Earlier this month, Silverleaf Timeshare Resort increased their fiscal outlook for 2007. According to revised projections, Silverleaf timeshares expect 2007’s profit to range between $27.5 million and $28.5 million. Silverleaf timeshares had previously forecasted a profit of $25.5 million.

Silverleaf Timeshare Resorts has been in operation since 1989, and has been a publically traded company since 1997. They market their timeshare resorts as “drive-to locations,” perfect for family vacationing at luxurious destinations, yet with affordable prices.

Here’s a list of Silverleaf resorts with links to affordable options to rent or buy Silverleaf timeshare resales. You’ll also find a link to our Sell My Timeshare NOW blog of April 30, 2007, when we took a closer look at the Silverleaf Oak N Spruce Timeshare Resort:

• Silverleaf Timeshares Apple Mountain – Clarkesville, Georgia
• Silverleaf Timeshares Fox River – Sheridan, Illinois
• Silverleaf Timeshares Hill Country Resort – Canyon Lake, Texas
• Silverleaf Timeshares Holiday Hills Resort – Branson, Missouri
• Silverleaf Timeshares Holly Lake Ranch – Holly Lake Ranch, Texas
• Silverleaf Timeshares Lake O The Woods – Flint, Texas



• Silverleaf Timeshares Oak N Spruce Resort – South Lee, Massachusetts
• Silverleaf Timeshares Orlando Breeze Resort – Davenport, Florida
• Silverleaf Timeshares Ozark Mountain Resort – Kimberling City, Missouri
• Silverleaf Timeshares Piney Shores Resort – Conroe, Texas
• Silverleaf Timeshares Seaside Resort – Galveston, Texas
• Silverleaf Timeshares Timber Creek Resort – Desoto, Missouri
• Silverleaf Timeshares Villages – Flint, Texas

Buying new timeshare at the developer’s price is not always a day at the beach…

Singer Island, just north of Palm Beach, Florida, is home to the community of Riviera Beach. Marriott Vacation Club International has a splendid timeshare resort on the south shore of the island at Ocean Point Reef, but in recent months has been in negotiations with the city council of Riviera Beach to build a timeshare resort on the northern end of the island.

Marriott timeshare’s plan was to raze a beachside Crowne Plaza Hotel and replace it with two, 19-story timeshare towers. Because some area residents were opposed to the action, and several council members likewise had objections, a series of negotiations began. The result was council approval in a 3-2 vote for the construction of the Marriott timeshare towers, with certain “community benefits” to be thrown in as part of the deal.

The required community benefits call for Marriott timeshare to give the city of Rivera Beach $1.4 million in cash contributions, of which $1.2 million will go to the city’s minority housing trust fund, with $100 thousand going to the beautification of highway A1A, and another $100 thousand going to the Riviera Beach job-training fund. Marriott timeshares also agreed to give 25 percent of the hotel’s supply orders to minority or women-owned businesses and to hire 60 percent of its operational staff from minority groups.

Ocean Point Reef is a magnificent Marriott timeshare and I feel certain that the new Marriott Singer Island timeshare resort will be just as luxurious, with similar breathtaking ocean views. But when $1.4 million gets tacked on to a project, before the first shovel of dirt (or in this case, sugary-white sand) gets turned, who do you think absorbs this cost?

Timeshare resorts are expensive to build. But basic mathematics tells us that the number of units in a timeshare resort multiplied by the developer’s selling price per unit, and then multiplied by the fact that each timeshare unit is sold at that price, to 51 separate owners, yields a tidy sum of money, any way you figure it.

Buying timeshare from the developer often results in a net savings to the timeshare owner on the cost of vacation accommodations, over multiple years of usage. However, the timeshare resale market probably reflects the true market value of timeshare units or intervals more accurately than the prices developers charge for new timeshare. Yet, as long as people are willing to pay the prices developers charge, the mark-up on timeshares is not likely to go down.

