[2006 Thread] What would you buy for $25k?

If you had to spend $25k on a timeshare, what would you buy and why?
Used to be that TUGgers were a bunch of frugal travelers, but seems more TUGgers are spending $25-40K on 1 week per year timeshares. If I was inclined to spend $25k on a timeshare, I would try to buy a Kauai Marriott resale because I love Kauai. What would you buy?

Cindy

I would buy a no housekeeping account from Worldmark then pay some bills with all the left over money.

I would buy a Marriott Custom House unit, two RHC points memberships equalling about 25,000 points and combine them, and a Nob Hill Inn studio unit. I would use the remaining $12,000 or so to pay for maintenance and exchange fees over the next 12 years or so.

The Custom House appears to be one of the top II traders, and gets you two bonus weeks each year when you deposit. The Nob Hill Inn studio appears to be one of the top RCI traders and gets you at least one bonus week with RCI, two with SFX. Both are accepted by SFX. The RHC membership gets you directly, without trading, into the places that are very difficult trades, like London, Rome, Paris, New York, Madrid, etc.

Oceanfront-Grande Ocean or Barony Beach. Love the beach and ocean. There is nothing like OF.

I have wanted to also buy something gulf side of Florida but am waiting on our Marco Island trip first in May 2007.

Hoc has a well thought out plan.

I would buy two PAHIO @ the Shearwater weeks for that price.

Renting them would be easy. I would reserve week 52 for both and rent them on redweek, then I would use my Colorado weeks (or points) to stay at the same resort during the Spring, when we prefer to travel.

This is a difficult question because I have been asked for advice on timeshare many times and always have a different answer. My niece and nephew asked what they should buy. I gave them so many options that they gave up. There are so many great ways to go, it is amazing all of the ways to use the system, but I never take anything for granted because RCI changes the rules way too often to count on anything.

Only need half of that

This is a great question – how to build a $25k timeshare portfolio – excellent question.

WorldMark
Buy 12,000 WM credits for 80¢ each (last week I was offered 70¢ each) = $9,600 + $150 closing costs = $9,750. MF is $594. Cost’s 10,000 credits for a 2BR II exchange into anything in II and at 59 days get 3, 4,000-credit II exchanges to anything in 59 days.

12,000 credits will get you week 52 on Maui every year for the rest of your life.

You can rent unlimited credits from other WM owners for 6¢ each or rent II exchanges for 7¢ a credit. Want 5 weeks in a Marriott, no problem that’s $700 an exchange or $3,500 for the 5 weeks this year.

Marriott
2 Bronze Summit Watch weeks for $1,500 each (includes closing costs) = $3,000. MF is $835 each or $1,670 per year

Total $12,750 outlay and MF = $2,264 per year

Send the rest to me:
$12,250, or put the rest in the DOW and pull out 5% each year or $612 to be used for airline tickets or whatever. Or, that's 5 and 1/2 years of MF payments.

You now have the ability to use II, and RCI, and the WM will pull in anything in either. The Marriotts are lock offs and you have 4 exchanges per year to snap up anything in the 59 day II window, especially Marriotts.

Now that’s a well rounded portfolio that will maximize your hard earned dollar.

wow

Wow....PerryM and other have great advice....I may want to add to my collection as I now want to trade II and RCI in the future.

However, I own two timeshares and purchased them because I love the two areas I visit most and did not really consider trading them until recently.

Disney Vacation Club - This is an awesome timeshare and was my first purchase in 2000. The prices are up from $70 per point to about $104 per point from Disney. You can buy resale in the $80-90 per point range depending on the property and get a lot of bang for your $25,000. We visit Disney several times a year and the magic of staying onsite cannot be recreated by other offsite lower priced properties, even though Marriott and Hilton have awesome properties there. I am very active on the DIS BBS and reccomend it at http://disboards.com/forumdisplay.php?f=7

Westgate Park City - I lurked on RedWeek and TUG for several years before buying this ski week. We LOVE Park City and want to return every year. I considered Marriott MS/SW, but liked The Canyons mountain and property better. The Miners Club was not ski-in/out and The Grand Summit was too expensive. I paid about $28,000 for a 2BRD floting ski week. We did the tour there in 2004 and found the sales staff at Westgate to be less than honorable (trying to be nice) and bought resale thru Mountain Timeshare Resale in Park City. I loved using a broker (Alanna) as I did not trust eBay or other questionable bargain sites out there.

