When it comes to vacation planning, do we really want to know what the experts say? If you are like most people, apparently the advice of travel ‘experts’ does not rank very high on your list.

Most of us, it seems, put more stock in the opinions of complete strangers when it comes to travel and vacationing. And when viewed in comparison to the combined opinions of our friends, family, and travelers we’ve never met, travel experts fall far to the bottom of the list as influencers.

According to The Social Travel Report prepared by the independent media agency, Total Media, most consumers (based on a sample of 1,375 people) select hotels, timeshare, or other vacation lodging based on the feedback and recommendations of other consumers. The study reveals that nearly 70 percent of consumers use the internet to book vacations and that roughly 25 percent are influenced by the comments voiced online by other travelers and vacationers. In other words, consumers aren’t reading travel magazines, brochures, or consulting travel agents nearly as much as they are reading the online comments and testimonials of other consumers.

Testimonials at Sell My Timeshare NOW

Sell My Timeshare NOW has always appreciated the positive feedback the company receives from consumers who buy timeshare, sell timeshare, or rent timeshare online at www.sellmytimesharenow.com.

Follow this link to read some of the many glowing comments Sell My Timeshare NOW has earned from its timeshare buyers, renters and sellers … but here’s a word of warning, take along a cup of coffee, because this is a very, very long list!

Here’s a sampling of what you’ll find:

“Just wanted to thank you for the wonderful service we received during the process of renting our Aruba timeshare this year. We received a promp phone call with assistance to writing an ad and it was advertised on your web site the next day. We were contacted 2 months later with an offer and received the check by the following week. What great service!!” J. and A. Scialo

“I would not hesitate to recommend your company to friends looking to sell or purchase timeshares.” Arthur Budge Jr (Ad 6954)

“I have used sellmytimesharenow.com the past two years for renting our condos in Cabo San Lucas at the Pueblo Bonito Rose and Sunset Beach. We have 4 weeks that we rent every year and always have a huge amount of inquires and rent them for our asking price. The investment to post these units on sellmytimesharenow.com is well worth the money. The staff is very professional and any website updates are handled immediately and accurately. We have used other websites and received no responses and were unable to rent our units. I highly recommend using Sellmytimesharenow.com for renting your units!” Brenda T. (Ad 204083)

Sometimes at Sell My Timeshare NOW and The Timeshare Authority, we talk too much about what we do, and what we can do for you, and we forget to tell you who we are. Over the next few months, I am going to change that, telling you about some of the very special people who work extremely hard, every day, to make it easier for you to buy, rent, or sell timeshare.

And the beautiful smiling face, and warm personality of Angela Cantanzaro, Customer Care Manager for Sell My Timeshare NOW, seems like a great place to start. Here is Angela’s story, in her own words:

Here’s an interesting thought regarding vacation planning: Last week the Commercial Aviation Safety Team, a government-industry aviation safety group, elevated “birds” to its list of priority aviation safety issues.

Everyone knows about US Airways Flight 1549 that made a miraculous and safe emergency landing in the Hudson River last January; an incident precipitated by a flock of Canadian geese. According to an article that appeared in USA Today, “… last month, a bird blasted a hole through the windshield of a cargo plane over Arizona and another gouged an 18-inch tear in the side of a Delta Air Lines jet near Phoenix. Birds also have been involved in several helicopter accidents this year, including a crash in Louisiana that killed eight people headed to an oil platform.”

Even if concerns over airline safety are not enough to keep you grounded (air travel remains the safest form of transportation available), there are other reasons to buy timeshare at a drive-to destination.

Reasons to Buy Timeshare near Your Home

• A drive-to timeshare vacation translates to money saved on travel, meaning that even when your vacation budget is tight, because timeshare affords you prepaid vacation accommodations; you can probably always manage to take a vacation.
• When you buy timeshare located near where you live, you can work in ‘mini vacations’ thanks in part to the fact that today’s timeshare intervals can typically be enjoyed in periods of less than a week—some even allowing you to enjoy your timeshare one night at a time.
• Depending upon where you live, odds are that if your timeshare is near your home, it is within driving distance of other large populations meaning that when you want to sell timeshare or rent timeshare you have a targeted market of others who may be interested in drive-to vacations.
• If your timeshare is sufficiently close to your home, you can also use it for overflow housing for guests, visiting relatives, or business associates who are in town.

