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.

We have a new division at Sell My Timeshare NOW – it’s called Vacation Property Solutions. This is a revolutionary new business-to-business resale solution for timeshare resorts and timeshare developers. Vacation Property Solutions is a one-stop solution for the types of timeshare resale needs facing developers and resorts and it will utilize the services of both our brokerage arm: Timeshare Broker Services, and our closing company: Transfer My Timeshare.

Vacation Property Solutions expands our services at Sell My Timeshare NOW, to include brokers, resorts, travel clubs, and wholesalers, helping them solve the timeshare inventory problems of their customers. Working directly with timeshare developers and with resorts, we can offer them discounted rates for bulk business.

Vacation Property Solutions lets us take the same types of great services and expansive internet visibility that we already offer consumers, and offer them to timeshare developers and timeshare resorts. Developers looking to rent out timeshare weeks or Home Owners Associations needing to liquidate their delinquent inventory, have access to the more than 2 million monthly visitors to the Sell My Timeshare NOW website. Vacation Property Solutions offers a way for developers to buy back inventory, helping to stabilize prices on the resale market, and to solve the ownership dilemmas of buyers who already own intervals but are looking to buy into a new timeshare resort.

Vacation Property Solutions, an Important Part of Sell My Timeshare NOW

Freda Stemick, at Vacation Property Solutions, is the timeshare industry’s point of contact. Freda says, “Vacation Property Solutions is both developer-friendly and resort-friendly, building a bridge between the retail and secondary markets of the timeshare industry.”

Freda brings over 20 years of experience in timeshare sales, starting with her first timeshare industry job at Virginia’s Massanutten Resort.

Click here to read the press release for Vacation Property Solutions.

Part II in a two-part series.

In Saturday’s The Timeshare Authority blog, we profiled the women behind WIN, a new professional organization for Women in the Industry that supports and cultivates women as the leaders of tomorrow in the vacation industry.

We had the opportunity to interview several members of WIN’s Board of Directors, and their comments give you a great insight into the current and future role of their organization.

Q. Who founded Women in the Industry (WIN) and when did you launch?

A. Cathy Backus and Lani Kane-Hanan founded WIN. (See Saturday’s The Timeshare Authority to learn more about Backus and Kane-Hanan). Our first official meeting was held at last year’s spring ARDA convention. Cathy Backus had been working on Women in Timesharing; ARDA’s Lani Kane-Hanan had been working on Women in the Industry. They were in concert so they joined forces to found WIN-a stronger organization.

Q. What are WIN’s objectives and goals?

A. WIN is a non-profit group that advocates, educates, and connects women in the vacation industry. The primary purpose of WIN is to foster the growth of women by recognizing their accomplishments and creating a strong networking environment. In addition to providing a forum for women in the vacation industry to unite and leverage best practices, WIN will also support industry research particularly as it pertains to women.

Q. Who benefits from joining WIN and how?

A. Both individuals and corporations benefit; there is a place in WIN for women and also for men who support women. Individual members of WIN will receive newsletters, educational sessions and information, networking opportunities and access to the membership directory. Corporate memberships receive a number of other benefits as well as their membership serving to show their commitment to support the causes of this not-for-profit group.

Q. What do you hope to see WIN accomplish in the next year? The next 5 years?

A. WIN is a grassroots, volunteer-based organization. What we hope to accomplish in the next few years is to complete the foundation of our organization. We have selected our Advisory Board and with their help, we will grow the member base, finalize local and regional chapters, hold several local and national networking sessions, launch our website and job search tool, and hold educational sessions for women and those who support women in our industry.

Q. What do you see as the greatest challenges the timeshare and vacation ownership industry currently faces?

A. Developing a strong core of new blood, fresh energy, and skilled professionals. Women bring this to the table.

Q. What do you see as the greatest challenges for women working in the timeshare /vacation ownership industry?

A. The industry has long been dominated by men, but this is evolving. Women are in a unique position to understand their fellow women’s needs and to support and nurture professionalism. With women in leadership positions, women’s desires to improve their lifestyle, support their families, and improve their community will be better met.

Wise words.

