The new Partner Portal Program at Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Brokers Services is the topic of this month’s Technology article in ARDA’s Developments magazine.

The article, “New Portal for Bulk Resales/Rental Inventory,” explains how the timeshare industry has been in search, for years, of such a program in response to the industry’s need for a database resource akin to the MLS (Multiple Listing Service) used in residential real estate.

This Fall, at the C.A.R.E. Convention in Chicago, we launched the Partner Portal as a game-changing, industry-changing tool that virtually everyone in the timeshare industry can take advantage of for moving their resale and rental inventory.

Here’s how Developments describes the timeshare resale and timeshare rental Partner Portal Program:

Different from Sell My Timeshare NOW’s public-facing Web site geared to consumers, this new platform provides tools and services to business-based sellers and renters who want to advertise their inventory. The Partner Portal provides a central depositary for independent brokers, resale companies, management companies, HOAs, and even developers with large or small amounts of resale and rental inventory—all inventory is displayed within SellMyTimeshareNOW.com. With SMTN’s millions of page-views each month, the site provides key access to leverage growth across the new Portal business as well.

The Partner Portal is a Simple, Effective Way to Sell or Rent Timeshare

At Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Brokers Services, we have worked to make the Partner Portal as simple to use as possible. Timeshare brokers, real estate agents, timeshare HOAs, timeshare developers, anyone who takes timeshare trade-ins, timeshare management companies, timeshare resales companies, or anyone with access to clean, rentable inventory, can potentially put the Partner Portal to work for them.

The process is as simple as:

1. Initially setting up your no-upfront fee online account
2. Uploading your timeshares resale or rental inventory, whether that is one property or thousands
3. And then seeing your inventory sell or rent!

Before your property information is published live online, we double-check it for accuracy and standardize it so that all information is presented in a similar way, ensuring that all the content that appears on our sites is accurately represented to consumers.

More importantly, we continue to apply, 24/7, the strategies and technologies that keep our websites buzzing with over 1.7 million page-views each month. And always, throughout the process, you remain in control of your properties… you pay nothing to advertise them through our websites and you can take your ads down at any time you like, no penalties, no fees.

To learn more about The Partner Portal for timeshare resale and timeshare rental, be sure you read the November/December edition of Developments.

We also invite you to view the slides included below and to visit www.sellmytimesharenow.com/portal

You can also learn more by contacting Jerome Bocquet at 877-884-9577 ext. 307 or Jay Bade at 317-213-2553.

Frankly, much of the messaging about where the timeshare industry stands and where it’s going is confusing. And because it is often difficult for those who are part of the industry to discern, it can be truly a puzzle to consumers.

Here are a few relevant facts that should be insightful to timeshare buyers, renters, sellers, and current timeshare owners in trying to get a handle on the true popularity of timeshares and the health of the timeshare product:

• The timeshare industry registered $6.4 billion in total sales volume for 2010, which represents a 1.6 percent increase over sales in 2009. This number reflects only new sales of timeshare and does not include the multi-billion dollars in timeshare resales and timeshare rentals.
• Timeshare resort occupancy rates were 79 percent in 2010; an interesting contrast to hotel occupancy rates, which rose from the previous year, but still only reached 58 percent.
• 329,200 timeshare intervals sold last year at an average price of $19,300. Again these figures reflect only at the sales of timeshare from developers, not timeshare resales that happened privately, though a timeshare broker, or through a timeshare resale advertising company.
• Beach timeshares remain the most popular and the most prevalent. Timeshare resorts at golf or theme park destinations tend to be the largest in size and island destination resorts are typically the most expensive and have the highest occupancy percentages.
• In the US, there are approximately 1,548 timeshare resorts. Differences in numbers reported for this often stem from confusion over how  resorts with many phases of construction counts their properties.
• 8.1 million timeshare intervals are owned in the US alone.

With many naysayers ready to condemn the industry, reporting of its impending death and downfall, numbers like these present quite a different (and eye-opening) story.

Before you make any decisions about timeshare, get the facts. Be an informed consumer so that if you chose to rent or buy a timeshare, you wind up with a vacation product you enjoy, fully utilize, and that comes with only good surprises.

The new Sell My Timeshare NOW and Timeshare Broker Services Partner Portal Program is attracting a lot of attention.

And it should!

This no-strings-attached program provides anyone with clean timeshare resale or rental inventory an excellent venue for marketing their properties on our high-visibility websites. Yet the listings are non-exclusive, require no up-front fee to market, and can be taken down by the listing partner any time, with no questions asked.