While the FAA will likely be able to spur the development of solutions to problems our fine feathered friends create for jet engines, one idea that is definitely not for the birds is how much sense a drive-to timeshare can make.

When you are ready to sell your timeshare, you don’t want to become involved in a process that slows you down or leaves you in limbo. Whether you are trying to eliminate the cost of annual timeshare fees, have found that you no longer use and enjoy your timeshare, or you are ready to buy a new and different timeshare, you want to be able to sell timeshare in an efficient, safe, and uncomplicated way.

Many factors enter into timeshare sales and timeshare resales. The desirability of the timeshare interval you own, the appeal and amenities of the resort, and even the size of the timeshare unit all factor into how easy it will be to sell your timeshare. Above all other aspects, however, here are the two most important, top critical factors in selling your timeshare: price and visibility.

You must price your timeshare to sell. You must price it competitively so that people have a reason to buy your timeshare instead of buying a better priced timeshare at the same resort or a resort with similar amenities. No, it is not necessary to give your timeshare away. But if your timeshare resale is priced higher than others on the resale market, you could be left holding on to for a long time, and that is just common sense.

The second critical factor in selling timeshare is that you must advertise it in a global marketplace of interested timeshare buyers. Not a neighborhood market; not a bulletin board at the grocery store; not a webpage you put up yourself or even your average timeshare resale website—why? Because traffic is the key. Lots and lots of people who are interested in buying timeshare, renting timeshare, or becoming timeshare owners. Worldwide traffic, from consumers in all parts of the globe.

Now you’re talking. Pay attention to these two critical factors and the opportunity to sell your timeshare improves considerably.

Follow this link if you are interested in receiving a free Timeshare Valuation Report.

We love to check out the advice real estate guru Barbara Corcoran has to offer for buying or selling a home or vacation property. Besides the fact that Corcoran took a $1000 loan and turned it into a five billion dollar real estate business, she is also the expert who told viewers of The Today Show to turn to online timeshare advertising—and specifically named Sell My Timeshare NOW – as the recommended way to resell timeshare.

Here’s what Barbara Corcoran’s advice about selling your home that’s equally meaningful for anyone who wants to resell timeshare.

• Remember that the most enticing homes on the market are the newest to the listings and the lowest priced.
• Stay ahead of the pricing curve in a down market.
• Be prepared to price your house 15 percent below comparable homes on the market.
• If you have to make a price reduction to get your property sold, don’t make it a tiny one that just causes your property to languish on the market even longer and eventually results in you making a second, third, or even more price drops.

In a good real estate (or timeshare sales and timeshare resales market), price your property aggressively in order to get the sale, pricing it as low as competitive properties. And in a difficult market—if you really want to sell your timeshare or your home—be the most competitively priced property in your market.

More about Barbara Corcoran from The Timeshare Authority:

• The Today Show Recommends SellMyTimeshareNOW.com for Timeshare Resales
• The Today Show’s Real Estate Expert Who Suggests Sell My Timeshare NOW, a Star on Shark Tank

And just for the fun of it, see if you can catch reruns of Barbara Corcoran wheeling and dealing during this season’s Shark Tank on ABC.

With everyone looking to cut back on monthly bills, Sell My Timeshare NOW is often asked how timeshare owners can refinance timeshare on which they are still making payments. Timeshare owners also want to know whether they can sell timeshare they still owe money on, and whether they can borrow money against a timeshare they own in full.

These are all very important and timely questions and over the next three days, The Timeshare Authority will look at each of these issues, starting with if and how you as a timeshare owner can refinance a timeshare on which you are still making payments.

First let’s be candid and say that money is tight everywhere and credit is even tighter. But if you can lower your interest rate, you will lower the monthly payment you are making on your timeshare.

