Time shares your thoughts

[Kevin Tarver]

As a newbie I wanted everyone's thoughts on buying one. Is it a step forward or back? I look at life like i look at a casino.. the games with the best chances to are fewest on the floor...

[Bryan Scott]

Hi Kevin,

Unless the property is fairly new, you should be able to purchase, or take over a time-share from a private individual just about anywhere you want one for ZERO or less (read that as the seller may be so sick and tired of continually paying maintenance fees on something they never use, that they might pay for your first or even 2nd year maintenance just to get you to assume the responsibilities they have for the duration of their agreement with the property owner/management company). This is especially true of folks who have owned one through the economic down-turn we had from about 2007 - 2012.

Time-shares are very often NOT an investment, but if you like to travel and travel at least 1-2X or more each year, you can save big $$ over simply renting someone's vacation property, or staying in a nicer hotel. Plus, most of these are pretty nice properties. Some, even luxury, which would cost you $400+ per night.

So, for an average, annual maintenance fee of $500+, it makes some degree of sense, but if you go into this with the thought of it being a viable investment, don't! Just do yourself a favor and DO NOT pay anything more than perhaps catch-up maintenance fees on someone's time-share. There is absolutely no need to pay the typical $thousands of dollars to buy one.

If you end up buying one, or better yet, taking one over, you will want to join a reputable club that facilities trades from one location to another, so you don't end up staying at the same place each time. The most trade-able time-share units are those occurring in the best weeks, which for the US would be from about November through April-ish.

Google "Timeshares For Sale" or go to Ebay, or Craigslist, or any one of a gazillion other locations to find these.

Enjoy your vacation!