Google Time Share. It's a huge con.
this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2024
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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.
It's a timeshare and it is basically a scam for most people. Basically you're buying time to stay at the place that you can technically use at any time year round as long as you book it in advance. The problem is that all of the days that most people go on vacations (spring break, summer, holidays, etc) will already be booked by the 500 other people who also bought the same thing. So really the only times you will actually be able to use the place are when no one else wants to be there.
If you have the ability and desire to drop everything and vacation there on a random week whenever it happens to be available then it can still be a good deal for you, but most people have obligations like work, school, or family that limits when they can just drop everything and leave to spend time at their timeshare.
should also be noted that it can often be super hard to get out of a time share contract
This is probably a more helpful TV reference than what I was going to link, which is King of the Hill S09E03 "Death Buys A Timeshare"
There's also the South Park episode!
Maybe that's why they call is "Ass-pen"
time shares are notoriously things people want to stay away from.
Disney vacation club hasn't been bad, tbh, but the industry as a whole is super sketchy. Also we haven't tried to get out of it, but mainly because it's been fine.
oh man. add disney to the name and for me you can double how much I want to stay away from it.
I mean that's fine. We don't even go to the parks most of the time. They have some really nice properties elsewhere. Hilton head was nice, for example, but of course it's just a nice hotel at that point.
Say all the things about them being an evil, soulless company, and I'll agree but they have great customer service which is important to us when we're risking a chuck of change hoping for a good vacation experience.
Vacationing has been different since getting older. I do miss some of the more adventurous travels when I was in my thirties, but these days consistency and customer service are really nice.
I can understand that. I can respect customer service. Honestly its their content over anything that gives me the ten foot pole thing. The best things from them seem to come out of allowing their ip to be used by a better companies implementation. Like kingdom hearts.
That's called a timeshare, and they're not a good idea. Very sketchy, almost impossible to get rid of if you don't want it.
You have to sign up because although you bought the apartment, you're not the only one who bought the apartment.
You buy it and then get to sign up to use it, and then you pay a fee to use it every year even if you don't end up using it.
You don't get to live there.
You need to book it because you are not the only person who "owns" it. Many people do, and usually you can only book like 1-2 weeks a year or something.
Despite paying the full price of an apartment you're only really buying 1/52 of an apartment
Plus they have you pay a bunch of maintenance fees which can be a few hundred to thousands a year.
But the price is about an apartment, but only a bit cheaper (1-2% cheaper). Why i only own only one or two week ?
Because that's where they trick you. They sell you something as if it's a good deal when really it's not, and they make a ton of money by selling the same thing to 50 other people.
Sounds like a time share. You would own a percentage of the apartment with a bunch of other people, You would have to book the time you wanted to use the apartment and you would be limited to the number of weeks you could book as the other people would be there when your not. Also lots and lots of rules!
Is owning timeshare similar to owning stock in vacation/hotel company? Can I get profit out of it ?
usually not, you have to be the person who stays there, you canβt sublet. And you still have to pay your percentage weather you use your time or not.
No. You will not profit. You will have a very difficult time getting out of it and lose money.
Timeshares are a scam. They often do βearn a free nightβ presentations for people who donβt know any better.
You will 100% not profit from a timeshare.
A friend had one in mexico, it wasn't a full scam but very scammy. The property manager said rental market was not good certain years, but it waa possible they just skimmed the profits. Later they property managers did not take care of structure so less rental opportunity. Trying to sell it was also difficult because the local agents know you are in a bind and you get lowball offers
This unfortunately seems to be a little bit too likely to be a scam, read here for more information about what is and isn't actually legal in such deals:
https://europa.eu/youreurope/citizens/travel/holidays/timeshare/index_en.htm