ARDA

Local author and columnist, Laura Bricker, has an interesting perspective on timeshare sales based on her recent timeshare vacation to Florida. You can read “Psst, Wanna Buy a Timeshare?” at SeaCoastOnline.com

While her account of her experiences is accurate, her assessment that the timeshare resort industry is in trouble is not…but who can blame her for thinking this when you look at the way some timeshare real estate is sold?

Laura Bricker and family might have enjoyed their Florida timeshare vacation even more if they hadn’t been subjected to aggressive overtures from timeshare salespeople who approached them on the beach and even while driving. They were offered cash and other incentives to attend timeshare presentations. The unprofessional and desperate tactics of some timeshare sellers would leave anyone to assume that timeshare real estate is on its last leg.

In fact, timeshare sales of both new timeshare weeks purchased directly from developers and timeshare weeks and timeshare condos purchased as resales have never been better. According to the American Resort Development Association, known as ARDA, vacation ownership (new timeshare sales) has increased every year during the past decade, growing at an annualized rate of 16 percent. And in 2007, Sell My Timeshare NOW, presented its customers just over $274 million in offers to buy timeshare or rent timeshare – that’s an 18 percent increase in dollar amount over offers presented in 2006. Further proof of the strength of timeshare sales is the fact that major hoteliers all continue to expand their timeshare resort offerings worldwide. In fact, many sources in the hospitality and tourism industries claim that timeshare sales are the fastest growing segments of their business.

It’s a shame that heavy-handed sales tactics are still being used as part of timeshare sales. Timeshare ownership is a good product that brings a great deal of satisfaction to many people and doesn’t deserve the “bad rap” a few overzealous sales people give it.

To learn more about buying timeshare resales from their current owner, visit Sell My Timeshare NOW, where no salespeople will ever flag down your car or disturb you as you relax on the beach.

According to ARDA, the American Resort Development Association, diverse segments of the population own timeshares, but currently the majority of timeshare units are owned by baby boomers and empty nesters. Howard Nausbaum, ARDA president, says, “Baby Boomers like the value proposition and agility of ‘sharing’ resources such as vacation condos and homes.”

I’ve pointed out to you before that people born between 1946 and 1964—the boomers—are the fastest growing demographic in our society, so it stands to reason that they will represent the largest group of Americans who buy timeshare or rent timeshare for their vacations. They also, as a group enjoy the highest income earning levels with many of them having not yet even reached their earning potential. In the book Boom, (by Mary Brown and Carol Orsborn) a source you have seen me quote before, boomers are benefiting from inheritances left them by their parents and in-laws, adding to their resources of expendable income.

But boomers are not the only ones who rent timeshare or buy timeshare. And a closer look at Interval International’s most recent profile of timeshare buyers bears this out.

Profile of Vacationers Who Buy Timeshare

Research done by the timeshare exchange company, Interval International, (as reported in Hotel Interactive) revealed that, “leisure travelers interested in vacation ownership have a strong commitment to their values, personal needs, and lifestyles.”

The study goes on to identify that 36 percent of the people who buy timeshare are between the ages of 42 and 60. But here’s where I think, the research gets particularly interesting; 33 percent of the people who buy timeshare are between the ages of 28 and 41, with another 12 percent being under the age of 27.

The math’s not difficult here. People over the age of 42, do in fact, make up the largest percentage of timeshare owners, but it has clearly become a pretty tight race. People between the ages of 21 and 41 are purchasing an amazing 45 percent of all timeshares!

Proof once again, that timeshare ownership today is no longer a concept struggling to define itself and find ways to create flexibility and options. Nowadays, if you want to buy timeshare, your choices are flexible and packed with enough options to suit almost everyone’s vacation style and budget, especially when you look at the opportunities to buy timeshare on the resale market.

Timeshare Resale and By-Owner Timeshare

Timeshare resales and by-owner timeshare have taken down the price barriers and made timeshare ownership available to an enormous segment of the population. People who want to sell timeshare have often used and enjoyed their vacation ownership for many years; when they sell, they may be ready to simply relieve themselves of the commitments of timeshare ownership and move on to something else in their lives. Lifestyle changes, job transfers, health issues, marriages, divorces, and income changes are all reasons that some timeshare owners are willing to resell timeshare at very competitive prices. And if you’ve never looked at just how competitive the prices for timeshare resale and timeshare rental can be, I can think of no better place for you to start looking than at Sell My Timeshare NOW.