Women drive many of the buying decisions in the timeshare sales and timeshare resales industry. It makes a great deal of sense to build and grow the timeshare industry to better match the owner base. If you are part of the timeshare and vacation ownership industry in any way, look into what WIN has to offer you and what you have to offer WIN. The organization already includes individuals, resorts, vacation clubs, recreational real estate developers, and funding and lending institutions. The community of support services to the timeshare industry is also getting involved in WIN, including architects, legal advisors, and suppliers.

If you want to learn more about WIN and their vision, contact them at 760-755-0356, or visit www.WomenInTheIndustry.com

RCI (Resort Condominiums International) released a recent study on the British traveler’s monetary impact on the vacation, tourism, and timeshare industries. The research was commissioned by RCI in conjunction with Mintel, and it showed that Brits spend an average of 840 days in a lifetime holidaying abroad. In 2007, the average Briton went on two holidays a year, each lasting one week, spending about $1053 (US) or £665 on accommodations. This translates to £39,900 in a lifetime, or over $63,000 (US).

According to Perspective Magazine, Brett Archibald, senior vice president of business development at Group RCI in the UK, said, “During the credit crunch, timeshare represents increasingly good holiday value and although many Brits may be forced to cut back, Group RCI members can rest assured that they have budgeted in advance for a well-earned holiday. In addition, our members can choose breaks from a wide portfolio of holiday properties, such as lakeside retreats in Finland, a spa hotel in the UK, or perhaps a beach resort in Florida.”

RCI Timeshare Exchange Makes Dollars and Sense

RCI estimates that by taking advantage of timeshares and timeshare exchange, the British vacationer who predictably would have spent nearly £40,000, could save £23,000 or more (about $36,500 US) on average, per person. And buying timeshare would not restrict vacationers in their choice of resorts and destinations. With RCI Points or RCI Weeks, travelers have their pick of over 4,000 RCI affiliated timeshare resorts worldwide.

Timeshares are Good … Timeshare Resales are Better

Timeshare vacations can yield a substantial savings over comparable hotel accommodations. But with the excellent values in timeshare resales, the lifetime savings moves up to a whole other level. You can buy a resale timeshare for a 50 percent savings (sometimes more) over the price of new timeshare. Using only ballpark estimates, that indicates that the vacationer who would save $36,500 over a lifetime by switching from hotel accommodations to timeshares, could up the savings to perhaps $50,000 — $70,000 or more, by purchasing that timeshare on the resale market.

These days, I don’t know anyone with money to burn, whether they live in the US, the UK, or anywhere else on this planet. But I do know a lot of people who want, need, and deserve a little vacation time in order to maintain their health, their spirits, and their sanity. Timeshare resales have never made more sense than they do right now; timeshare resales and timeshare rentals are still an affordable vacation solution.

Are you considering selling your timeshare? Owning timeshare is a great idea, but time, lifestyle changes, health, and even economic ups and downs can lead you to the decision to sell your timeshare. Selling timeshare often means that you get out from under annual fees and taxes, and as great an idea as timeshare vacations can be for millions of people, if you are not using your timeshare…then it is time to sell.

Timeshare Valuation from Sell My Timeshare NOW

You know what you paid for your timeshare, and perhaps you even know what your timeshare cost you in interest and financing fees if you borrowed money to make your timeshare purchase. You can also look at what you have paid in annual fees and taxes during the time you have owned your vacation ownership property. But clearly, if you have looked around at the timeshare resale market at all, you already understand that you will not be able to recoup these expenditures in total when you resell your timeshare.

Instead, think of buying timeshare as being very much like the money you spend buying a new car. Your new car comes with a purchase price, for most of us it comes with financing fees and interest, and for as long as you own that car, you also pay for taxes, maintenance, insurance, and fuel. Yet when you get ready to sell it, you will not be able to regain the money you have spent on your vehicle.

Okay, so if you cannot resell timeshare for your purchase price, what is the right price to ask for your timeshare on the resale market?

Don’t guess. Don’t pick a number out of the air. Let Sell My Timeshare NOW, the leading online timeshare resale and timeshare rental advertising company help you. Follow this link to Sell My Timeshare NOW, and receive a free Sellers Market Survey to find out the timeshare resale value of your property.

Sell My Timeshare NOW, eliminating the guesswork.

