If I was a timeshare developer....

[taterhed]

Take a look at FRACTIONALS. You'll find much of what you describe.

You'll also find a few differences.

The prices are high. The MF's are high. The rules are strong.

I think you'd find that the fictional TS you speak of would be much more expensive and have less 'easter egg' bargains available than what we currently see in the TS industry.
It's the easter-egg hunts that fuel much of my passion for timeshares.
That may change of course.....

 

[Makai Guy]

Rarely does anyone ever walk in to a sales presentation saying "I want to buy a timeshare."

That, actually, is pretty much what we did when we bought our first one. It was our third visit to Kauai, and by then we knew we loved its North shore and would be returning repeatedly. It just made sense to have a timeshare "home" waiting for us when we returned. Of course, I was working then, traveling for business almost weekly, and racking up a ton of airline miles, so we could see a bunch of return visits in our future. If only we'd known about the resale market then ...

 

[breezez]

You have to face the music that MF’s are the actual cost of your vacation(s).

The outrageous costs to buy a developer unit is due to their SG&A costs ( selling and general administrative costs.). Most developers list this cost as 50% or more of sales revenue. The other 50% or less of costs is actual cost of units.

Units have little resell value because let’s face it most people live beyond there means. They sit in these presentations hear the dream of endless vacations with family then buy something they can’t afford. They convince themselves we can afford this much a month, some don’t even understand there is MFs on top of loan. When the dust settles and they are paying several hundred a month for a week or less of vacation in most cases. Then reality sets it they could have just rented and they are pissed off. When they finally get it paid off where they can sell they are so angry they dump it. This is why there are so many for nothing they are desperate to just be done. They fail to realize while yes it sucks they overpaid but they now are at a point it makes sense to own and enjoy.

Some systems have higher resell than others mostly due to ROFR keeping them proped up.

Now where HOAs do owners wrong is when they drastically underfund their reserves. Leaving owners with the dreaded special assessment some day.

As an owner in any resort you need to understand how your resort reserves are funded and if in areas prone to natural disasters how they are insured.

 

[LannyPC]

You have to face the music that MF’s are the actual cost of your vacation(s)

No. Those are just part of the actual cost of you vacation(s). Now this could vary from person to person and family to family but there are other costs involved in vacation(s) well beyond the realm of accommodations or MFs if TSs are part of the vacation(s).

There's airfare unless you live within reasonable driving distance to the resort. For most airlines, there's the cost of checking in luggage (but that's another thread). There's the cost to get the travelers to and from their home airport. There's the cost of car rental or whatever other means travelers will use at their destination. There's the cost of activities unless you plan on sitting in your resort room or just using the resort's pool. There's the cost of food on a per-week basis. And other people's mantra may/will vary on this but our biggest "expense" when traveling is lost wages.

Of course (this is just a side point) TS sales people don't factor these in when crunching numbers trying to convince you that buying a TS will save you enough money in the long run to more than pay for what you are initially investing in buying a TS.

 

[LannyPC]

I think going from $1200 to $800 would make a big difference on resale value.

I personally don't think it would make a big difference, maybe a small one. I don't have the time to look everything up here so this is just speculation on my part. How many TSs do we see for giveaway or low cost in say TUG's Bargain Deals section where the MFs are about $800? I'm guessing some. If so, why are people wanting to give them away instead of holding on to them and trying to sell and get a few bucks? Again, I'm guessing but $800 is still $800, something that people do not want to be paying for something that they either don't use or can't afford to use when adding in all the other peripheral expenses of traveling.

With all the threads I've seen here on TUG over the years, mostly from newbies who are wondering about getting out of their TSs, the reason they mention for them wanting to is not so much that the MFs have gotten too high (although some do complain about that) but rather that they can't afford to travel any more (or can't due to health reasons).

The one reason I see that might convince owners to want/keep their TSs more if the MFs are $800 instead of $1200 is that it might be easier to recover the MFs (or above) renting it out. IOW, it might be easier to get $800 or more renting it out than it would be fetching $1200.

 

[bizaro86]

I personally don't think it would make a big difference, maybe a small one. I don't have the time to look everything up here so this is just speculation on my part. How many TSs do we see for giveaway or low cost in say TUG's Bargain Deals section where the MFs are about $800? I'm guessing some. If so, why are people wanting to give them away instead of holding on to them and trying to sell and get a few bucks? Again, I'm guessing but $800 is still $800, something that people do not want to be paying for something that they either don't use or can't afford to use when adding in all the other peripheral expenses of traveling.

With all the threads I've seen here on TUG over the years, mostly from newbies who are wondering about getting out of their TSs, the reason they mention for them wanting to is not so much that the MFs have gotten too high (although some do complain about that) but rather that they can't afford to travel any more (or can't due to health reasons).

The one reason I see that might convince owners to want/keep their TSs more if the MFs are $800 instead of $1200 is that it might be easier to recover the MFs (or above) renting it out. IOW, it might be easier to get $800 or more renting it out than it would be fetching $1200.

That discount is the reason it would be more saleable. If you're getting $1200 worth of services for $800, it's naturally better value.

There are TS that have $800 MF now, but they mostly have less amenities or services than the big hotel brands. But the same math applies. If those $800 MF timeshares had $400 MF, they would be way more saleable.