The 1 Dollar Timeshare and the Power of Headline News
Monday, April 30, 2012
Last week, our company had a series of conversations with one of our clients. He was upset that we hadn’t told him that his timeshare would be worth only $1 on the secondary market. We had not told him this because, based on the timeshare he owned, it simply was not true information to say he owned a 1 dollar timeshare.
The gentleman believed his timeshare was worth $1 because he had read a major news publication reporting that timeshares resales were worth $1 and then he had seen the headline again on a website. Because he had read it in a well-known source, he assumed it must be valid and it must apply to all timeshares.
Our company, VacationOwnership.com, (the companies you formerly knew as SellMyTimeshareNOW.com and Timeshare Broker Services) had never told this client that his timeshare was worth $1 for one important reason—it would not have been accurate information!
Timeshare Misinformation and the Damage it Can Do
In this situation, the timeshare owned was an Orlando timeshare at a very popular resort that is part of a major hospitality brand. On the resale market, the timeshare in question is typically worth thousands of dollars—money the owner would have lost, had we not followed up with him, and explained to him that his timeshare was certainly worth far more money and that selling his timeshare for a dollar would mean a substantial and unnecessary loss to him.
Would our company have lost money if the timeshare owner had chosen to drastically mark his timeshare down below market value and resell it for a single dollar? No, because he was selling on a by-owner basis. But, we didn’t want a piece of misleading information to cause him to give away his timeshare and as a result lose thousands—yes, thousands—of dollars himself.
In the end, the client appreciated our diligence to follow through with him, to take the time to educate him on why he should ask much more than $1 for his timeshare, and thanked us for our commitment to help him assess the best price he might ask for his timeshare and still anticipate a timely sale.
The Truth about $1 Timeshares
No timeshare owner should buy vacation ownership expecting to later resell it at the same price he or she initially paid, if that timeshare was purchased as a new property. Buying timeshare is like buying a new car; timeshares, like automobiles, do not resell on the secondary market for the same value they had in the initial purchase.
And some timeshares ultimately have very little resale value, depending upon the condition and popularity of the resort, demand for week or weeks owned and other market variables. But of the more than 40,000 timeshares advertised for sale or for rent through our websites, fewer than 40 of them have an asking price of $1.
That’s right. Less than 40.
You can search our website for yourself. If you structure your search parameters to bring up only timeshares for sale for $1, (being careful not to search for timeshares for sale for $1 or MORE and to exclude rental properties) you will find the exact number of timeshares we have advertised for only one dollar at the time of your search. It will be fewer than 40 of the 40,000.
Remember that game you played in elementary school where one person started a whispered rumor and by the time the message had been shared from child to child around the room, it had changed, getting farther and farther from the original truth?
If someone wants to resell timeshare for a dollar that is ultimately his or her business, but when the message gets out that one dollar value is the only option, then timeshare owners will find their timeshares deeply and disastrously devalued.