Did you see our Sell My Timeshare NOW press release today? We are celebrating a milestone – 5 years in business. Best of all, our anniversary marks five successful years in business, and that is not always easy to say in this day and age.

Our company currently employs 140 people, which is a long way from the 3 employees who started a home based business 5 years ago. With a 520.9 percent company growth rate, we currently average over $1 million daily in offers to buy timeshares or rent timeshares.

We are a Fast Growing Timeshare Resales and Timeshare Rental Advertising Company

What got us to this point?

A Timeshare Sales Company with Genuine Commitment

At Sell My Timeshare NOW, we sat aside a little time to eat some cake and talk about our accomplishments over the past five years. But after we all patted ourselves on the back, we went back to work. You see, we know that staying the best company in the business of advertising timeshare resales and timeshare rentals calls for continued hard work, and for us to never let our guard down.

And to all the many timeshare sellers and timeshare renters who have entrusted us to help them sell or rent timeshare, we owe it to them to keep our nose to the grindstone and our eye on the future.

Click here to read our full timeshare press release about Sell My Timeshare NOW’s fifth anniversary in business.

I just spent a couple of outstanding days in Breckenridge, Colorado, at the ARDA (American Resort Development Association) Rockies Regional Meeting. The meeting was excellent in several ways, the first being the location. The Beaver Run Resort & Conference Center that hosted the event is a classic Colorado condo-hotel ski resort with ski-in/ski-out access condos.

And of course, there is nothing any better than the chance to spend a few days in the mountains of Colorado. The skies were incredibly blue and the air had that crisp edge of freshness. Sell My Timeshare NOW was proud to be a Gold Sponsor of this very informative meeting, one of a series of ARDA regional meetings in which we have participated as a Gold Sponsor.

If you are not familiar with ARDA, they are the Washington D.C. based professional association that represents the vacation ownership and resort development industries. In 2009, ARDA celebrates 40 years of service to timeshare owners and the timeshare industry. Their membership is nearly 1,000 strong including privately held companies, publicly traded companies, and international corporations involved in the vacation ownership industry. ARDA’s membership also includes resort management companies, timeshare owner associations (HOAs), and owners through the ARDA Resort Owners Coalition (ARDA-ROC).

The Changing Face of Timeshare Ownership

ARDA Regional Meetings are an important time of learning, exchanging ideas, networking, problem solving, and generally getting things done. One of many topics that was addressed was a very interesting trend in timeshare ownership demographics.

Many people think of timeshare owners as typically falling into the Baby Boomer generation, and in many ways that is still true, although the profile of the new timeshare buyer and timeshare resale buyer includes more and more young couples and individuals all the time. However, there is also another way younger couples are becoming timeshare owners these days and that is through passing down deeded timeshare ownership within families.

This makes for an interesting new dynamic in timeshare ownership and ARDA, as well as the timeshare industry as a whole, is on top of it. Today’s timeshare owner may be a Boomer, a Gen X, Gen Y, Millennium, or Gen Me, meaning that vacation ownership resorts are learning to respond to a variety of generational and cultural issues. It also means that it is an interesting and exciting time to become a timeshare owner.

Be sure you visit The Timeshare Authority next week, when I will be sharing updates about ARDA’s new website www.vacationbetter.org

When I hear people talk about a guaranteed sale of your timeshare on the resale market, it makes me cringe. Can Sell My Timeshare NOW guarantee you that we will sell your resale timeshare? Of course, we cannot. And neither can anyone else.

So if you are interested in reselling your timeshare, and someone contacts you “promising” to get you a sale – especially if that promise of a sale includes a target date – you should back away from that offer in a hurry. It simply is not logical to say that any company can guarantee that it can produce the right buyer, at the right price, on a given day, for a timeshare or for almost any other product.

But here’s what is logical and it is what we do best at Sell My Timeshare NOW: If you advertise your resale timeshare with us, we will give you expansive global visibility to a market of interested timeshare buyers and timeshare renters, greatly increasing your chance of making that sale.

At Sell My Timeshare NOW, we are committed to helping you sell your timeshare, as easily and efficiently as possible. And while we don’t guarantee a sale, we DO guarantee that if you advertise your timeshare on Sell My Timeshare NOW, but sell it through another company or timeshare broker at the same advertised price, all you have to do is show us your document of sale and we will refund the money you paid to advertise with us.

