One size never fits all (a point we made here on The Timeshare Authority just last week in a discussion of timeshare points programs Getting to the Point of Timeshare Points). Your need to find the best individual solution for you is equally as important when it comes to the right way to for you to buy timeshare or sell timeshare as it is in selecting a points system that fits your vacation style.

Sell-by-owner timeshare resale is an excellent option for many timeshare owners who want to manage details of the timeshare transaction themselves. However, working with a timeshare broker, such as the experts at Timeshare Brokers Services, may be the best choice for your situation. Here are five reasons you might want a timeshare broker to help you buy or sell timeshare.

Reason Number One to Choose a Timeshare Broker:

1. Your time matters. If you are too busy to use your timeshare for vacationing, it is very possible you are too busy to take on the project of selling your timeshare yourself. Using a timeshare broker can be a turnkey approach when it comes to selling timeshare. Likewise, a timeshare broker is a great help to consumers looking to buy timeshare who don’t have either the time or interest for micromanaging the process themselves.

Reason Number Two to Choose a Timeshare Broker:

2. An experienced timeshare real estate professional is a great safety net for both the timeshare seller and the timeshare buyer. You can sell timeshare or buy timeshare with total peace of mind that a professional is handling the details. Most of us have enough on our minds already that it makes sense from a life-management perspective not to add one more item to the list of things that already occupy our thoughts.

Reason Number Three to Choose a Timeshare Broker:

3. A timeshare broker is a trained negotiator. Not only is a timeshare broker a skilled negotiator with your best interest at heart, but he or she serves as a liaison between the buyer and the timeshare seller, providing a “cushion” between the two to smooth the waters over any points of disagreement that may occur during the timeshare resale transaction.

Reason Number Four to Choose a Timeshare Broker:
4. The timeshare real estate market, just like the residential real estate market, is always changing. If you don’t feel confident that your personal knowledge of real estate matters, timeshare laws, or timeshare sales closing and transfer requisites is accurate and current, you could find yourself in over your head trying to handle the timeshare resales process on your own.

Reason Number Five to Choose a Timeshare Broker:
5. Buying or selling timeshare by owner may not save you a penny, first because an experienced timeshare broker—representing either the buyer or the seller— potentially can negotiate his or her client the best deal. Secondly, if you have any problems along the way in buying or selling timeshare without broker assistance, you could wind up not only losing money, but spending money you hadn’t planned to spend in the process.

Is a timeshare broker the best choice for you when it comes to buying timeshare or selling timeshare? Maybe, but you will never know for sure unless you contact one, ask questions, and evaluate what is best for you and your busy schedule.

Bonus time for timeshare includes timeshare weeks that have not been sold or rented by the developer, homeowners association (HOA), or timeshare exchange company. In addition to unsold weeks, a resort’s inventory may also include property that because of owner default or other reasons has returned to the hands of the HOA. When a timeshare owners association cannot rent timeshare to the general public, the HOA may choose to make the timeshare weeks available to other property owners at the resort, offering it at a greatly reduced rate.

Timeshare exchange companies may also offer their members the use of unsold weeks at a substantially discounted price. Either way, this excess inventory is typically called “bonus time” and represents one of the underutilized benefits of timeshare ownership that many people either do not know exists or do not understand how to use.

Bonus Time at WorldMark Timeshare Resorts

Each timeshare company or timeshare exchange company handles bonus time in its own way. For example, bonus time for owners of WorldMark timeshare allows timeshare owners to take advantage of any available units or last-minute cancellations within 14 days of the renter’s scheduled arrival. If the timeshare owner is booking bonus time for a guest, then the property can only be reserved five days in advance. Bookings of bonus time at WorldMark timeshare may be made in increments of one to four days

As a WorldMark timeshare owner, bonus time means you can enjoy a last minute timeshare holiday for timeshare on which you are not paying annual fees. WorldMark’s cancellation policy for bonus time does have restrictions, but is considered by many timeshare owners to be one of the most flexible available. WorldMark timeshare bonus time is not “paid” for with credits or points but is a cash rental.

WorldMark timeshare owners can search for bonus time opportunities on the WorldMark member’s web pages. Also, always remember when you are searching for last minute timeshare travel deals, that in addition to owner’s bonus time, both timeshare owners and non-owners can find excellent prices on last minute (and not so last minute) WorldMark timeshare rentals at Sell My Timeshare NOW.

For the eighth year, Holiday Inn Club Vacations at Orange Lake will be the Central Florida host for what is considered to be the largest single-day, charity golf tournament in the world. Annually, the RCI Christel House Open is played at 19 golf tournament sites across five continents with more than 1800 golfers participating. One hundred percent of the charity tournament proceeds go to services that benefit the children of Christel House mission, a non-profit charity founded by Christel DeHaan, the co-founder of Resort Condominiums International (RCI).