Suppose you owe $5,000 on a timeshare that is financed at 17 percent interest. If you take 5 years to pay off the debt, your monthly payment will be $124.26, for a total payout of $7455.60. If you can get the interest rate down to 11 percent, you only save $15.55 per month, which doesn’t seem like much, but over a five year period adds up to $933 saved. And who turns down $933?

Now let’s do the same comparison using a larger debt. $25,000 owed on a timeshare, financed at 17 percent means a monthly payment of $621.30 over a five-year period. At 11 percent, the monthly payment drops to $543.56. The final tally on the higher interest rate comes to $37,278, while at the 11 percent rate comes in at $32,613.60—a savings of just over $4,664 during the five-year payoff period.

For further comparison, let’s look at the $25,000 debt at both interest rates, only this time spreading them out over 10 years. At 17 percent, but a 10-year payoff, the monthly payment drops to $434.49, while at the 11 percent interest rate over this same period, the payment drops to $344.38.

Clearly, if you can refinance timeshare debt taking your monthly payment from $621.30 (the higher interest rate, shorter term) to $344.38 (the lower interest rate and the longer term), that’s enough reduction to provide relief in many household budgets. However, remember that as good as it sounds to save almost $277 monthly in your payment, in the option that calls for lower interest but also longer term; you are paying more money in the end—substantially more. That innocent sounding $344.38 turns into a whopping $41,325.60 when paid out over a ten-year period.

If you need the relief now, then it makes more sense to get into a payment plan you can afford than go with one that will result in late fees, negative items on your credit report, and ultimately higher interest rates on everything you buy. When current cash flow dictates that you must opt for paying off a debt more slowly in order to keep your monthly payments as low as possible, you can try to offset the long-term cost of the interest by paying extra payments whenever possible to ultimately shorten the period of your debt and lower the overall amount.

We used 17 percent as our higher interest rate because many timeshare companies that offer on-the-spot financing have historically done so at roughly this rate. For comparison, we used 11 percent, because consumers can often obtain credit cards with 11 percent interest rates, and transferring your timeshare debt from developer financing to a credit card may be an option for some timeshare owners. If you happen to have a credit card with a lower than 11 percent interest rate, then your savings will be even greater.

The Changing Financial Picture Limits Timeshare Refinance Options

Yet many consumers with excellent credit histories have been surprised to see their credit limits slashed at the same time their credit card company has increased their interest rates. With less open credit and a higher interest rate, refinancing timeshare to your credit card may not be your best option.

In 1996, Tammac Financial became one of the first lenders to offer timeshare refinancing, among its loan products. At this time however, Tammac Financial is not accepting timeshare financing applications, and explains it with this message that appears on its website, “Unfortunately, due to economic conditions beyond our control we are no longer accepting new loan applications.”

Another lender with a history in timeshare financing and timeshare refinance is First Again, however, currently, their website bears a similar message, “Unfortunately, due to economic forces beyond our control, First Again is presently unable to accept new loan applications; however, we are continuing to service our existing customers and recent loan applicants.”

If you belong to a credit union or have a good standing with your bank, you may be able to obtain a signature loan to refinance timeshare debt. These loans do not use the timeshare to collateralize the debt, which means there is no reason for add-on costs to the loans such as a timeshare appraisal. In fact, there are very few instances in buying or selling timeshare or financing timeshare (either new or as timeshare resales) in which you need a timeshare appraisal.

Before you make any decisions about refinancing a timeshare or transferring existing debt on your timeshare loan, look at the following:

1. Does your current loan have a prepayment penalty?
2. Does the new financing you are planning to obtain have such a penalty?
3. Are you currently able to claim your timeshare mortgage interest as a tax deduction?
4. Will you be able to claim your timeshare mortgage interest if you transfer the debt to a new loan or a credit card?
5. Are there origination fees or transfer costs for setting up the new debt?

Somewhere in your desk drawer, you have a calculator. Get it out and use it to fully analyze and compare your options. Run multiple scenarios, just as we have done in the comparisons above.