Thus, I beleive that you need to consider what you want: keep returning to a place you love and buy there or buy a plan liek WorldMark that is great for trading power.

I know I am new to this BBS, but have timeshared for many years.

Buying timeshares isn't really the issue for me, it's the ongoing costs.

I would also like to own Disney Vacation Club and don't find the purchase prices unreasonable. The annual fees, however, scared me right off.

Ditto with the Marriotts. Nice places, overall, but maintenance fees are too high.

Sheila

PerryM said:

WorldMark
Buy 12,000 WM credits for 80¢ each (last week I was offered 70¢ each) = $9,600 + $150 closing costs = $9,750. MF is $594. Cost’s 10,000 credits for a 2BR II exchange into anything in II and at 59 days get 3, 4,000-credit II exchanges to anything in 59 days.

12,000 credits will get you week 52 on Maui every year for the rest of your life.

You can rent unlimited credits from other WM owners for 6¢ each or rent II exchanges for 7¢ a credit. Want 5 weeks in a Marriott, no problem that’s $700 an exchange or $3,500 for the 5 weeks this year.

Marriott
2 Bronze Summit Watch weeks for $1,500 each (includes closing costs) = $3,000. MF is $835 each or $1,670 per year

Total $12,750 outlay and MF = $2,264 per year

You now have the ability to use II, and RCI, and the WM will pull in anything in either. The Marriotts are lock offs and you have 4 exchanges per year to snap up anything in the 59 day II window, especially Marriotts.

Click to expand...

Perry,

Perhaps you should start a timehare consulting service for an hourly fee or precent commission, I am one who would rather pay for good advice than get burned by sleezy timeshare sales reps. PM me if you want to start a new business.

I am mainly interested in 2 BDR or large 1BD units. The kids are getting older and hotels just don't cut it anymore.

Questions:
1. Why buy 12,000 WM credits rather than just buying the minimal contract (6,000?) and then rent credits when you need them?
2. What are the details of the $700 for Marriott exchanges?
3. Why not buy only one Marriott Bronze SummitWatch?
4. Are we to assume the Marriott SW is only good for the 59 day II window trading as that time is worthless in Park City?

sfwilshire said:

Buying timeshares isn't really the issue for me, it's the ongoing costs.

I would also like to own Disney Vacation Club and don't find the purchase prices unreasonable. The annual fees, however, scared me right off.

Click to expand...

Sheila

I can help answer most DVC questions for you as I have owned there for 6 years and love it. Yes, the MF seems to be going up each year. Currently they are around $4 pp and when you can rent points from DIS boards for $10 pp, buying is hard to justify.

I have never said DVC is a bargain, even though I bought 4 contracts in 2000and sold 2 for about $3500 profit each in 2005. Disney is about...well...Disney. They are the folks that can sell a Diet Coke for $10 (refillable mug for the day).

As compared to spending cash for small hotel rooms, we found the investment in DVC worthwhile for a long term purchase (minimal 5 years). With inflation, you will NOT loose buying DVC and enjoying it for 5 years and then selling for the same price or small profit, assuming you WANT to visit Disney.

One suggestion is to buy the smallest DVC contract (25-50 points) and renting points each year from a member.

Only need half of that...

Sunterra
Buy three Powhatan 4BR holiday weeks = $9,000 incl closing costs. $3000 to convert to Club Sunterra. $12000 total. MF is $779x3. Yields 45,000 Sunterra points (SunOptions). Costs varying points (4000-6500) for a Premium 2BR II exchange into anything in II and at 59 days get half price (2000-3250) II exchanges to anything in 59 days. See pg10. That's from 6 weeks to 22 weeks in II. Even more if you're taking Superior or Select exchanges.

6,500 credits will get you week 52 on Maui every year for the rest of your life, if you're lucky enough to pull it in II (I'm not as optimistic as PerryM). Otherwise it's 9500 booking the old Sunterra Pacific properties or 21,000 booking the former Embassy Ka'anapali for that prime week in a 2BR.