…And that’s a timeshare guarantee you can believe in and rely on.

To learn more about what it takes to sell your timeshare, take a moment and watch this video:

Do you know that you can resell your residential home (or any other type of real estate) without hiring a real estate agent or Realtor(r) to assist you? Of course you know that, and you’d be indignant and probably downright angry if it was any other way.

If you own a home, a piece of land, an office building, or other type of property, you have choices when it comes to reselling it. You can handle the sale yourself or hire a real estate professional to help you. You can use a by-owner company to assist with part of the process, or you can select a range of services, from title agents to real estate attorneys, using only those you need to help you.

And the fact that no law requires you to buy or sell real estate from a real estate professional hasn’t done a thing to harm the real estate industry as a whole. In fact, the diversity of ways to sell is part of what makes the industry competitive and fair.

Millions and millions of people, who have sold their homes by a method, other than hiring a real estate professional, will tell you that they saved a lot of money that would have gone to an agent or a broker for advertising and showing the property or other fees that are paid as part of the commission. You also see the same ads on television that I see, with testimonials from people who have used a buy-owner real estate company to help them sell their homes, and are thrilled with the money they saved, or other features of the service they received. And as with anything, there are stories of people who tried to sell property themselves, and for whatever reason, got burned and wished in hindsight they had used a Realtor(r).

In any industry, including those that involve the sale of real estate, and those that involve the sale of timeshare real estate, there are good services and bad ones; there are services that work well for one person but maybe not for another. But American business is built on our freedom to choose to work with companies that we think, best serve our individual needs.

Ways to Sell Timeshare and Timeshare Resales

Timeshare developers, timeshare resellers, and timeshare advertising and marketing companies are all valid and contributing parts of the timeshare industry. Professional associations, such as ARDA, the American Resort Development Association, recognize this and support all factions of the industry.

While a few timeshare developers offer buy-back programs, the majority does not, leaving timeshare owners to come up with their own ways to sell timeshare they no longer wish to own.

Some people have a network of personal contacts that is so large, and a way to get the word to all of them, that they can sell timeshare themselves. But most of us don’t, nor do we want to hit on our friends and family members, trying to convince them to buy timeshare from us.

Some people want to sell timeshare but be separate from the process, letting someone else handle all the details, and for them it may be a great idea to work with a timeshare broker. And other people, just need help marketing their timeshare resale or perhaps handling the closing paperwork. The right choice for them could be a timeshare advertising and marketing company or perhaps a timeshare title transfer company. But it all goes back to choices…

Real Estate and Timeshare Real Estate in the US

Let’s face it. The residential real estate market in the US is about as bad as it has been in many years. But who do we blame for that? We can lay part of the blame on the rising price of oil that leaves people pumping larger and larger chunks of their paychecks into their gas tanks, with less and less money to spend on a new home.

We can blame a greedy element of the mortgage industry, that put people into mortgages that were so riddled with hidden charges the people couldn’t get out of them before the one obvious cost – that ever- adjusting interest rate, soared through the roof. We can blame politicians, heads of business, or just a predictable swing in the pendulum of life, but we can’t logically say that buy-owner or help-u-sell real estate services are to blame for the falling value of home prices. And it wouldn’t make any sense to say that timeshare resale companies are responsible for the resell price you can or can’t get for your timeshare property.

Whether you are looking at residential real estate, timeshare deeded property, timeshare points, or something totally different like new and used refrigerators, things sell for what the market will bear. People, not companies, set prices by what they are willing or able to pay.

New cars sell for prices that are comparably much higher than the price for which used cars sell. And new cars will continue to sell for that higher price because we are willing to pay the price, and because auto manufacturers spend huge dollars on advertising to convince you to buy their product instead of someone else’s. When that same car is resold, the second buyer pays market value (the price the market will bear) because he or she no longer has to absorb the cost of the car manufacturer’s pricey advertising.

The lower resell price has nothing to do with the used car dealer; it is just a fact of economics that applies in much the same way for resale timeshares as it does to resale automobiles. The economics of this aren’t complicated, but sometimes, you have to keep explaining them over and over again, because a few people, just don’t get it.