this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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Google Time Share. It's a huge con.
The worst is it's not even like you buy a share of a single unit to share and keep well maintained, it effectively behaves like a hotel you have a stake in and and get to go 1-2 weeks a year for free and they're usually quite poorly maintained too.
For some reason boomers thought it was a good idea, because gotta buy and own properties. I guess the idea was you could buy a vacation home but for only the few weeks a year you really want it.
It's such a con, if you inherit it from your parents it's really hard to get rid of it too, because nobody wants them now that it's well known to be bullshit. You might as well just rent an Airbnb, it's probably cheaper.
My parents bought one when I was in high school. I was so mad about it. Thought it was a huge waste of money.
Fast forward many years. I was right. Every year you have mandatory maintenance costs (like paying a subscription to keep something you supposedly own). The next part of the scam is that there are tiers of ownership; pay even more to get in a higher tier. Higher tiers get more "points" for booking rooms, and let you book rooms further in advance (12mo out instead of 11mo). If you don't upgrade, all the rooms you want are booked by the tier above you.
On the bright side, my dad is usually able to book rooms on big holidays, and then sell them for cash to cover the cost of maintenance fees. But the time share organization is aware of this practice and is trying to crack down on it, which seems like a breach of contract to me, even within their own scam.
Meanwhile, any time I travel, we just get an airbnb or vrbo and it's always at least 3x nicer for a similar cost, and I'm not on the hook for a bunch of debt and responsibility.
Wow, thanks.
So, timeshare is kind of pay all of your vacation (rent) cost for the room in 50-100year ?
Wow, those saleman turn them into real estate and say it is real estate that you can resell for profit.
In the US they are usually governed as real estate legally. You can resell it, but most people aren't interested in paying the maintenance fees. You'll find all sorts of timeshares out there being resold for 1$ because they just don't want to pay the maintenance fee anymore.
So, it is too difficult to "discard" a timeshare so people give it away for free ?
That is a huge downside. There's an entire industry that has cropped up around getting out of timeshares.
Nope, there's whole industries out there that are built around helping people escape their timeshares. To make it resellable .. there have to be other people who want to buy it...
The sales people are cons, but the idea has merit but not to make money. You're probably not going to rent it out for a profit.
Where it has merit is if you do the research and understand specifically that the concept can work for you, and take the timeshare off someone else in the secondary market it can save you a lot of money, but only in specific situations.
There are good and bad systems and locations. You want to optimize on those.
You also have to be someone who will go on week long trips multiple times a year and have a life that let's you either lock the dates in firm 9 months to 13 months out (depending on system) or can go in 30 days or less to what opens up last minute.
And you have to want to go to resort locations like Myrtle Beach, Orlando, Las Vegas, Smoky Mountains, Hawaii, Breckenridge, Branson, Williamsburg or California.
Oh, and you'll want to be ok with 3 star locations without daily maid service.
The upside is you can often stay in 2 bedroom suites with full kitchen and laundry with pools and hot tubs and arcades and mini golf in various amazing locations for about 1,800 dollars a week or less. Sometimes much less. If you're comparing 2 hotel rooms at today's prices that can be very cheap for 7 days. The average say Hampton Inn is close to 200 a night per room, so at the higher end of 1,800 you're still 1k less for the week.
And I've hit sales in the less demanding seasons for as little as $550 for the week. But of course if you're looking at Hawaii in season you might be at the higher end of 4k for a week cash, and technically the sky is the limit. This is where knowledge and planning comes in because you can pay for a week in say Florida for 1,600 every year, but trade that week with one that in Hawaii that goes for 4,000 much of the time. You just have to beat everyone else to the trade which is what the planning is for.
I am not a salesman just a so far happy "owner" going on a lot of trips this way by "sams clubbing" my vacations and paying ahead for some.
If you do want to learn realistic costs and nuts and bolts - tugbbs.com can teach you a lot for free.