We are very excited to be offering this industry-first service. It will work for any timeshare or real estate professional who:

• Sells or rents timeshare
• Is a resales company
• Takes timeshare trade-ins
• Is a timeshare developer
• Or a real estate or timeshare broker
• Or a management company or HOA
• Or simply has access to clean, rentable inventory

Please take 52 seconds and watch this video… We think you will understand a lot more about how simple it is to market your timeshare resales through the Partner Portal Program.

In the January issue of Resort Trades Magazine, and the January/February issue of Management Operations, attorney David Waller takes on the topic of timeshare resales and relief companies.

David is the senior hospitality lawyer in the Denver, Colorado offices of the national firm, Baker & Hostetler, LLP. Known for his work with hospitality companies and independent developers, David’s focus includes timeshares, condo hotels, resorts, hotels, condominium development and management, and a range of vacation ownership issues. He is licensed in Colorado and in Texas and is a frequent presenter at the ARDA Annual Conference and the Ragatz Fractional Interest Conference.

Looking at David Waller’s expertise before reading his comments is important; it reminds us he is infinitely knowledgeable on the subject of timeshares, experienced and unbiased. When he shares his thoughts on timeshare resales and relief companies, he is not advancing a personal agenda or promoting an individual client. Instead, he is truly offering insights that are sound, seasoned, and have the overall interests of both the timeshare industry and the consumer at heart.

Upfront Fee Timeshare Resale Advertising

Pointing out that a concerned timeshare industry is moving in the right direction, David Waller then addresses two specific instances where more work is needed by an evolving industry; one of these being the matter of timeshare advertising advance or ‘up-front’ fees. Describing advance fees for timeshare resale advertising as having suffered “misdirected condemnation,” he then explains why. Here’s part of what David Waller writes:

“…Concerns about advance fees still resonate in the timeshare industry today. The following is a representative sample of warnings targeted to consumers:

The point being made here is simple: there are no critics who say don’t pay upfront for a magazine or newspaper ad to sell timeshare or any other product. Imagine advertisers telling magazines that they want to sell their boat/condo/ handmade crafts but they are offended at the idea of paying for the ad until, and unless, their product actually sells. No one really expects newspaper, magazine, radio, or television advertising to bill after the fact, yet certain critics condemn online timeshare resellers for doing the same thing that is done across the board in most advertising venues every day.

Are there places you can advertise your timeshare resale at no cost? Yes. Just as there are neighborhood newsletters, free websites, and other avenues for advertising many types of products. Some work better than do others and some work for certain types of products but not all. Consumer trial and error is usually the best assessment of a free advertising option with the role of consumer agencies being best directed toward helping consumers identify credible resale and resale advertising services. And here again, David Waller’s observations are spot-on:

“Rather than condemn the practice of collecting advance fees, these agencies should recalibrate their efforts to further the consumer’s ability to identify companies that purport to be timeshare resale companies, but actually have no business purpose other than to collect advance fees…

Thank You Resort Trades

If you are interested in buying, renting, or selling timeshare, you owe it to yourself to read David Waller’s article in full. You will find it in the print issues listed at the start of this blog post and by clicking here to read it online: Thoughts on timeshare resales and relief companies. Resort Trades Publisher Tim Wilson explains, “We have an advantage because we are totally independent, and that freedom to speak without censorship or limitation is exactly what our editorial policy is based on.”

Thank you Resort Trades for providing your readership with this informative reporting and for your permission to reprint segments of it here on The Timeshare Authority blog.

In case you missed the announcement last week regarding the interview Dave Thackeray of RCI Ventures did with Phil Watson and me, today’s The Timeshare Authority revisits this critical topic.

The subject of timeshare resales has been the elephant in the room no one in the industry would talk about for too long. You’ve heard me say it before…where would auto manufacturers be if they only sold new cars and provided no options for trade ins and resales?

And unfortunately, if an industry doesn’t put forward a good solution, standardize it, and stand behind it—no matter what the goods or services are—then that industry leaves the door open for fraudsters and fly-by-nights to hark solutions that are really no solution at all. In this case, they are just timeshare scams.

And in such an environment, when ethical businesses come forward offering effective options and trustworthy services—companies including Sell My Timeshare NOW, their message can be hard to hear over the din of confusion already in place.

If you are interested in buying or selling timeshare, currently own timeshare or vacation club membership or points, or are part of the timeshare and vacation ownership industry, I think you’ll be very interested in hearing this interview.

Thank you RCI Ventures and Dave Thackeray for inviting me to be part of your internet radio show, “The Timeshare Resales Revolution.”

You can hear this podcast (internet radio) by downloading it to play anytime or playing it now: Play in new window. You can also catch all of the news and views from RCI Ventures when you subscribe at iTunes to Today’s Timeshare and its sister show, Fractional Focus.