If you are uncertain about changing the way you finance your timeshare, talk with your financial advisor, bank representative, or someone you trust and who is well versed in personal finance. These days, we all need to think twice and act prudently when it comes to our dollars.

And check in with The Timeshare Authority for tomorrow’s timeshare blog; we’ll be looking at your options for selling timeshare on which you still owe money.

More excitement and expansion as we welcome Carol Kollm, the new Director of Marketing at Sell My Timeshare NOW.

Carol Kollm comes to us from CourseAdvisor Inc., a Washington Post Company, where she was the Director of Product Management and Design. While she was at CourseAdvisor, Carol developed and managed A/B and multivariate testing which resulted in excess of a million dollars in incremental revenue for the company. She is also co-founded AlphaStrand, a strategic web development company that serves Boston law organizations and healthcare, including Partners Healthcare.

We are very happy to have Carol as part of our Sell My Timeshare NOW marketing team. Her range of experience is extensive and includes Web Usability and Analytics, Product Definition and Design, Project Management, Conversion Optimization, SEO, (SEM) /PPC, and Social Media Marketing. We know Carol will be an asset to our talented staff. We’ll be putting her online marketing expertise and landing page optimization experience to work as we take Sell My Timeshare NOW into a growth period, focusing on new services, technologies, and alliances all designed to target the needs of consumers as well as the changing needs of timeshare developers.

Within every challenge lies opportunity. At Sell My Timeshare NOW, we’ve taken on the challenge of the economy and used it as a springboard to expand our services, to analyze old mindsets about the timeshare industry, and to step up to the plate with new solutions. Adding Carol Kollm to our staff, along with other new changes we are making is part of the fresh new page we are helping to write in timeshare sales and the advertising and marketing of timeshare resales and timeshare rentals.

Follow this link to read Sell My Timeshare NOW’s media release about our new Director of Marketing.

RCI timeshare exchange (part of the Wyndham Worldwide and Wyndham Timeshare family of companies) has announced affiliation with six new resorts in China. With the addition of these six resorts, RCI timeshare exchange now includes 24 affiliate properties in China.

Geoff Ballotti, president and CEO, Group RCI timeshare exchange says, “Our growing presence in China is a clear indication of the confidence our members and developers have in the concept of vacation ownership and the recognition of RCI as their preferred partner of choice in delivering memorable experiences to more than 3.8 million RCI members around the globe.”

RCI Timeshare Exchange Adds Six Resorts

The six new resorts, all part of the RCI timeshare exchange network, include:

• Beijing BBMG BaDaLing Hot Spring Resort in Beijing.
• Sunshine Water World Resort in Xiaotangshan.
• LuGuHu Holiday Inn in Sichuan.
• Ramada Plaza Hotel Yantai in Yantai, Shandong.
• Ramada Hotel Wuxi in Wuxi.
• Zen International Hotel in Henan province.

Adrian Lee, managing director, RCI Asia explains, “These resorts represent an interesting cross-section of the unique and varied vacation experiences that China resorts have to offer. They will give our members a chance to experience the beauty of the Chinese landscape and culture, while enjoying a whole host of luxurious recreational facilities and services.”

Timeshare Resale Has a Global Market

China timeshare is an exciting concept. Many American’s idea of business in China is defined, at least in part, by the slice of life presented to the world during the Beijing Olympics last summer. According to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, China attracted 5.36 billion US$ of actual FDI (foreign direct investment) last month. While it sounds like a staggering number, it represents a 35.7percent drop over the same month in 2008 and marks the tenth consecutive month where foreign direct investment has dropped. (source Wall Street Journal)

This is a good reminder that the global economy needs all its players; no country operates as an island anymore. And in the same way that there are economies eager to embrace US investment dollars, there are also emerging markets for timeshares, timeshare resale, and timeshare rental.

When you get ready to sell timeshare or rent timeshare, don’t gauge your perception of the market by only what is going on with US timeshare. There are thriving economies around the world and enthusiastic timeshare buyers and timeshare renters in places that only a few years ago we would have never expected to find them.

