Sell Timeshare

Typically, closing the deal on a piece of real estate property means paying legal expenses. Discover why, if the proper conditions are met, you do not need to hire a lawyer to help settle your timeshare closing.

Anyone who has ever bought a home knows that an attorney who specializes in real estate is a natural part of the closing process. Therefore, it is logical to assume that a timeshare closing transaction requires a lawyer to facilitate the close of the sale. What most people don’t know is that there is no reason, legally or otherwise, to hire your own lawyer to oversee a timeshare sale.

With any large purchase, the intercession of a third-party intermediary is helpful to both the buyer and seller. In real estate transactions, a lawyer’s involvement is just one of several systems in place intended to assure both parties that the sale is taking place “by the book”. A real estate lawyer provides many services, including the review or preparation of the purchase agreement and negotiation about the terms, determining who should hold the deposit, the preparation of the deed and power of attorney (if needed), dealing with any title issues that the bank attorney may raise, attending the closing and reviewing any documents which the seller is required to sign, escrows, special arrangements to correct the title, and many other functions vital to a successful and stress-free sale process.

Timeshare, though it is still deeded property, is a different case in many respects.

There are a variety of timeshare closing companies available to help close a timeshare sale. These companies are staffed by attorneys, and are capable of handling the entire process from start to finish. Often a timeshare resale company will be able to recommend a closing company to a buyer. A good closing company will be approprately licensed and bonded, and must be capable of handling and preparing deeds, escrow of funds, estoppel certificates, closing statements, and recording fees- all for a flat rate. This means you don’t have to hire your own lawyer to sell your timeshare.

SellMyTimeshareNOW has long-standing relationships with the timeshare closing companies we recommend. Because of these partnerships, we have saved our advertisers untold additional expenses. For more information, you are invited to visit our seller FAQ page.

Timeshares are not traditional real estate and do not need a timeshare appraisal. Here are some things to consider when determining the value of your timeshare.

In the public mind, timeshare is often viewed as being no different from traditional real estate. While some similarities exist, a timeshare is a different item altogether.

Many people who have sought a way to sell their timeshare have encountered companies which charge an “appraisal fee” for a real estate broker to appraise the property. Assessed at the beginning of the sale process, this is often a high cost, and usually followed by a commission on the back end of the sale.

These days, many people still feel that a licensed real estate broker is a necessary part of a timeshare resale transaction. For those people, we would like to highlight a few facts:

– It is not necessary for a timeshare property to undergo an appraisal by a licensed real estate broker. If you bought your timeshare from a developer, your property was never appraised. There is no reason to pay for an appraisal now.

-An estimated 50% of the initial cost of a new timeshare property covers the cost of marketing the timeshare; presenations, gifts, and other special incentives are covered by the initial cost. This is why timeshare resales generally cost about 50% of a resort developer’s original asking price.

-In order for a timeshare appraisal to be official, a broker must be licensed in the state where the timeshare is sold, the state where the timeshare actually is located, and the state where the broker’s office is. If a broker cannot meet any of these criteria, this would tend to detract from the value of the appraisal.

-Paying a commission on the back end of a timeshare transaction creates an incentive for a salesperson to inflate the asking price. Because a commission is a percentage of the sale, certain brokers may set the value of a property disproportionately high in order to increase the value of the commission. A timeshare which is not priced competitively is not likely to sell.

From our Seller FAQ page:

“Many brokers and timeshare resellers unethically insist on the buyer paying upfront for appraisals or a comparative market analysis (CMA). You simply do not need an appraisal or CMA to sell a timeshare. It is not traditional real estate. Your timeshare property was not appraised when you purchased it and does not need to be appraised to sell it now. When speaking with timeshare resellers or brokers, if you are told you need an appraisal or CMA, use extreme caution. The bottom line is if you want to be successful in selling your timeshare property, you need to be priced well under what the resort is selling the same unit and week for.”

If you are interested in finding out the current market value for your property, SellMyTimeshareNOW offers Market Value Surveys for timeshare resales and rentals. This is a service we provide free of charge because we believe that no-one should ever pay for a timeshare appraisal.

Here you can find some common pitfalls encountered by people who want to buy or sell timeshare, and some resources to use when determining which timeshare resale company is right for you.

In our line of work, it is frequent that we encounter people who have been treated unfairly at various stages of timeshare ownership. Often, the property has already been advertised for months with several online timeshare resale companies, but the seller may get no offers. Some companies charge an up-front fee for their services PLUS a commission on the back end. To increase the commission, sales reps will often inflate the value of the property beyond reasonable market value. What this means is that an overpriced timeshare will languish in an obscure part of the reseller’s website for an indefinite period of time. If it finally sells, a large chunk of the proceeds goes toward the commission. This is a time-consuming, aggravating, and expensive way to sell timeshare.

Other resellers might not charge a commission on the back end of a sales transaction. This sounds good to a prospective seller, but what if a company has no incentive to deliver a fast sale? Unfortunately, many online timeshare resellers are focused on getting a fast buck from each client who signs up. Their business models are oriented toward making a big profit in the short term, with little regard for anything else. Some of these companies really don’t care whether or not a property ever sells! Their only concern is the customer’s money. After the up-front fee has been paid, again we see timeshare properties gathering dust on some webpage that no-one can find.

Worst of all, some companies do not actually exist. A prospective seller will get a call from someone pretending to be a rep from a phony company. When the seller falls for this ruse, the “sales rep” takes the money and disappears.

Naturally, because of the poor treatment they have received at the hands of other companies, at first many of our existing clients were hesitant to enlist our services. These people have learned to take a more cautious approach to the timeshare industry, but at a very high cost- often thousands of dollars!

How can a timeshare owner tell if a resale company will do what it promises?

As with everything else on the internet, the information is available, it is just a question of finding it.

-Any company that is doing business regularly will have a record with the Better Business Bureau. The BBB lists any complaints made against almost every business, so by comparing records, you can quickly determine which company is right for you. Can’t find a company’s record at the BBB site? Either the company is brand-new, or it doesn’t exist. Our Better Business Bureau record is of almost immeasurable value to us because we are determined to be in the timeshare business long-term. We care about our customers because we believe that time will either promote a business, or expose it. Our exemplary customer service ensures that SellMyTimeshareNOW will continue to be a member in good standing of the Better Business Bureau. A company that refuses to provide quality customer service in this highly competitive business will inevitably fail.

-Many companies offer their own traffic statistics documenting the flow of visitors to their sites. While this is admirable, we feel that impartial, third-party traffic statistics give us greater credibility. For this purpose, we use a company called Extreme Tracking. Here can be found detailed information on our traffic. Another third-party resource is Alexa, long considered the standard by which sites are ranked according to traffic. As our company has grown, our Alexa rank indicates that we have constantly been driving more and more traffic to our site, and that in a short time we have become a major player in the timeshare sales industry.

We believe that you should demand proof before you spend money to advertise your timeshare. We are so confident in our ability to achieve success for our clients that we choose to let the facts speak for themselves. Regardless of how you ultimately choose to sell your timeshare, you owe it to yourself to investigate the claims of any company.