Fractional ownership vacation rentals

[Crystal Dundas]

So I need some of you geniuses out there with an understanding of timeshares to help me (really a friend of mine)  think a decision through.

Let me first say I have read all of the DON'T DO IT warnings for timeshares and I am taking them to heart. 

This weekend I found myself on vacation with a friend who booked our stay at a Vidanta timeshare that she owns. She set up a meeting with her account manager to discuss her contract and they basically started telling her they wanted to sell her an upgrade  into fractional ownership.

I'm not familiar with timeshares or vacation rentals at all but, I'm sitting listening to what they are discussing and apparently the contract they originally sold her had a clause in it that they would give her an option to upgrade to an ownership on a prop they could no longer sell bc they are sold out. SO they offered her one of their highest tier properties at the lowest tier price. 

So she went ahead and purchased what they claim is a $700k fractional ownership for a price of around $100k.  (5 wks of usage)

She does not have maintenance fees and obviously only pays if it is used. Privately marketed rooms in the tier she is renting go for of $5000/wk on the low end.  We looked on sites like vrbo, homeaway etc to confirm this.

She has 5 days to cancel and is anxious because all of the stuff you read online says stay away from timeshares. But is there a difference with fractional ownership? 

Obviously they sold her the Fractional Ownership with the premise that they would increase, not decrease in value bc it is an ownership and not a membership. Also obviously they state that they make no representation about the value of renting. She has 5 days to cancel and asked my advice but I honestly have no real background in this sort of rental.  

Would love to hear from anyone who has experience in renting high end vacation rentals if she really stumbled into a sweet deal or if you think it's just a complicated sales pitch.

[Paul Sandhu]

This is a business transaction.  One party ends up richer.  One party ends up wiser.  Take a guess who ends up richer and wiser.

It's sort of like playing poker.  There is always one person at the table that is going to lose money.  Everyone else at the table knows who it is.  If you are at the poker table and don't know who it is, it is you.

I have about 24 STRs in this town.  82 beds total.  My renters are the guys you see working on the large upright structures of steel at a petrochemical refinery.  Contractors, that's my niche. 

Find a unique niche, everyone and their brother come on to this site and asks the same questions as you every day.