You can rent unlimited credits from other Sunterra owners for ~20¢/point for Sunterra reservations or II exchanges. If you find desperate owners, they'll rent for less.


Send the rest to me:
$13,000, or put the rest into more Powhatan 4BR holiday weeks and rent for 20¢/point, that's about 15¢/point after MFs or about $9000 - more if you didn't use all your 45,000 points from step1. A lot better than 5% from the DOW.

You now have the ability to use II, and the Sunterra points will pull in anything that's available.

Now that’s a well rounded portfolio that will maximize your hard earned dollar.

Spence, is that conversion cost $1K each or $3K to convert whatever you own?

One size does not fit all...

Steamboat, (thanks for the kind words)

Portfolios:
Basically you pay for what you get…If you want week 52 at MountainSide, or at Maui Ocean club (Both Marriott) you need to have $70,000 for a 2BR. That will guarantee you that week for the rest of your life.

We did that with MountainSide and then the Frugal side of me took over. We sold the fixed Platinum Plus Marriotts and bought WM credits and then just exchanged back to MountainSide and Summit Watch last Christmas. 10,000 WM credits cost $8,000 to buy versus $60k+.

WorldMarks:
However, this year we didn’t want to do that, WM now has Midway resort which is 15 minutes from Park City, and we locked in 4 2BRs for our ski club. I could not do that with the Marriott exchanges.

I like the 12k WM account so you don’t have to borrow from next years usage, but 6k would do just as nice since you can “bank” and “borrow” WM credits in addition to just renting them.

Summit Watch:
2 Bronze Summit Watches locked off give you 4 II reservations that are all equal to the Maui Ocean Club at the 59 day mark in II. And we have found that we can take last minute vacations now and stay at all the nice Marriotts, Disney, 4 Seasons with both the WM and Marriott units. However the 24 day window which can shrink to 0 or 3 or more days within 59 days allows the Summit Watch access before the WM to Marriotts.

I have 10+ ongoing II exchanges active at all times; they use WM to exchange but you don’t need any credits until you have an exchange – just pay the $135 exchange fee and if you don’t get an exchange you get your money back. If you don't have the credits II takes cash instead, 7¢ a credit. A 2BR costs 10,000 WM credits or $700 - you can do this in unlimited quantities. For less than the Marriott MF (Averages $850) you can exchange into them 52 times a year if you wish.

I would not count on a Bronze week getting anything outside of the 59-day window. However our Gold Summit Watch Studio this year exchanged into a Platinum Maui Ocean Club the week after 4th of July – go figure.

We love Marriotts, just don’t want to plunk down the big bucks to own Platinum ones.


Conclusion:
This fits our family vacation needs, to others this would be a horrible portfolio – each family has their own vacation needs and it changes every year. Mickey might be great while the kids are 8 years old, but at 16 Mickey is not wanted anymore.

is that conversion cost $1K each or $3K to convert whatever you own?

Click to expand...

My experience has been, if you're ready to convert the price is $2995, no matter how many you're converting at one time.

PerryM said:

Conclusion:
This fits our family vacation needs, to others this would be a horrible portfolio – each family has their own vacation needs and it changes every year. Mickey might be great while the kids are 8 years old, but at 16 Mickey is not wanted anymore.

Click to expand...

DVC is actually an amazing system, very logical for purchase. I would like to change my above response to 300 Disney points at Wilderness Lodge, purchased from Seth Nock. Then I would use those for 5-day stays to tack onto my regular exchanges for Disneyworld, for a total of 12 days each stay. I would use half of my points and rent the rest for $10 a point.

Actually, exchanges with Disney are very reasonable. I can get a great resort on Kauai or Maui in a one bedroom with DVC for about $650. That would be a high quality resort, like Marriott. When Marriott pulls out of II, there is going to be a definite lack of quality resorts in II, though.

Pluto is no more, at least as a Planet...

Cindy,

“I know nothing” was Sergeant Schultz’s famous reply, goes for my knowledge of Disney too.

Sounds like you know how to maximize Disney, I’m confused with your usage, could you start over?

300 Disney points at Wilderness Lodge – the cost and MF? Hard to buy?

Your regular 7 day stays? What are they? Points come from?

5 day stays – limitations and ease of acquiring them.

