Buy Timeshare

And bring a calculator.

Attending a timeshare presentation is a great way to check out a resort you’re interested in, whether you buy directly from the resort or buy from a reseller.

Many buyers of timeshare resales go to timeshare presentations on a fact-finding mission. In addition to touring the resort property and getting answers to timeshare questions, sitting through a timeshare presentation often means free or discounted vacation time at the resort—a real chance to try before you buy.

But if there is any possibility that you might make a decision to buy while attending such a timeshare pitch, here’s the best piece of advice you’ll ever receive: take your calculator. Most people need to see numbers in front of them, not just hear them, in order to understand the terms of the deal. Just as importantly, timeshare sales people are human—they make mathematical mistakes, just like everyone else does.

Always have a calculator handy so that you can check the math of the salesperson quoting your deal. It’s also a good idea to use that calculator to compare how much you can save if you buy your timeshare as a resale, instead of purchasing it as a new development property.

Summer is just getting started at many great vacation destinations.

For US and British travelers, summer is officially over. Children have returned to their schoolbooks, and in many places fall is in the air. But for timeshare owners, it’s always vacation season somewhere!

As the leaves turn from shades of green to gold and russet, and cold weather begins to nip the air, it is easy to forget that in the southern hemisphere, spring is just getting started. And since South Africa and Australia offer some of the best opportunities on the planet to buy timeshare, this may be the right time to start planning your next vacation.

South Africa and Australia are currently great locations for buying timeshares, but let’s look more closely at why. First, you have the climate. Cape Town, South Africa and Sydney, Australia (coincidently both located at 33 degrees 55′ South latitude) are just about the same distance south of the equator as Phoenix, Arizona is north of the equator. This translates to year-round sunshine, with seasons reversed from the way they occur in the northern hemisphere. Both locations are beautiful seaside cities, yet serve as gateways to incredible countryside where you can still easily travel into the bush veldt to see nature unspoiled.

Just as importantly, there is the matter of international currency and an excellent exchange rate. While the rates fluctuate daily, in general terms of today’s economy, every Australian dollar you spend costs you only seventy-five cents in US dollars or about sixty cents in Euros. In South Africa, the dollar return is even more dramatic. The South African rand (which slumped to a three-year low this past week) costs you a mere thirteen cents in US money or about ten cents in Euros.

Think of the possibilities!

You can travel to wonderful destinations like Cape Town, the Drakensberg Mountains, and the KwaZulu-Natal in South Africa, or Sydney, Melbourne, or Brisbane in Australia. While you are there, enjoy dining, entertainment, golf, safari adventures, or snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. You’ll be paying your expenses with discounted dollars. Even better, if you buy South Africa or Australia timeshares, and arrange to pay for them in the prevailing currency, you could reap dramatic benefits from the currency conversion alone.

South Africa timeshares and Australia timeshares…they might just be the start of an endless summer vacation.

A strong standard of timeshare control is about to get even tougher.

The European Commission has launched a public consultation regarding its Timeshare Directive, seeking to plug loopholes that have become evident since the Directive’s 1994 release. The original intent of the Timeshare Directive was to create a standardized cooling off or rescission period for timeshare buyers wishing to change their minds. Additionally the Directive sought to reduce pressure sales techniques, while ensuring that timeshare buyers receive adequate information about the properties they purchase. The Directive addresses timeshare contracts that are 36 months in duration or longer.

During the years that the Timeshare Directive has already been in place, timeshare sales practices in Europe have improved greatly. Yet some new timeshare-like products have been developed seeking to take advantage of gaps or loopholes in the Directive’s language. New products are being sold for 35-month memberships along with certain vacation clubs that also fall outside the guidelines established by the original Commission action. The 9-week consultation, which began earlier this month, seeks to plug these gaps, as well as prevent future problems from developing.

The Timeshare Directive is presently applicable to any contract made for timeshare purchase (36 months or longer) under the law of a European Union country or when the property is in the European Economic Area. The European Union countries include: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland, all of which grant timeshare buyers a 10-day rescission period. The United Kingdom, (England, Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales) has an additional specific ruling that typically gives buyers a full 14 days to change their minds.

By educating consumers, a timeshare organization seeks to make an industry-wide difference.

Recently, while browsing an online news page, I found an article about an independent company that is promoting seminars and books about the resort timeshare industry. The goal of this company is to educate consumers about the world of timeshare, and raise public awareness about some of the duplicitous hard-sell techniques used by timeshare salespeople. According to this company, Timeshare Insights, when people become more educated about timeshare, it will force the timeshare industry to discard outdated and unethical sales practices. As someone familiar with the timeshare industry, this made a lot of sense to me. I checked out the Timeshare Insights site and found that it offered a lot of good advice to timeshare buyers, so I decided to link to it and mention this site in today’s post.

This made me think about the state of the timeshare industry and how it has changed in recent years. In the beginning, blatant timeshare rip-offs were commonplace, and some people paid lots of money for timeshares that didn’t exist. When major hotel chains began investing in timeshares, they brought respectability to an industry suffering from negative public perception. Resort developers realized that, in order to compete with these hotel giants, they would have to treat their clientele better.

The industry has been improving steadily in this area, but the sales and marketing divisions of a lot of resort development companies are still holding on to the old-fashioned idea that a timeshare buyer has to be suckered into making a purchase.

It sounds crazy, but maybe people would buy timeshare directly from the resort company if they didn’t have to sit through a questionable sales presentation, and then pay the ridiculous marketing expenses included in the original purchase price of any new timeshare offering.

I think one of the core concepts here is that given more education on the subject, timeshare buyers and owners have the power to change the entire timeshare industry from the ground up.

Be sure and check out Timeshare Insights. There’s plenty of good information there. When we find more online timeshare resources, I’ll link to them from this blog.