More than a Million Dollars a Day in Offers on Timeshare Resales
Monday, October 1, 2012
Whether you call it sensationalism, deceptive marketing, or an urban myth … here’s one that just won’t die: “You will never be able to resell your timeshare.” How do I know it is untrue? Because since Sell My Timeshare NOW began tracking offers in 2006* through our website, www.sellmytimesharenow.com we have generated more than $2.1 billion in offers to buy or rent timeshare resales advertised by owner.
As they say, ‘do the math.’ You will quickly realize that this number averages out to more than $1 million per day in offers to rent or buy timeshare.
Last week via our websites, we facilitated 1,765 offers to buy or rent. The value of these offers last week was over 4.7 million dollars. And the value of offers through our website year-to-date was $146,232,752. That is a lot of offers and a lot of money for a product that some people would like you to believe is impossible to resell.
Does every timeshare resell? No, and it would be deceptive to imply that it does. And timeshares do not resell for the same amount of money you paid for them; they are a product, like many other products, that depreciates in value, with some losing more value than others lose. But timeshares were never meant to be an investment and ‘experts’ who become indignant that timeshare owners have lost the value of their investments are trying to create an injustice where one doesn’t exist.
Timeshares are not an investment product, just as in the same way you never get a financial return for a hotel room for which you paid to vacation. You get the pleasure of the vacation, but your vacation stay doesn’t result in a financial return on your dollar. Like the car you buy, drive, and enjoy, timeshares depreciate. However that doesn’t mean they are unsalable; it only means you will not make money on timeshare resales.
Not only do timeshares depreciate, but some resell slower than others do. Yet there are often buyers, even for timeshares at less popular locations and less popular seasons. For the same reason you were attracted to buy your timeshare to begin with, there will likely be another buyer who values it as well.
*We’ve been selling timeshare advertising since our company was founded in 2003, but we did not initially track the number of offers to buy or rent timeshare, so we can only cite our results since 2006.