If you are considering buying timeshare, I seriously recommend you shop the inventory of timeshare resales that are available to purchase directly from the person who actually owns the timeshare unit. The website for Sell My Timeshare NOW offers a great place to start your search.

If you assume that married couples with children own the majority of timeshare units, you are correct. The average timeshare purchaser is likely to be middle to upper income, married, and somewhere between ‘fortyish’ and ‘fiftyish’. A large percentage of the timeshare vacation property sold today is to people in this demographic, and quite honestly, it accounts for a lot of timeshares.

According to an article published recently by Hotel Interactive, the sales of new timeshare units in the US climbed by 16 percent in 2006 to a total of $10 billion. The article, which is based on a study conducted by Ernst & Young, LLP, and released by ARDA International Foundation, also said that among the 625 US timeshare resorts surveyed, timeshare sales are up 81 percent over the past five years. But as you will quickly realize if you look at the vast inventory of timeshare resales available at Sell My Timeshare NOW, while many people are buying timeshare, many people are also selling timeshare.

Dennis Serpone, president of Singles Marketing Group adds an interesting twist to the topic of who’s buying timeshare units. In an article published in the June 2007 edition of Perspective, A Timeshare & Leisure Property Magazine, Serpone suggests that timeshare sales today should be directed more toward singles than couples. In “The Singles Experience,” Serpone describes singles as the, “largest group of the most receptive overlooked people in the world”. Serpone says that most singles hate the way they currently vacation, traveling alone or with a friend to a resort where they are left to mingle primarily with families or couples. He points out that singles generally “have more disposable income, more time and desire to travel, (and) less family obligations…”

The article also announces plans for “the first totally dedicated singles resort”, which I suppose means first totally dedicated singles timeshare resort. The resort is planned for Virgin Gorda in the British Virgin Islands and will feature fifty beachfront timeshare units, anticipated to sell for $15,000 to $25,000 per timeshare interval week.

It’s all an interesting idea. While I don’t anticipate that timeshare developers will ever neglect couples because couples represent the heart and soul of the timeshare vacation market, it would be nice to see the needs and interests of the millions of adult singles also addressed by the timeshare industry. Choices and options are always a good thing.

Owning a private vacation cabin in the mountains or a beach house by the shore sounds like a great idea, until you start considering what sole ownership really means.

Can you realistically afford to buy a home, pay taxes and insurance on it, decorate it, furnish it, and maintain it, but then use it only three weeks each year? Most people would have to answer “no” to this question. Yet, according to a 2005 report developed by Hobson Real Estate Advisors, the average use time in America for a private vacation home is three to four weeks or less per year. Ouch!

A timeshare enables you to own your own vacation property, yet essentially pay for only the days and nights you actually schedule to use it. If you cannot use your timeshare vacation property, you always have the option to use it as a rental on your own, or rent it by utilizing the global marketing of a timeshare rental service like Sell My Timeshare NOW. You also have other choices, such as trading your scheduled time for another date or timeshare resort location through timeshare exchange, or banking your timeshare interval for future use.

Christine Hrib Karpinski wrote an excellent book titled, How to Rent Vacation Properties by Owner (Kinney Pollack Press © 2004). In it, Karpinski explains all the different approaches to leasing your private vacation home when you aren’t able to enjoy it yourself. She does a very good job explaining the property owner’s options. But any way you look at it, the responsibilities of a vacation home dwarf the responsibilities you have when you own timeshare vacation property. When you are not in your timeshare, you never have to worry about whether your property is being maintained or if it is at risk for weather damage, break-ins, vandalism, or more banal (but sometimes equally destructive) threats such as termites.

Owning timeshare vacation property is simple. You pay your annual fees; schedule your dates to use your timeshare, (if those dates are not already fixed) and then you just show up. That’s all! Instant vacation. No hassles, no undue expenses, and no work.

And after all, isn’t that what the definition of a vacation should be?