How does Disney use II in efficient ways?

Handy reference guide links?

Thanks for any info.

Perry

Okay, since we are playing name that timeshare portfolio, here's mine:

1) Buy 5000 WorldMark credits for $4000. Rent the other 7000 for $.06 each in the years you want to stay in WorldMark Kihei. Don't rent them when you don't want to go. This covers the west coast.

2) Buy an 8000 point EOY Bluegreen package for $1600. Use bonus time on the East Coast and midwest. Use your points for 2 DAE exchanges every year by depositing a January Studio week at Big Cedar Wilderness Club.

3) Buy 1 Marriott Bronze Summit watch for $1500. Use it for Flexchanges that the stuff above can't get. You get 2 per year.

Total Purchase price: $7100.

4) Buy and sell 10 timeshares for about $1000 less than market and sell them in a week. Use the cash less taxes to pay for the above portfolio.

Send me $25000 and I'll set up the entire thing in about a month.

I know I am in the wrong league here but I would selectively buy five non-branded domestic Weeks at places I like to stay for about $12,000 (average $2,000+ each) and use the rest for future MFs.

GEORGE

This is such an interesting thread:

What we would or would do differently if we had the money we have already spent on our timeshare portfolio.

I agree with the WM credits. I dont own WM but my sister does and they love it. I guess it would also depend on if you lived out west. I own at Longboat Bay Club, it is a great trader and I paid $2K for that one. I also would buy one Hawaii - 2 bedroom, gold crown. Bought one EY and one EOY paid $10k for both. (I have a plan, but I havent put it to the test yet). I dont ski but I love the mountains and I live in Salt Lake. I like the Cliff Lodge actually better than anything in Park City, but there are more advantages to PC. I bought 4 cheap ones (under $200), they get me the summer and fall weeks in the mountains (I love Octoberfest, hiking and fishing) but I dont think I would do that again. I own Westgate and have had real good luck with getting good trades, etc and bought it fairly cheap but reflecting back I would buy a Marriott Platinum, I really like the Grande Ocean in HH but the California Newport has been on ebay for $17K.

I have 8 (more than I have vacation) and have less than $20K invested. So I would keep the rest of the money for the maintenance fees. One day I will get rid of the cheap ones, give them away if I have to (or can) and rent if I need more weeks.

Everyone has thier own plan. I would always buy somewhere I wanted to go, just in case I get terribly disgusted with the trading companies.
Ive been in the testing stage for a long time. But its a good life. :whoopie:

PerryM said:

“I know nothing” was Sergeant Schultz’s famous reply, goes for my knowledge of Disney too.

300 Disney points at Wilderness Lodge – the cost and MF? Hard to buy?

Your regular 7 day stays? What are they? Points come from?

5 day stays – limitations and ease of acquiring them.

How does Disney use II in efficient ways?

Handy reference guide links?

Click to expand...

I have lots of experience with DVC and can offer a few opinions.

1. 300 points is a lot....most people start with 150 points as this is considered enty level. I had 1,000 points (4 contracts of 250 points) and I never used them all. Thus, I started to rent them out for a nice profit, but the total cost was about $80k to Disney. DVC is extremly flexible with points: lcoation, season, studio-3BRD, bank/borrow/transfer/ etc. Here is the points chart http://www.wdwinfo.com/disney-vacation-club/DVCpoints.shtml

2. The cost from Disney is about $104 per point and you can buy resale for about $85 per point, depending on your home resort. A Home resort gives you an 11 month window to book ressies vs a non home resort gives you 7 months. This is important as if you want Christmas/New Years/ etc. you should buy where you want to stay. Within the 7 month window all points are equal, but popular times may be sold out. Here is a reputable reseller http://www.dvc-resales.com/dvclisting.cfm

3. There are 7 DVC properties, 5 in Orlando, 1 in Vero Beach, 1 in Hilton Head. I have stayed at all 7 and all are 5 star properties. I PREFER to stay Sunday to Thursday as the Friday-Saturday cost double points.

4. I am not too sure that DVC is a great II trader when you factor in the costs for DVC. Remember DVC is expensive, perhaps more than Marriott and the BEST usage is to stay in the 7 DVC properties.

