This time of year, as we visit our favorite spots, it seems like it might be fun to make future plans to visit again... and its inevitable that someone approaches us with the idea of buying a timeshare for those future plans.

We normally resist. We even resist the free money/stuff they offer for listening to their sales pitch. After all personal finance expert Dave Ramsey says timeshares are very bad.

But the mind strays, Dave Ramsey is also the person who doesn't want me to have a credit card, but I have one and it's not a problem. Maybe he's wrong about time shares too.

I know some people who have timeshares and they seem happy with them. They book their rooms, go there, play some golf, hang out at the pool bar, and generally have a good time.

So, are timeshares a good thing or a bad thing? Maybe it depends on the company??? I've heard the Disney Vacation Club point system (which is really a timeshare system) is pretty good.

anyone here have any advice on whether to continue to avoid them, or maybe there are some good deals lurking. maybe even in the "second hand" timeshare market.

Bad thing.

I can't believe anyone thinks time shares are a good thing. The sales tactics they have to use to sell them are enough to make me never even think about it. But then I also don't do resort vacations and couldn't care less about amenities or sun, beach, pools, golf, etc. I worked a trade show once for the time share industry. A neighboring booth was displaying software they had developed for testing sales job candidates. Their program was designed to weed out people who weren't going to make it before an employer went through the hassle or hiring and training them.

They are thought to be bad because they often last essentially forever, and cannot be undone. You get saddled with some of the costs of ownership without really being an owner. Most also think that the price you pay, all told, is higher than you would pay for a simple rental for something equivalent.

It can be hard to compare the price of a timeshare to an equivalent rental because the timeshare people will not be forthcoming about all the costs that will eventually be associated with owning your little share.

Plus, are you really going to want to return to Miami Beach, year in and year out, essentially forever? What if you want to go to Aspen next year?

I have heard a lot more negative stories than positive ones when it comes to a timeshare.

Very bad thing. I have had three friends try to give me theirs and I would not take them. The fees and management troubles make them a bad deal.

There is an entire industry that has developed around helping people get out of timeshare contracts. That is a big clue as to whether they are a good thing or a bad thing.

I heard it said once, "A timeshare is nothing more than pre-paying for your vacation."

Avoid at all costs! Scam artists plain and simple.

For chrissakes, hell no.

Not a great investment, in fact its more of committing a life long term contract to drain money from your wallet.

They can encumber you, your family, estate and heirs to a never ending string of payments, run, run far and fast.

These things have high commissions and high fees, there are no limits on how high they can raise the costs of your timeshare for the building, 10 years from now if they decide it needs a facelift, all new furnishings, you get the bill...

Best thing to do is to rent a timeshare off someone that owns it.

Best thing ever!!! For the people selling them. For the buyer though, not so much.

They mostly are a very bad purchase,

I know one person that is happy with theirs.

They have a week at a ski lodge Martin Luther King week.

Everyone else that has had one is sorry they bought it. Or found a way to get out of it.

I once was hired for a good money to sit at a get out your time share seminar and notarize documents for the company.

About 150 at the seminar and 20% signed up.
I forget how much they were charged to get them out of it, but it was not cheap.

Ramsey doesn't say don't have a credit card.

Ramsey says don't use your credit card to live on. Pay it off in full every month and a cc is a useful tool.

We own a timeshare. About 30 years ago my dad bought a weeks timeshare on Hilton Head Island on a PBS television fundraiser auction. It was a condo a couple blocks off the beach near Coligny Plaza and it was for the week after Thanksgiving. Seems like dad paid $800 for the week. When he passed in 1997 the hassle of transferring the property was more than it was worth so it's still in dad's name and my wife and sister use it every year. Maintenance fee is now over $1000 but the condo is nice and the beach is cool with the big crowds gone.

Everyone I know who has or has had a timeshare hated it.

My sister and her husband had one for a while and they could never get any dates they wanted so it was effectively useless.

Some are a bad deal and the rest are a really bad deal that lasts forever. Many times people will pay you to take theirs over.
Other than that..........

quote:

Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
There is an entire industry that has developed around helping people get out of timeshare contracts. That is a big clue as to whether they are a good thing or a bad thing.

That alone says it all.

Yea you are reading Ramsey wrong. I’m not a disciple but I can’t argue that his way works if you follow it. I would say if you aren’t a dumbass and have some modicum of impulse control you don’t need a book/seminar/life coach to tell you how to live within a budget that actually bears a semblance of reality compared to your income and not rack up debt. Yet many do need that exact thing.

Ramsey isn’t wrong on timeshares either. Run far and fast. What else would you buy knowing you will pay for the rest of your life and probably never be able to sell? The answer is......nothing.

Run away.

Run don't walk from timeshare ownership.

quote:

Originally posted by doublesharp:
Ramsey doesn't say don't have a credit card.

Ramsey says don't use your credit card to live on. Pay it off in full every month and a cc is a useful tool.

Agreed. Ramsey doesn't like people racking up unsustainable credit card debt.


As for time shares, they have NEVER appealed to me. Why get locked into ONE location for life? Maybe I want to go skiing this year. Maybe I want to go to the beach, or the mountains (Rockies, or Appalachians, or the Denali Range), or Hawaii, or I can't go on vacation at all. Maybe the ONE week I have available to go on vacation is already taken by somebody else . . .

There is NO WAY I would ever get in a time share. Of course, I have no experience with them, so what do I know.? .? .?

It should tell you something that on every divorce case I worked on where a timeshare was owned, the couple fought over who got stuck with it instead of who got to keep it.