How To Sell Your Timeshare: Avoid Making These 3 Mistakes
Monday, January 7th, 2008You have already spent thousands of dollars purchasing your timeshare. Don’t throw even more of your hard earned money by making 3 of the biggest mistakes when you go to sell it. Since you found your way to this report, you’re probably selling your timeshare
because you’re now unhappy with it. Unfortunately, you’re probably going to be disappointed in your return of investment as well.
The timeshare re-sale, or secondary market, is young and not only flooded with people desperate to sell, but also with extremely unethical re-sale companies that prey upon them.
Selling a timeshare can be extremely difficult, and in some cases, impossible. The FTC has cited a survey that found only 3.3 percent of owners reported successfully reselling their timeshares for a price they were happy with during the last 20 years. Many timeshare resale firms claim consumers can save 50 percent to 90 percent off retail prices. Therefore, buying a secondhand timeshare from an individual
owner can be a bargain but selling a timeshare is a losing proposition.
“Consumer Reports” July 2003
What Makes Selling A Timeshare So Difficult?
The two things that make the re-selling of a timeshare so difficult are that the supply of available resale weeks greatly outweighs demand, and the fact that nearly 50% of the price of a timeshare purchased from the developer went into the marketing costs. Simply put, if you paid $15,000 for a timeshare, $7,500 of the purchase price was for marketing. Because the market is flooded with re-sales, you’d be lucky to get $3,000 on the secondary market. After commissions and closing costs $2,000 is a more realistic number. You can expect a little more if you own a brand named timeshare like Marriott, Hyatt, Hilton or Westin/Starwood and less if you own a really bad one.
The next 3 posts will shed light on 3 common mistakes that many people make when selling their timeshare that can cost them thousands of dollars. If you contemplating selling your timeshare don’t miss the rest of this series. The timeshare resale industry is rife with unethical resale companies that will tell you anything to get into your pockets so you need to be informed. Learn how to distinguish between a legitimate and unethical timeshare resale company.