You can be part of this golfing event at Orange Lake Resort, (scheduled for Monday, Jmailto:kchase@orangelake.com
une 7), playing the resort’s 18-hole, Arnold Palmer-designed course, a favorite with area golfers, vacationers, and a host of mini-tour events that compete there throughout the year. Sponsorship opportunities are still available. To learn more, contact Cathy Duncan, Manager of Corporate Events for Orange Lake Resorts timeshare, at cduncan@orangelake.com or call 407-905-1979. You can also select this outstanding course and timeshare resort as the site for your next golf outing or company tournament by contacting, Kimberly Chase, Assistant Director, Golf Sales & Marketing, at kchase@orangelake.com or by calling 407-905-1378.

Golf and Timeshares

In so many different ways, golf and timeshares always go together. In general, the quality of daily fee golf courses improves all the time as advances in agronomy and turf management make it easier to maintain high playability standards, even at public courses. This means you can stay in your timeshare, timeshare resale or timeshare rental and take advantage of playing many courses located near your vacation destination.

Other timeshares offer resort courses of exceptional quality. Often getting a tee time on these courses is challenging, requiring you to book months in advance—unless you are staying on property at that resort. Timeshare owners sometimes find they can get on the courses that other golfers only dream about playing.

Shell Vacations Club timeshares, owner or operator of 23 timeshare resorts in the US, Canada, and Mexico, announces new leadership in three key corporate positions.

Karen Buttice has been selected to lead Shell Vacations Club’s programs that provide extensive fee-based services for resorts, condos, hotels, and timeshare owners associations. Her role specifically includes oversight of Direct Member Affiliate Programs; hospitality and association management; employee certification programs; timeshare rental; distribution of unused inventory; a comprehensive travel program; and sales and marketing services.

Buttice explains, “After decades of leadership in the vacation ownership industry and proven success with our points-based Shell Vacations Club (wwwShellVacationsClub.com), we have recognized a growing opportunity for others to benefit from our expertise and are actively pursuing growth by providing these fee-based services. This is an ideal way to expand our business by leveraging our services and management expertise. We believe the expansion of our fee-based services model validates our commitment to these strategic initiatives. We have received so many calls regarding our expertise in these areas; this is a natural extension of our business. It is exciting to formalize a program that will enable others to share in the facets of our business that have made us successful.”

Ilese Flamm has been appointed by Shell Vacations LLC as Senior VP of Legal Affairs. Flamm has 18 years as a legal professional in the timeshare industry and before joining Shell Vacations, was the Executive VP and General Counsel for Wyndham Exchange & Rentals. She has also been Senior Attorney for the Disney Vacation Club, where she was involved in all aspects of timeshares and timeshare resort development.

Bernard Freibaum is a new-hire at Shell Vacations LLC, recently appointed as the company’s Chief Financial Officer. Freibaum will work with Sheldon H Ginsburg, Shell Vacations Chairman and CEO and with Tracy L Sherles, the company’s President and COO, focusing on new growth opportunities for the company and on enhancing business operations within Sell Vacation Club’s many divisions.

Founded in 1963, Shell Vacations has been a leader in the timeshare industry, remaining popular with timeshare owners and timeshare renters. Responding to consumer preferences, in 1999, the timeshare company introduced a timeshare points based system designed to give timeshare owners greater flexibility in the ways they use and enjoy timeshare.

RCI, the world’s largest timeshare exchange company, launched RCI TV as a way to get the timeshare message to more people, and at the same time make timeshare exchange and timesharing easier for timeshare owners and timeshare renters.

This week the company announced that it has passed the 1 million-viewer milestone. As Geoff Ballotti, CEO, RCI, explains, “The overwhelming usage and success of RCI TV is beyond anything we originally envisioned when we launched it nearly a year ago. Moms and dads who are planning vacations want to see more than just pretty pictures as they plan their vacations. They want to be able to show their kids and email their friends links to beautiful videos that show where they’re headed or where they’ve just returned from as a family.”

As part of their million viewer celebration, RCI is giving away a choice of either a one-week, all-inclusive timeshare vacation at an RCI affiliated timeshare resort for up to four people ($5,000 value) or a one week stay for up to four people at any of the non all-inclusive “Resort Showcase” timeshare properties featured on RCI TV. To find out more about the contest, go to: http://rcisurvey.bgtpartners.com/rci-promotion.aspx

And be sure to play the video below to get a peak at RCI TV or follow this link to the RCI TV webpage. On YouTube, check the RCI channel for videos of many of the most popular timeshare resorts.

Congratulations, RCI, you are helping spread the message of the opportunities of timeshare.