Group RCI media release on China timeshare exchange.

In the Lynchburg, Virginia area of Huddleston, a Smith Mountain Lake resort community is making plans for a new waterfront condominium complex.

The Mariner’s Landing Development will construct the new resort, to be known as “Longview at the Pointe”. Plans are to sell the two and three bedroom condo units in four-week intervals, although full ownership options will also be offered.

The Point Is Not Selling Timeshare; It’s Buying Vacation Ownership

Jay White, a marketing consultant whose family owns the resort community, calls it, “…Just another type of ownership at Smith Mountain Lake.”

Good point! The developers didn’t wake up one morning and think: Our business goal is all about selling timeshare.

Instead, they looked at an opportunity (for their business and also for families in need of vacation options), and they considered how they could make vacation property ownership available to more people.

White, in an interview with The Lynchburg News and Advance, called the pricing, “… affordable compard with other offerings at the lake…”

“It’s just another way for people to enjoy the lake and not bankrupt themselves,” said White. “In my mind, the goal is to offer an affordable product someone can buy young and continue to upgrade until they want to retire and get the (vacation) home of their choice.”

Selling Timeshare Probably Started in a Cave

Once upon a time, there were no doubt two cave dwellers who wanted the same rock shelter. In order to accommodate the wishes of both, they decided to share the space, alternate who slept closest to the fire pit, and both contribute by dragging home freshly killed stegosaurus steaks. In every sense of the word, the two were involved in shared ownership, marked by the intervals of whos turn it was to sleep by the fire.

Timeshare shouldn’t be thought of as some suspicious idea, nor should it be viewed as a get-rich-quick plan by anyone in the business. Timeshare is really a very simple concept of shared ownership, enabling people who could never afford the cost and upkeep of sole ownership to still enjoy their little piece of vacation heaven.

Today’s timeshare is an evolved business model that translates to making vacation ownership available to the greatest number of people possible. And every day, through the sale of both new timeshare and of timeshare resales, vacation ownership is happening.

As Jay White so aptly put it in talking about the Smith Mountain Lake property, “This is really becoming a great destination, a great resort, and it needs to be affordable for people to enjoy it. If it’s going to be successful, it’s got to be available to people who can afford $750,000 or $50,000.”

Now let’s throw in the idea of timeshare resale properties, some of which are priced at $5000 or less, and you truly get: Affordable Vacation Ownership.

Follow this link to learn more about Virginia timeshare resales.

Here’s some timeshare industry good news as Sell My Timeshare NOW releases its July 2009 Year-to-Date Statistical Synopsis, showing continued growth and expansion by our timeshare resale and timeshare rental advertising company.

We’ve increased our staff, opened a new timeshare advertising sales call center in Orlando, Florida, and we are continuing to expand our services. Despite the challenging economy, we have received nearly $240 million in offers to buy or rent timeshare, year-to-date. This accounts for a 15 percent increase over figures through last June (2008) for timeshare resale and timeshare rental offers.

Offers to rent timeshare have been outstanding in 2009, showing a 140 percent increase over year-to-date timeshare rental offers from 2008, and a 79 percent increase in the amount of these offers. As I said in our company’s media release, Timeshare Resale Advertising Leader Sell My Timeshare NOW Releases Business Synopsis Demonstrating Growth and Expansion:

“A tough economy brings an excellent challenge to business to step up your game, deliver more, and work smarter. We think our growth and continued strength verify that what we do works for the timeshare owner and the timeshare industry.”

We are proud of our growth, expansion, and service. We are working hard to fill important needs for people who want to buy, rent, or sell timeshare, as well as, very specific needs within the timeshare industry. And as the economy, the timeshare industry, and the vacation needs of consumers change, we’ll keep adapting our products and services.

Click this link to download a copy of the Sell My Timeshare NOW July 2009 Year-to-Date Statistical Synopsis.

And click here to view our latest media release: Timeshare Resale Advertising Leader Sell My Timeshare NOW