With all of the timeshares that I bought I have always bought with the idea of having an "exit strategy" available to me. For the most part that has meant, that if I had to get rid of the timeshare I would be reasonably certain of getting my money back. In practical terms, what that has meant that whenever I submit an offer on a timeshare I am making an offer that I full well know is significantly below "market price".
Based on some of the discussions above, I guess that makes me scum.
But the way I look at it is that I am not forcing anyone to take my offer. I'm not putting a gun to anyone's head. I'm simply saying this is what I'm willing to pay. A lot of people are insulted. So be it. But quite a few others come back and say that my offer is the first one they've ever received on their unit after having paid hundreds of dollars to list the unit two or three or four years ago.
In the interim, they've been paying maintenance fees, not using their units, etc. It's simply been sucking money and I'm the first relief they've seen.
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One time I made an inquiry on a unit which, after doing some due diligence proved to not be what the owner thought it was (thought it was Raintree, but it was just an unconverted Bancomer Club Regina ownership with 2026 expiration date). It wasn't what I wanted, and I was ready to walk away. But the seller gave me a story, which I fully believe to be true, about a deadbeat ex-husband, a daughter who was a junkie who had given birth a child to which the seller had been granted parental rights as the grandmother because her daughter's drug problems made the daughter an unfit mother. The seller was desperate for money to pay some legal bills and to finance a move to Florida, to get her granddaughter away from the New Jersey they were living in.
I really didn't want the unit, but the seller/grandmother was desperate, needed cash now, was staring at a pending annual maintenance fee payment. So I bought the unit I didn't wan, at a price where I knew I could flip the unit within six months and double or triple my money. I knew how to do that and she didn't because I spend time on TUG and I've spent time researching her timeshare, and she hadn't.
I didn't see any reason why I shouldn't profit from the knowledge that I've gained and she hasn't. And in the process I gave her some money that she was more than grateful to accept to help with her situation.
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But yeah, I made her an offer at a price that I fully knew to be well below market value for her property. There is no question that I "lowballed" her and took advantage of her naivete and ignorance.
Based on earlier comments I'm sure that some of you are going to think I'm scum because of that. But frankly I look at this situation as win-win. She took less than 10% of what she was asking for the unit, and was happy. And I made about 250% on my money in six months.
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Of course, one of the funny things is that in most case those "exit strategies" I planned for are now all under water. I wish I had lowballed more, because I can now see that I took on all of the downside risk and didn't property evaluate that risk upfront.