Wyndham Worldwide, parent company of Wyndham Vacation Club (Wyndham timeshare), thinks conversion to US and Caribbean timeshares is a viable solution for an estimated 5000 unsold condos and hotel units. Wyndham Worldwide’s CEO Steve Holmes not only believes it is do-able but feels that it can be profitable and beneficial for Wyndham.

Currently in a recovery period, (like much of the timeshare industry) Wyndham expects to generate around $1.8 billion in revenue this year from timeshare sales, financing, and property management fees, according to an article by Brad Berton on Forbes.com.

But Wyndham’s conversion-to-timeshare plan, it seems, has a second-hand element to it—or maybe that’s third-hand. Rather than put up the equity of fifteen to forty percent typically required in converting thousands of condos to timeshare units, Wyndham plans to do so on a third-party basis. The company will not be assuming the risk of being principal developer in this massive effort.

Wyndham timeshare currently includes approximately 820,000 timeshare owners and some 20,000 timeshare units at more than 150 resorts.

And following up on other recent attention-getting news by Wyndham timeshare is the observation that the referee involved in the ball-tossing altercation with Wyndham Vacation Club CEO, Franz Hanning, was, as predicted, suspended for one game by the NBA for his role in the incident. See: Would You Play Ball With Wyndham Timeshare CEO Franz Hanning?

When someone tells you that you need a timeshare appraisal in order to buy or sell timeshare, think twice.

Many people will unknowingly pay for a timeshare appraisal as part of their timeshare transaction because they assume it is necessary—after all, you pay for an appraisal as part of a home sale, so why not one for timeshare sales? The answer is very simple when you think it through.

When you buy a home, you pay the price the price you are personally willing to pay for that home—the true market value. But if you finance the home, your lender won’t simply trust the buyer and seller to have settled on the appropriate price. The lender will require that you hire a professional appraiser to assess the authentic value of the home so that the lender knows it is not lending you more money than the home is actually worth.

The home mortgage lender wants to see that it can get its money back on the home it holds as collateral if you default on the loan. Barring an economic freefall in the housing market (such as we have seen in the past few years), a home appraisal protects the lender from loss.

But who buys timeshare with a home mortgage? The lenders who loan money to buy timeshare typically do so through consumer loans, which are based on the borrower’s good credit history, not on mortgage loans that hold property as collateral against borrower default. When there is no lender to require a timeshare appraisal, what value would getting that appraisal serve either the timeshare seller or the timeshare buyer?

Timeshare Appraisal, the Timeshare Sales Expense You Don’t Need

Timeshare sales are based on market value—that’s the price consumers are generally willing to pay to buy timeshare of a given size, location, and season. When you want to know the market value of your timeshare, click on market value survey and Sell My Timeshare NOW will provide this information to you at NO COST.

And doesn’t knowing this make you question why a timeshare sales company might ever require you to pay for a timeshare appraisal when no lender is requiring it? Unfortunately, timeshare appraisals can be add-on or hidden costs that some timeshare sales and timeshare resales companies use unethically to pad their profits. Before you pay for a timeshare appraisal, make sure you understand why it is required for your timeshare sales transaction and who will benefit by it.

Fans of the ‘Centsable’ money-saving duo, Chrissy Pate and Kristin McKee, know them from their past appearances on Good Morning America (GMA) and their book, Be CentsAble: How to Cut Your Household Budget in Half. Now the two have applied their cost conscious strategies to travel and vacation planning with tips that save you money without compromising your vacation enjoyment… and of course, any discussion of great deals in vacationing always includes timeshare.

So here are Travel Tips #3 and 5 from the gurus of budget-conscious vacationing:

“Rent Vacation Club or Timeshare Points” and as an example, the two recommend Sell My Timeshare NOW by name as an outstanding resource. After Chrissy discovered that she could, for example, rent a $250 a night room at Disney’s Animal Kingdom timeshare for only $90, she described it as, “…like you have a timeshare, without paying all of the fees associated with a timeshare.”

“Rent Vacation Homes Directly” Although Sell My Timeshare NOW wasn’t specifically listed by name, it’s exactly the type of option they recommend. Both Pate and McKee are quick to acknowledge that when it comes to leasing or renting a vacation home, “leasing companies mark up the rental price, often even doubling it.” Sell My Timeshare NOW offers you the option to rent timeshare directly from the current owner.

Do You Rent Timeshare?

If you are not already saving money on your vacation with timeshare rentals, why not?