“The number of adult leisure travelers who say they are familiar with timeshare has grown 57 percent over (the) last eight years,” says Howard Bendell, director of market research and analysis for Interval International.

Who gets the credit for increasing the public’s awareness of timeshare? According to Hotel Interactive’s website, Howard Bendell attributes the growing knowledge of timesharing to ARDA’s outstanding consumer education programs, as well as efforts by timeshare developers themselves to get the word out.

Timeshare companies using television advertising have helped increase awareness of the opportunities of timeshares. More importantly, the incredible internet presence of both new and resale timeshare companies means that the message of timesharing is reaching amazing numbers of people globally. But as with most products in today’s marketplace, the consumer-to-consumer voice is fast becoming the single most powerful marketing tool for communicating the benefits and features of timeshares.

People no longer want to hear a big company tell them that a product will fit their needs; they want to hear what friends, family, and other consumers—even consumers they do not know—have to say. As the World Wide Web transitions into Web 2.0, the internet will continue to redefine itself with more interactive options, empowering people to learn what others candidly think about their experience with buying timeshare or selling timeshare.

Sell My Timeshare NOW has always been about consumer-to-consumer transactions for buying, renting, or selling timeshare. Current timeshare owners who want to sell timeshare or use their vacation property as a timeshare rental turn to Sell My Timeshare NOW to advertise their unit, interval, or vacation club membership for them, giving them worldwide exposure in the timeshare resale marketplace.

Sell My Timeshare NOW timeshare resales are a great choice for many vacationers and a perfect solution for people who want to sell timeshare they no longer use. But you don’t have to take our word for it; read the testimonials of Sell My Timeshare NOW’s highly satisfied customers, or visit us on Facebook and find out what other timeshare sellers and timeshare buyers genuinely think.

In my last two blog postings, I have talked about timeshare vacation property as a regulated industry, and also about upfront fees in the timeshare industry, and what those fees really mean.

Let’s look at one more topic that sometimes confuses both timeshare owners and people who are new to the world of timeshare: the many different ways to own timeshare.

Timeshare owned as “right to use” property means just what it sounds like it means. You don’t own any portion of the property, but you do own the right to use that property. When you buy right to use timeshare, you purchase the right to use the property (usually a specific unit) for a predetermined period of time, or for a predetermined number of uses.

Right to use timeshare does not provide the timeshare buyer with a deed or any ownership of a percentage of the resort, nor does it create any percentage of ownership of an individual timeshare unit. Most vacation club memberships are examples of right to use timeshare ownership.

Leasehold timeshare is similar to right to use, except it is actually “owned” (without a deed) for a stated period. In other words, leasehold is defined by the number of years you hold the lease. When the lease ends, so do your rights to use the timeshare. Leasehold timeshare is common for Hawaii timeshares, and in other geographic areas where leasehold ownership is frequently used by the real estate market in general.

Timeshare can also be held as a right to use property with no limitations on how long the timeshare owner can use the property. In other words, a timeshare can be a right to use ownership, where the rights extend into perpetuity (forever).

Many timeshares, especially in the US, are owned as fee simple real estate. Fee simple ownership is deeded timeshare ownership, and is typically structured very much like the way most people own their personal residences. Often, similar to the way people own condominium properties, a fee simple deed includes a date, on which the individual timeshare owners, stop being individual owners and become tenants in common. When that date is reached, the tenants vote on whether or not to continue the structure of individual ownership. For example, they may decide by majority vote, to sell the timeshare resort as a total property, in which case, each timeshare owner will receive his or her appropriate percentage of the total sale.

Don’t be overwhelmed because there are different options for timeshare ownership. The diversity of ways you can take advantage of vacation ownership is exactly what makes timesharing so attractive.

Before you buy timeshare from a developer or take advantage of the opportunities in timeshare resales, I recommend that you get in touch with people who know and understand the different ways to buy timeshare and sell timeshare, like the timeshare resale and timeshare rental specialists at Sell My Timeshare NOW. Ask lots of questions up front, so that you become an informed timeshare buyer or timeshare seller.

The bottom line is simply this: timesharing works and works well for a lot of satisfied owners. Research prepared for the American Resort Development Association (ARDA) shows that timeshare owners report high satisfaction rates with their timeshare purchase, and over three quarters of all timeshare owners say that owning a timeshare has increased how much they look forward to vacations.

You can become one of the satisfied majority, enjoying vacation planning ease, luxurious resorts, incredible flexibility, and all the benefits timesharing has to offer. And Sell My Timeshare NOW is the perfect place to start.