Timeshare Ownership

Posted by Michael Cook Jun 18, 2007

Short answer, yes. Timeshare salespeople use some strong pressure sales tactics to encourage people to make high thought decisions under duress and in a short time frame. Unfortunately for about 1 in every 5 people, who attend presentation, they become the victim of what I like to call a sucker's game.

A sucker's game is something that seems like a good deal, but with a little thought and time is obviously only a deal for suckers. For those of you who have already bought timeshares, please do not take this personally. The name actually comes from the games created for carnivals. Similarly, those games seem so easy. If the teenager working the booth can get the ring around bottle, surely you can right? Of course you can’t; hence the name sucker’s game.

Timeshare presenters know three simple facts.

1) If you do not buy today, there is almost no way you will come back and buy again.

2) They are selling something that is two times what you should pay.

3) Even at half the price, a timeshare is not worth the money.

With that on the table, you may ask yourself how they ever get people to buy, or better yet, how they got you to buy. The first warning bell should be the fact that the deal expires right after the presentation. I personally have a rule of never buying something if I cannot take a day to sleep on it and do the math myself. During my first timeshare presentation, this and this alone saved me from making a very bad purchase.

By taking a little bit of time after my first presentation to browse the internet, I found that timeshares were selling for 50% of the price I was quoted at the presentation. If I was ever going to buy a timeshare, I would certainly buy it from a reseller and not during a presentation. For those of you really interested in buying a timeshare despite my best attempts to dissuade you, check out this article on how to buy a timeshare.

After addressing the first two facts during the first 15 minutes of my online research, I found the third fact doing my own, more in-depth, research. Timeshares claim to be inflation protected. This is just not true. All timeshares have some kind of maintenance fee component, which is typically glossed over in the presentation. Interestingly enough, the maintenance fee is subject to significant inflation and during some years will cost you twice what a typical vacation would during that same year.

Some savvy salespeople will mention that there is a cap on the amount a fee can be raised. Those salespeople always leave out the provision for special assessments, however. These tend to be levied in lieu of an increase in the maintenance fee to keep the fee in the sales presentations low. Special assessments can be 3 to 5 times the yearly maintenance fee.

After carefully looking at those facts, I decided that timeshares are really a bad deal and this doesn’t even include the fact that most people don’t use them every year. For a more detailed analysis check out this article on why you should never buy a timeshare. Additionally, I hope those who disagree will add some comments to the discussion board, I would love to hear some possible timeshare pros because all I can see is cons.