange­ments that are sound and secure.

Vacation Considerations

Ques­tions to ask:

1. Is it a nice resort, one that meets your stan­dards of luxury?
2. Is it with­in rea­son­able trav­el­ing dis­tance? What’s the trans­porta­tion expense in get­ting there? What are the alter­na­tive means of trans­porta­tion? Will you be able to afford the trans­porta­tion even if your income declines? Do you need a car at the resort locale?
3. What are the local vaca­tion ameni­ties.? What are the ameni­ties you can use now, and what are the ameni­ties you can use lat­er when your lifestyle changes?
4. What flex­i­bil­i­ty is offered by the time­share resort? Can you exchange your time­share annu­al week (free or for nom­i­nal cost) into a week at anoth­er resort with­in the chain? Does the resort belong to one of the exchange ser­vices? Does the resort have a point system?
5. Is a resort in a locale where your vaca­tion lifestyle will fit in?
6. Are there local activ­i­ties and orga­ni­za­tions which cater to your inter­ests and pro­vide you with oppor­tu­ni­ties for mak­ing new friends?
7. All things con­sid­ered (eat­ing, drink­ing, sleep­ing, trans­porta­tion, and activ­i­ties) what will a week at the resort cost you?
8. Does the resort accom­mo­date the use and stor­age of any recre­ation­al equip­ment you use? For instance, many time­share resorts do not per­mit a boat on a trail­er on the premis­es. Many do not per­mit RVs.
9. How often does the unit get maid ser­vice dur­ing the time­share week?
10. How far away is gro­cery shopping?
11. How far away is the near­est hos­pi­tal? How far away is the near­est region­al hospital?
12. What is the typ­i­cal weath­er dur­ing your time­share annu­al week? What is the alti­tude of the resort?
13. Is your imme­di­ate fam­i­ly in agree­ment with your deci­sion to pur­chase the time­share and in par­tic­u­lar at the spe­cif­ic location?
14. Are you com­mit­ted to vis­it­ing there for the next 10 or 20 years? If not, what’s your plan to oth­er­wise use the timeshare?
15. Do you find your­self not com­mit­ted to any spe­cif­ic resort? If so, choose a time­share that is very pop­u­lar and appears to have high resale val­ue. That’s a time­share that will have high exchange val­ue; and you’ll be able to exchange into almost any time­share resort you want to vis­it. (One way to check the exchange pow­er of the time­share is to check the time­share’s rat­ings with the exchange ser­vice, if possible.)
16. Are the rules and reg­u­la­tions gov­ern­ing the use of your time­share week oppres­sive or facilitating?
17. What is the rep­u­ta­tion of the man­age­ment of the resort?
18. If the time­share is not deed­ed real estate, how many years of use are left?
19. Is the time­share for high sea­son use? (If not, don’t buy it; it won’t exchange well.) Most point sys­tems are not based on high sea­son or low sea­son, so there is no sea­son­al char­ac­ter­is­tic for the points. All points are equal.
20. Does the time­share have the low­est pos­si­ble annu­al main­te­nance that you can buy for the resort that you want? Not all time­shares are equal, even in the same place. One resort may have sev­er­al dif­fer­ent HOAs (rep­re­sent­ing sev­er­al dif­fer­ent time­share projects or phas­es), and the main­te­nance fees will be dif­fer­ent for each, some­times sub­stan­tial­ly different.

This is not the end of the ques­tions you should ask, but it should inspire you to ask some of your own questions.

Remem­ber the first pri­or­i­ty when you buy your time­share is to have a suc­cess­ful vaca­tion. For each resort under con­sid­er­a­tion, you should be able to sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly answer most of the ques­tions above. Elim­i­nate all resorts that don’t seem as if they will meet your expectations.

Other Considerations

Sec­ondary con­sid­er­a­tions are impor­tant but only after you’ve sat­is­fied your­self that your poten­tial time­share pur­chase meets your vaca­tion needs. The sec­ondary require­ments are finan­cial and legal. Here are some ques­tions to keep in mind:

1. Is the time­share inter­est you will pur­chase an inter­est in real estate or a mem­ber­ship in a vaca­tion club, trust, or sim­i­lar orga­ni­za­tion? My pref­er­ence is to pur­chase a time­share via a real estate deed. If you’re not get­ting a deed when you buy a time­share, be very clear about what your risk is in buy­ing such a non-real estate interest.
2. Is the time­share resort part of a chain?
3. How will the time­share pur­chase trans­ac­tion be closed? If not buy­ing from a resort devel­op­er, be sure to close through a firm that spe­cial­izes in time­share closings.
4. What are the rules and reg­u­la­tions for the use of the time­share annu­al week?
5. What advan­tages or dis­ad­van­tages does the time­share resort pro­vide when it comes time to sell your timeshare?
6. What is the fair mar­ket val­ue of the timeshare?
7. Can you afford to lose your total invest­ment in the timeshare?
8. Can you afford the total cost of using your time­share week both now and in the future?
9. If the time­share is not a real estate inter­est, what is the dura­tion of the timeshare?
10. Is the resort or clos­ing firm reputable?
11. Are there any restric­tions on sell­ing the timeshare?
12. Does the resort dis­crim­i­nate against those own­ers who have pur­chased their time­share in the resale mar­ket? If so, what time­share resort ben­e­fits are not avail­able to such owners?

These are all sen­si­ble ques­tions that should be answered sat­is­fac­to­ri­ly in order to make a safe purchase.

Talk to Someone

When it’s dif­fi­cult to get answers to some of these ques­tions, it’s time to talk to some­one. Or it’s time to lis­ten in on the con­ver­sa­tions of oth­ers. How can you do so? Well, there’s always the phone, if you can get own­ers’ phone num­bers. You can talk to oth­er time­share own­ers at the resort to learn their expe­ri­ence in own­ing their time­shares. The more con­ve­nient way, how­ev­er, is to use online forums to start dis­cus­sion with oth­er forum mem­bers (who are also time­share own­ers) about var­i­ous issues. The forum for­mat also enables you to see forum dis­cus­sions on issues that oth­er time­share own­ers have raised cur­rent­ly or in the past.

A good place to find the appro­pri­ate forums is Time­share Users Group (TUG, https://tug2.com). The time­share own­ers rou­tine­ly par­tic­i­pat­ing in TUG tend to be sophis­ti­cat­ed about time­share mat­ters and can gen­er­al­ly give high­er qual­i­ty advice then you might find elsewhere.

Don’t over­look web­sites that enable time­share own­ers and renters of time­share weeks to rate a resort. Such rat­ings are only a one-way con­ver­sa­tion in your direc­tion, but they can often be valu­able. The longer a com­ment is for a par­tic­u­lar rat­ing, the more valu­able it will be to you.

There’s no lack of infor­ma­tion out there on the web or from oth­er resources, but some­times it takes a lit­tle dig­ging to find it.

Do the Obvious

In the end, you are like­ly to be dis­ap­point­ed if you don’t vis­it the resort before buy­ing. Bet­ter yet stay a few nights if you can. Noth­ing beats the actu­al expe­ri­ence of see­ing the place where you plan to spend a part of your life.

I once nego­ti­at­ed on the phone with a sell­er to buy a time­share in Vail, Col­orado, a place I knew well. We couldn’t agree on a price. So I told him that I would be in Vail in a few months, and I would vis­it the unit to deter­mine if I was will­ing to increase my offer.

The build­ing was right by the free­way. When I entered the unit to inspect it, the free­way noise was so deaf­en­ing, even with all the win­dows and doors shut, I wouldn’t have bought that unit for any price, and I didn’t. Had I been able to orig­i­nal­ly nego­ti­ate a good price on the phone and bought the unit, I would have been sick­ened spend­ing a week there.

I did buy a time­share in Day­tona Beach, Flori­da with­out vis­it­ing it first. It turned out to be a delight­ful resort, and the four-sto­ry build­ing was right on the beach. The one-bed­room unit was so tiny, how­ev­er, that the bed­room was bare­ly large enough for the queen-size bed, rem­i­nis­cent of one-star hotels in France. The kitchen and liv­ing room were equal­ly small. The four of us tripped over each oth­er all the time dur­ing our week’s stay. For­tu­nate­ly, we spend a lot of time away from the unit, but it was cramped when we were there. I was lucky enough to sell it sev­er­al months later.

In anoth­er place there was a time­share resort in which I had lit­tle inter­est, even though I knew some­thing about it. I hap­pened to be in the vicin­i­ty one day and decid­ed to make a quick vis­it. It turned out to be a beau­ti­ful 5‑star resort of unique lux­u­ry sur­pass­ing any­thing I had ever expect­ed to see in a time­share resort. I bought a time­share there at a bar­gain price and still stay there for a week every year not because I love the loca­tion but because I love the resort itself.

This expe­ri­ence points out a strat­e­gy for your search. Go and stay at a resort and lis­ten to the sales pitch, if such an oppor­tu­ni­ty exists. If not, at least vis­it the resort and ask for a tour, as a prospec­tive buy­er. And while you’re there, make sure to vis­it all the oth­er time­share resorts, if any, in the locale.