Related The Timeshare Authority blog posts: The Timeshare Resales Revolution… Listen to Jason Tremblay Give the Wake Up Call

In the past 12 months, internet patterns have changed dramatically in China. Where travel destinations were once only researched online, a growing percentage of today’s residents of mainland China both research and buy travel online.

Until recently, Chinese internet technology made e-commerce for travel difficult for Chinese web surfers, plus cultural traditions lingered, creating a preference for face-to-face interactions. But China is presently experiencing the same phenomena that has occurred in North America and Europe… once people begin to gain even the slightest comfort level with booking hotels, timeshare rentals, and air travel online, use escalates rapidly.

The Chinese Powder Keg for Buying Travel, Timeshares, and Timeshare Rentals Online

China already has over 400 million internet users, and many believe the numbers are far higher claiming that young adults relying solely on cell phones (and one of the strongest demographics for internet use) are overlooked in this headcount. With this in mind, the numbers quickly begin to add up to a powdered keg ready for explosion:

1. The Chinese yuan has recent seen substantial appreciation again the US dollar.
2. Chinese travel visas are becoming easier and easier to obtain worldwide.
3. Online search and ecommerce technology in China are quickly catching up with other parts of the world.
4. The Beijing Olympics exposed many Chinese to the global face of travel in a new and exciting way.
5. The China National Tourism Administration expects year-over-year to see an increase in outbound travel of not less than 7 percent.
6. Between January and May of 2010, China’s number of tourists for outbound travel already has increased by 19 percent over the same period in 2009.
7. iResearch estimates that revenue from the online travel service market (in China) will more than triple between 2009 and 2013.

We’ve seen it happen here in the US. As a culture of people become internet savvy and internet confident to book travel services online, comfort spreads by osmosis to buying timeshare resales and booking of timeshare rentals from a web-based resource. And for timeshare owners looking to resell timeshare, these changes ultimately add up to a larger—vastly larger—pool of potential timeshare buyers and renters.

More insight on travel in China from the National Tourism Administration of the People’s Republic of China.

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.

When the phone rings during your dinner, it won’t be Sell My Timeshare NOW. After reading the News Channel 7 (Spartanburg; Greenville; Anderson, SC; Asheville, NC) news report, it seems like a good time to remind people: Sell My Timeshare NOW won’t be calling you unless you have asked us to call.

We do not make cold calls. We don’t interrupt your dinner, your evening at home with your family, or that extra hour of sleep you were getting on a Saturday morning with a ringing telephone and an unrequested call. Unsolicited phone calls are not respectful, not good business, and in many cases, not legal.

When you want to sell timeshare you no longer use, by-owner advertising may be a great choice for you. But Sell My Timeshare NOW reminds you to base your decision on a clear cut understanding of hat the timeshare company will be doing—and won’t be doing to help you sell your property.

Some less-than-reputable companies take money to advertise your timeshare resale or timeshare rental, imply they will be out knocking on doors trying to help you sell your timeshare, and then do absolutely nothing from that point forward. That seems to have been the type of service (or lack of service) that News Channel 7 was reporting.

Sell My Timeshare NOW offers different types of services to help you buy, rent, or sell timeshare. You can work with a timeshare broker through our Timeshare Broker Services or advertise your timeshare resale as a by-owner property while Sell My Timeshare NOW works to keep your timeshare ad in front of the largest audience of prospective timeshare buyers possible. Our websites average over 25 million visitors each year from more than 176 countries around the world. With our menu of services, you can even choose the level of timeshare resale support that is right for you, customizing how much of the resale process you want to handle yourself and how much you want to turn over to a timeshare resale professional.

But through it all, here’s our promise … unless you ask us to, Sell My Timeshare NOW won’t be cold calling your number. And we won’t be trying to bait you with unrealistic promises or timelines we can’t guarantee. But when you are ready for honest, effective, and reliable help to buy, rent, or sell timeshare, we’re there when you need us.

Have you noticed headlines about timeshare ownership or vacation resort property that warn you, “Timeshare Owners Can’t Resell Timeshare,” but the next day claim, “Timeshare Sales and Timeshare Resales are Gaining”?

Or how about the news from some timeshare sales companies that business is in a major slump only to follow that news in a few days or a few weeks by news with the same timeshare sales company claiming its business is rebounding and it is opening new resorts?

Mixed messaging is confusing. And frankly, it is sometimes a red flag that a company doesn’t have a firm grasp on what is happening internally. After the year we’ve all been through economically, watching pillars and icons of business crumble and fall, corporate mixed messaging no longer fools anyone.

In today’s business climate, consumers value consistency. A business may not be the biggest, sell the most, or offer the most different types of services in its field, but if it is consistent in what it delivers and honest in the message it sends, then let’s face it; we feel a lot more comfortable spending our money there.

