hi there,on our last holiday in Spain the hotelier explained to us an offer on buying a 'timeshare'.looking for unbiased advice,i wanted to ask the ppl here:if i wanted to own a stake in a hotel couldnt i just buy shares for the hotel chain at a stock exchange,hopefully making an annual profit which i can use to pay for a holiday with the destination & date of my choosing?why would i want to buy a week at the same place for eternity?am i missing something here? thx

HI CC,

>why would i want to buy a week at the same place for eternity?<

You don't.

That's why he is trying to unload his timeshare onto you.

Do NOT--I repeat Do NOT buy into a Timeshare. You will eventually end up wanting to sell it and will be unable to do so.

I have a distant relative who wants to get rid of it. She asked if I can just take it over, without paying her a penny. For $300-400 maintanance fee... no thanks!

(and no, she wouldn't give it away to a complete stranger, don't ask )

I decided to add more to my post. I bought a time share in Hawaii. The company had units in three of the islands and in Acapulco. They supposedly had units in Greece or Spain as well, but I didn't check them out.

There was a maintenance fee, which of course rose every year.

They weren't the prime units, but they weren't bad, either. They looked fine at first, but after a couple of years, they became run-down. The company wanted all the time-share owners to put in a good-sized payment--about $1200, when that was real money. (This was in the 80's, as I recall.)

This was when I decided to just cut my losses and let the membership lapse.

give it away?itsnt it an investment? thats how it was explained to me

>>itsnt it an investment?<<

It's only an investment if the returns are worth something to you: if you really want to stay in the same place at the same time every year, if that place is worth the maintenance charges, if enough other people want to stay there that you can swap your time for somewhere else from time to time.

ChevyChasen wrote: "itsnt it an investment? thats how it was explained to me"

Explained? I think "represented" might be a better word.

Timeshares are notoriously bad buys; that's mainly because most of the sellers are unscrupulous, and make false or exaggerated claims. I am sure that there are some honest and fair-minded operators in the market, but they are swamped by those that should not be trusted with their own mothers' money.

A timeshare will never earn you any money if you try to re-sell, so it's not really an investment. There are some timeshare programs have exchanges with other properties (hotels or condos) across the country or abroad, so if you travel ALOT it might be something for you, but anything less would be a waste of money it seems.

I own a timeshare in Palm Springs, at a Marriott resort. We are very happy with our purchase. We didn't, and don't, see it as an investment (meaning getting a return on our original cost), but we do see it as a "pre-paid" [extra] vacation place. The cost of the annual maintenance is less than the a comparable place would cost us to rent or a hotel. We get to trade for Marriott points if we want to (and we have stayed all over Europe and the US on those points). The thing that makes this particular one desirable, and makes most UNdesirable is that it's what is called a "lockout", meaning we can split the unit in two parts, use a week and trade (exchange) a week, sort of two-for-one. The place is remodeled every five years, and the annual maintenance includes a "reserve" for that, so you don't have to come out of pocket for a huge amount when something needs to be replaced. The timeshares of the 80s were horrid, there are laws in place now to protect owners. In addition to using ours on an almost annual basis (again, this is an [extra] vacation, not part of our "travel" budget either timewise or moneywise, we have exchanged it for places in Tahoe, Newport and others.

Now, I will say, there is no way way I would "buy" a hotel room.

An investment increases in value. Timeshares don't. You can buy 'second-hand' timeshares for a fraction of the cost of buying from the developer/scheme owner. People also just give them away or abandon them..
they do suit some people as holidays, but they are no more an investment than your buying a new car.

Hi ChevyChasen

We are extremely happy with our timeshare ownership - but have only once stayed in our 'home' resort. We use our points to exchange into overseas accommodation, and are getting that at a fraction of the general market price.

I would recommend only purchasing from the resort itself - never through a broker/agent etc. They of course are tacking their margin onto the price! Our home resort also has commercial areas that it sub-lets so our overheads are not as expensive as some other timeshares.

Happy travels, Di

What di said. There's nothing wrong with timeshare, but don't buy it to make money.

We own a timeshare, but didn't buy it as an investment. I haven't tried to sell it, but can tell you that the price has gone up, up up since we bought.
We own so many points a year, so we can go wherever they have units as long as there's availability.
They are all beautifuland well kept. My DH goes to Las Vegas for business and now never stays in a hotel. The condo is so much nicer and close to everything.
We have gone to Hawaii, Ca. Wine Country, Monterey, Ca. and my kids have gone to Colorado using it.
Overseas we've gone to Spain and last summer spent a week in the Austrian Alps, outside Salzburg. I can assure you, we would have probably done none of this so freely without the timeshare. Since we like going to Europe and travelling around, we save our points and usually only use the timeshare for a big trip every 2 years, except for going to Vegas.
It's been great for us, but we didn't buy the kind that's 1 week in Cabo EVERY SINGLE year. That would be miserable.

"give it away? itsnt it an investment? thats how it was explained to me"

So is the Brooklyn Bridge and Florida's swamp land - if you believe in it!

Yes, DalaiLlama, it is an investment.

Like all investments, you need to take the time to work out if it is going to represent good value for you and your lifestyle.

At the time we purchased, we added the initial investment cost, the annual fees and approximate cost of comparable accommodation. For us, after 6 years of annual holidays we would have reached a break-even point.

So now, many years beyond that time-span, we are still reaping the benefits and enjoying our international exchanges.

There's never going to be a one-size-fits-all solution to travel and accommodation needs, thank goodness!

Happy travels, Di

>>>and no, she wouldn't give it away to a complete stranger, don't ask <<<

No need to ask... there are entire websites online full of people more than willing to offload their timeshares, many free for just the cost of maintenance. Do some Googling.

The idea of buying shares in a hotel corporation and using the profits to holiday every year is funny. What happens when the stock goes down? No holiday. ;^(

ParisAmsterdam: the thread is six years old (and the OP has a new screen name since then)

It was topped by some who keeps registering to flog a time share scam site