I LOVE DVC, but I joined TUG to learn about other programs. I also own a Westgate Park City for skiing and I am considering WorldMark for trading power in II to Marriotts or Hawaii, etc.

What is your opinion on WorldMark vs Marriott if you prefer the Marriott properties or Hiltons, etc. It seems that I would not visit WorldMark HOME properties very often.

More details

Steamboat, (thanks for the info)

WM is a fearsome II and RCI exchanger for many reasons – the least of which is the actual resorts themselves! Most are minimum II 5-star in quality. So why is WM so powerful?

• Supply and demand
• 3BR exchanger and studio, 1BR, and 2BR
• Don’t need any WM credits to us II

Supply and demand
Try to find a WM in II – they are very rare since most WM owners stay within WM. I use WM resorts for long stays of weeks at a time. Compare Florida in II, there will be pages and pages of Marriotts and not a single WM out there (There is a Florida WM).

3BR exchanger
When you search in II you can put up either a studio, 1BR, 2BR, or 3BR. A 3BR is very rare in II and thus it’s trading power is thru the roof. However, I search many times with a 1BR since II has a stupid quality filter that will actually show more resorts with a 1BR than a 3BR! Go figure.

Although you use the tremendous trading power of a 3BR WM for searching you are only charged credits for the actual exchange. If you snag a 1BR Maui you are only charged 9,000 WM credits!

Don’t need to use your WM credits
II will gladly accept 7¢ a WM credit if you don’t have the credits in your account. Do as many exchanges as you want, much beyond the credits in your account. It would be like a Marriott owner with a lock-off getting 4 exchanges per year – can’t do that with a single Marriott or most timeshares but WM can do it.

Jim and Cindy said:

If you had to spend $25k on a timeshare, what would you buy and why?

Click to expand...

The original question was about one timeshare for $25,000. After several years and lots of less expensive timeshares we just bought Westin Kaanapali Ocean Resort Villas resale. You'd probably have to spend more (~$30K) for a 2-bedroom ocean view but $25K was my target price. With patience and lots of looking it might be possible to get a good price.

As to why, we really love the resort and plan to go every year. We were able to trade in once but that was very lucky and we decided that it was better to be able to plan ahead without hassle, at least for this resort. Also, after lots of TS purchases and trades we felt comfortable that, even though the price was far higher than other things we own, it was worth it.

Spence said:

Only need half of that...

Sunterra
Buy three Powhatan 4BR holiday weeks = $9,000 incl closing costs. $3000 to convert to Club Sunterra. $12000 total. MF is $779x3. Yields 45,000 Sunterra points (SunOptions). Costs varying points (4000-6500) for a Premium 2BR II exchange into anything in II and at 59 days get half price (2000-3250) II exchanges to anything in 59 days. See pg10. That's from 6 weeks to 22 weeks in II. Even more if you're taking Superior or Select exchanges.

6,500 credits will get you week 52 on Maui every year for the rest of your life, if you're lucky enough to pull it in II (I'm not as optimistic as PerryM). Otherwise it's 9500 booking the old Sunterra Pacific properties or 21,000 booking the former Embassy Ka'anapali for that prime week in a 2BR.

You can rent unlimited credits from other Sunterra owners for ~20¢/point for Sunterra reservations or II exchanges. If you find desperate owners, they'll rent for less.


Send the rest to me:
$13,000, or put the rest into more Powhatan 4BR holiday weeks and rent for 20¢/point, that's about 15¢/point after MFs or about $9000 - more if you didn't use all your 45,000 points from step1. A lot better than 5% from the DOW.

You now have the ability to use II, and the Sunterra points will pull in anything that's available.

Now that’s a well rounded portfolio that will maximize your hard earned dollar.

Click to expand...

You oughta write a book. There's only one Dummies book out there and it's kinda dumb. You could write one "Timeshares for Savvies" and make some serious $. I'd buy it, for starters.

Carol C said:

You oughta write a book. There's only one Dummies book out there and it's kinda dumb. You could write one "Timeshares for Savvies" and make some serious $. I'd buy it, for starters.

Click to expand...

Maybe Boca, Perry, Bruce, and I should get together.

Spence said:

Maybe Boca, Perry, Bruce, and I should get together.

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Slammin!