Many timeshare owners are thrilled to rent their timeshare or timeshare points to you rather than lose them because they cannot personally take advantage of them. Oftentimes, they are looking only to recoup their annual fees. Sometimes you can rent timeshare far in advance, but just as frequently, you will find it comes available as a last-minute deal. Either way renting timeshare or timeshare points is typically a win-win situation. And renting by-owner timeshare from Sell My Timeshare NOW means you are choosing to rent directly for the person who owns the vacation property-leaving out the middleman while keeping more of your hard-earned money in your pocket.

But don’t take our word for it… Pate and McKee have already done the research for you.

If you have ever bought a garment that was marked, “one size fits all” you know this simply is not always accurate. Moreover, when the subject is buying timeshare or owning timeshare, one size (or one type of ownership) will never be right for everyone.

Individual timeshare vacation needs and preferences vary greatly and include vacation clubs, deeded ownership, and right to use timeshare ownership, any of which may or may not include points-based usage. And as popular as points-based timeshare has become, timeshare ownership through points is not the right choice for all property owners. In the same regard, one timeshare points system can be very different from another. Your goal, as an informed timeshare owner, is to understand your options so you can pick the type of timeshare points (or system without points) that best fits your objectives.

Examples of Timeshare Points Structures

Wyndham timeshares can be owned either by points or by whole ownership. Wyndham allows (and encourages) its timeshare owners to convert from ownership to points ownership only. When you do this, you literally deed your timeshare ownership to Wyndham timeshare, while you take points ownership in exchange. You can now use your points to trade or exchange within the Wyndham system. One downside is that you lose your automatically reserved week of timeshare at your home resort, requiring you to request your week of usage every year. If you happened to like knowing you always have a timeshare unit at your favorite resort, year in-year out, then you won’t like making this switch to Wyndham points.

RCI timeshare points are some of the most flexible to use. One simple feature is that RCI has a timeshare points policy that 9000 points will get you any available US timeshare within 45 days of your vacation date. RCI timeshare points can also be use for car rentals, air travel, and other vacation related expenses, which is a popular perk among timeshare owners.

In February of 2009, Disney Vacation Club redistributed their timeshare points. (Read more here: Disney Timeshares Are Changing Timeshare Points Structure) and in July of 2009, Marriott timeshare began integrating its timeshare points system with Marriott Rewards. (More on Marriott timeshare points: Timeshare Points System at Marriott Vacation Club is Changing). Starwood timeshare also made significant changes to their points systems in 2009, with some of the changes overriding privileges that many Starwood timeshare owners felt were part of the rights of their deeded timeshare ownership.

Takeaway point here? How each timeshare company or timeshare exchange company distributes and utilizes timeshare points is very different from one company to the next. Ask before you buy. Understand what you are buying. Timeshare owners who truly get the most out of their timeshares are almost always the owners who have a rock solid understanding of what they own and how it works.

How about tall pines and the sounds of nature? Spring with the dogwoods in bloom or winter with freshly fallen snow? We’re talking about California timeshare at Lake Arrowhead, located in the heart of the San Bernardino National Forest.

Writer Brian Welch profiled NorthBay at Lake Arrowhead timeshare resort in the May/June edition of Resort Trades’ Management & Operations magazine. The Timeshare Authority blog, and other timeshare news sources regularly update you on Marriott timeshare, Wyndham Vacation Club timeshare, Disney timeshare, and the several dozen “big names” in the hospitality and timeshare resort industry. But none of us should ever overlook timeshare resorts that may not always be top of the mind, but can certainly become tops on your list of favorite vacation destinations.

NorthBay at Lake Arrowhead is precisely this type of timeshare, described in the Resort Trades article as, “off the beaten path, tucked away on a slope forested with towering pines…with terrific amenities and contemporary facilities yet offers an old-fashioned experience and atmosphere that encourages spending time together.”

And just as importantly, as the article goes on to point out, this is timeshare ownership where individual owners are valued and respected and where long-term relationships are built. President and CEO of The Alderwood Group (management services for North Bay at Lake Arrowhead timeshare), Tom Johnson says, “We understand our owners have entrusted us to ensure the viability and longevity of their investment. We are remaining focused on our clients…”

NorthBay at Lake Arrowhead, a Favorite California Timeshare Resort

Geared for boaters, skiers, hikers, horseback riders, and other outdoor sports enthusiasts, even if you choose to spend your day leisurely curled up with a book enjoying a backdrop of serene nature, you’ll enjoy unwinding at the resort’s indoor heated pool and spa and the redwood saunas. And how much more peaceful can the nighttime be than when you leave the city and your worries behind and relax under a canopy of twinkling stars?

Breathe deeply, you can almost smell the pines already. And with opportunities in NorthBay at Lake Arrowhead timeshare resales you can soon be enjoying this tranquility firsthand.

Hat tip and our thanks to: Resort Trades’ Management & Operations magazine and author Brian Welch.