Everyone is tired of the rollercoaster ride. Now consumers are sending their own message: “If your business is good, tell us; and if it is mediocre or even poor, tell us that, too. We are all watching our dollars and cents and any corporation or company that does not shoot straight with us is not likely to earn our trust.”

The Consistent, Reliable Message of Sell My Timeshare NOW

Sell My Timeshare NOW has been telling you the same thing for nearly six years—our timeshare resale and timeshare rental advertising business is good and we are growing. As both the consumer economy and the state of the industry have changed, we’ve made changes too. But our press releases, our advertising, our quarterly financial synopses, and our blog have all delivered a message of timeshare sales, timeshare rentals, new services, new staff, growth, and an ever-increasing level of leadership and participation in shaping our industry. There is no mixed messaging here.

We are not the biggest company in America or even the biggest in the timeshare business. We are not the oldest, the one with the most offices, or with the flashiest advertising. Instead, we are Sell My Timeshare NOW, a fast-growing, forward thinking, reliable, and straight shooting company.

Here are the twelve most recent media announcements Sell My Timeshare NOW has released since January 2009. The headlines tell the story …

1. New Booking Service in Timeshare Rentals Means Huge Vacation Savings Paired With the Ease of Online Reservations
2. Timeshare Resales Offers up 56 Percent on HOT 100 List as Americans Seek Vacation Savings
3. Timeshare Sales Management Expansion Part of Sell My Timeshare NOW’s Critical Growth Plan
4. Sell My Timeshare NOW Reports 95 Percent Growth in Offers During the First Quarter 2009
5. Timeshare Resales Advertising Executive Takes on Role as Myth Buster
6. Timeshare Resales CEO Part of Speakers Panel for National Timeshare Owners Association
7. Timeshare Broker Company Continues Success in a Down Economy
8. Sell My Timeshare NOW CEO to Speak on Timeshare Resales Panel at TATOC Conference
9. Timeshare Resales Company, Sell My Timeshare NOW Announces Hiring of President and COO
10. National Timeshare Owners Association Endorses Sell My Timeshare NOW
11. Timeshare Sales Advertising Leader Hires Jay Bade to Head Business Development
12. Despite the Economy, Consumers Are Buying and Renting Timeshare Resales and Sell My Timeshare NOW Has the Numbers to Prove It

For timeshare developers, and certainly for timeshare buyers, regulating the ways in which timeshares are marketed and sold is one of the best things that has happened to the industry – but it has also created one of the industry’s biggest challenges. Yes, tougher regulations were desperately needed in 1977 when only three states in the United States had any type of timeshare regulatory laws on their books. And during the decade that followed, when thirty-eight states implemented new laws and the other twelve designated existing laws to include timeshares, industry standards and practices improved significantly.

But the downside to the tougher legislation is that timeshare developers and timeshare resellers now face the challenge of operating global businesses while complying with regulations that vary greatly from country to country, state to state, and sometimes municipality to municipality. For consumers, it means that one-size does not fit all when it comes to timeshare laws and practices.

Overview of Timeshare Rescission Practices in the US

In the United States, most states have sets of laws specifically to regulate timeshare sales and the timeshare industry while a few states apply the same laws to timeshares that they apply to other types of real estate. Almost all states now have a rule that specifically requires buyers be given a period of time during which they can legally change their mind about the purchase of a timeshare and during which they will forfeit no payments or deposits already made. This is the rescission period, and it was created to protect buyers. But buyer beware; the rescission period means different things in different places.

The length of time and the specifics of the cancellation period for the purchase of a timeshare varies greatly from state to state. Hawaii, Florida, Nevada, and South Carolina are top timeshare sales states in the US, but all have different laws regarding the rescission of a timeshare sales contract. In Hawaii, for example, current state law gives a timeshare buyer seven days to cancel a timeshare sales contract. In Florida, the Florida Vacation Plan and Timeshare Act affords buyers ten calendar days of rescission from the date the buyer signs the purchase contract. In contrast, Nevada gives buyers only until midnight of the fifth calendar day following the date of execution of the contract to back out, while South Carolina allows only four days, not including Sunday.

In nearly every US state, and in most countries, your cooling off or rescission period cannot be waived. Someone who asks you to sign such a waiver is acting illegally and is most assuredly trying to dupe you into believing you have no period in which to reconsider your purchase. And timeshare rescission laws only get more varied when you look at them on an international level.

Looking at the Big Picture of Timeshare Sales Laws and Rescission

In blog posts later this week, The Timeshare Authority will be looking at timeshare laws in other countries and particularly the very positive changes made by Members of European Parliament last month to make British vacationers (and anyone who buys European timeshare) better informed and less at risk when buying or renting timeshare or timeshare resales.

Watch for more on this in The Timeshare Authority on Friday and Saturday.