Disposal Of Vacation TimeShare

[TooFrugal]

The last sales pitch we had for a time share in Hawaii was for $700 maintenance fees a year plus the cost of the time share. At the time we were on vacation in Hawaii on a deal from the Entertainment book so our condo costs were only $700 per night anyway, without any long term commitment or initial 20K cost.

When I multiplied by 52 what they were selling the time shares for, they were selling ~$300K condos (if you bought it outright) for ~$900K, plus collecting $35+K annually in maintenance costs (assuming all weeks were sold). A good deal for the developers, not so good for the buyers.

 

[BigNick]

This thread suggests a new business to get into. Maybe I can convince thefed that he needs to do this:

You need to become a TimeShare broker of the Third Kind. What you do is find someone who is about to declare bankruptcy anyways and get them to buy or accept timeshares from folks who want to get rid of them.

That way the folks who get rid of the timeshare(s) do not get dinged on their credit report while for the person going bankrupt it just doesn't matter. Indeed, they might be able to make a little money by getting people to pay them to take on the ownership of the timeshare.

I believe the technical term for that is "fraud".

 

[Rustward]

Thanks for all the replies, suggestions, and website references.

If anything I say does not make sense it might be because all I know about timeshares would not fill a thimble.

Just to repeat a couple of things that may have gotten lost in the thread:

These timeshares are not in any particular location, property, unit, or week of the year. It is some kind of floating deal where the owner goes through a booking service to reserve a unit at one of the company's locations. There was also a mention of accumulating "points" but I don't know any more than that.

The timeshares are not owned by me, but DW's sister and her ex. That is also one of the reasons I don't know all the details.

I might have attended a timeshare sales pitch sometime in the 80's and for a number of reasons did not buy. I can, however, think of some very specific situations where owning one of these might be a good thing, but in general it is not appealing to me.

 

[jimnjana]

Thanks for all the replies, suggestions, and website references.

If anything I say does not make sense it might be because all I know about timeshares would not fill a thimble.

Just to repeat a couple of things that may have gotten lost in the thread:

These timeshares are not in any particular location, property, unit, or week of the year. It is some kind of floating deal where the owner goes through a booking service to reserve a unit at one of the company's locations. There was also a mention of accumulating "points" but I don't know any more than that.

The timeshares are not owned by me, but DW's sister and her ex. That is also one of the reasons I don't know all the details.

I might have attended a timeshare sales pitch sometime in the 80's and for a number of reasons did not buy. I can, however, think of some very specific situations where owning one of these might be a good thing, but in general it is not appealing to me.

Too bad DW sister could not just file a quit claim deed and leave ex holding the bag...One method of getting rid of TS that used to work was to contact the sales manager at the TS location, tell him your looking to get x out of the sale and he can have whatever he makes above x on the sales price.