Preface

My intro­duc­tion to time­shares was when I found out that you could buy time­shares at a low cost on the resale mar­ket. Being a com­mer­cial and invest­ment real estate expert, I got the idea there might be some mon­ey to be made by buy­ing time­shares cheap and rent­ing them or reselling them. So as an exper­i­ment, I conned my real estate friend Char­lie Craft into becom­ing a co-investor. It’s more fun to do projects with oth­ers than do them alone. We bought a time­share in Breck­en­ridge, Col­orado and anoth­er in Day­tona Beach, Florida.

Then I pro­ceed­ed to attempt to rent them. My effort was not suc­cess­ful and was a lot of trou­ble. I was not able to rent the one in Breck­en­ridge, and I rent­ed the one in Day­tona Beach for a low­er rental rate than I had antic­i­pat­ed. That was the first year. The sec­ond year I bought out my Charlie’s inter­est in the Breck­en­ridge time­share in order to keep up a good friend­ship. So the sec­ond year I used the Breck­en­ridge time­share myself. The third year and there­after I put the Breck­en­ridge time­share into an exchange orga­ni­za­tion (RCI) and did a time­share exchange.

The Breck­en­ridge time­share project, how­ev­er, was 40 years old and in seri­ous need of a rehab. Thus, I sud­den­ly was pay­ing $400 more for my main­te­nance fee, which con­tin­ued on for about 8 years. Dur­ing that time I could­n’t sell the time­share because there were no tak­ers. At the end of 10 years some­one came in and bought the entire time­share project, and the pro­ceeds to each own­er were $1,500. So I tripled the orig­i­nal invest­ment, but in the mean­while, I had paid almost $3,200 extra in main­te­nance fees. Not a great deal.

The sec­ond year I also stayed in the Day­tona Beach time­share. The third year I man­aged to rent it out at a rental amount that would not sup­port even the small invest­ment that we had made. In the fourth, year I sold it for about $1,500. We made three times our mon­ey, but it was def­i­nite­ly not worth the time and effort I spent deal­ing with it. And we had to pay half the clos­ing cost (our share about $350).

So much for invest­ing in timeshares.

But by stay­ing at two time­shares for a week each, I stuck my toe in the water and found it refresh­ing. Most time­shares are not hotel room rooms but are con­do­mini­um units com­plete with a bed­room or mul­ti­ple bed­rooms, a kitchen, and a living/dining area. Many have ameni­ties includ­ed in the room or are close by, such as hot tubs, patio areas, or pic­nic tables with grills. Thus, I found if they are not good from an invest­ment point of view, they are very attrac­tive from a vaca­tion point of view. The time­shares I bought there­after were strict­ly for my own use. I’ve used my time­shares; I’ve trad­ed my time­shares; I’ve had a lot of fun; and I’ve saved a lot of mon­ey. But time­shares are not inher­ent­ly a good deal or a lot of fun. Time­shares are what you make them. And this book is intend­ed to help you make your time­share pur­chas­es and use as ful­fill­ing as possible.

Enjoy this book and good luck with your time­share adventures.

Joseph T. Sinclair
Octo­ber 2018