[ 2009 ] Tri West Real Estate

[wsmith48]

Tri West want $195 up front fee. Everything I have read says NO NO NO. Tri-West appears to be a leader in timeshare resales. Can anyone give me some advice. Thanks

 

[TUGBrian]

Tri west is one of the if not THE only exceptions to the no upfront rule we have.

ie, they follow all the laws and do it right, and doing so costs them that money they charge upfront. They are HUGE supporters of doing things the right way to avoid the possible nightmares you can encounter when using unlicensed and uneducated sales/closing/transfer people in some of these fly by night operations.

Mario has been a long time friend of my father, and a long time supporter of TUG. (he also gets furious when we always say never pay an upfront fee)...so im sticking my neck out as thanks to him in this instance.

I believe Mario will treat you right at tri-west, he is a good guy (know him personally). If not, you let me know and I will make it right.

I dont suspect you will need that however, as they are good people.

Fact is, if it were just a "fee" that went into their pocket to sell your timeshare...they would fall into the categories with the rest of the upfront fee companies, that is not the case here. Ask them specifically what the $195 goes to, and you should get an answer!

 

[BocaBum99]

Tri west is one of the if not THE only exceptions to the no upfront rule we have...as their upfront fees are specifically to pay certain fees that california levies against them.

ie, they follow all the laws and do it right, and doing so costs them that money they charge upfront. They are HUGE supporters of doing things the right way to avoid the possible nightmares you can encounter when using unlicensed and uneducated sales/closing/transfer people in some of these fly by night operations.

Mario has been a long time friend of my father, and a long time supporter of TUG. (he also gets furious when we always say never pay an upfront fee)...so im sticking my neck out as thanks to him in this instance.

I believe Mario will treat you right at tri-west, he is a good guy (know him personally). If not, you let me know and I will make it right.

I dont suspect you will need that however, as they are good people.

Fact is, if it were just a "fee" that went into their pocket to sell your timeshare...they would fall into the categories with the rest of the upfront fee companies, that is not the case here. Ask them specifically what the $195 goes to, and you should get an answer!

Brian,

I don't think your information is 100% correct and is misleading. Charging an advertising fee is a business model choice. There are several no upfront fee brokers in California. There *may* be extra fees in California if you want to be an upfront fee company. If you want to be a no upfront fee company, I don't believe there are extra fees and if there are, they are built into the commission plan and part of doing business as a broker in California.

For example, here is a highly reputable no upfront fee broker in California: alltimeshare website. There are many more. There are always costs of doing business. How a company chooses to charge for their services is a choice, not a mandate by the state in which they do business. A company that charges an upfront fee is still an upfront fee company. Otherwise, you can argue that the rules of thumb regarding upfront fee companies don't apply to Timeshares Only because they actually do spend a ton of money on television advertising and that advertising produces lots of buyers leads.

I do know Mario and he is a good and honest guy. He has a large database of listings and a large customer base. So, it's not a bad idea to work with tri-west. People just need to be aware of the facts. It's like choosing to go with a load or no load mutual fund. Know what your getting and what you are paying for. For instance, I believe Tri-west is one of the authorized resellers of Four Seasons Aviara. If you want to buy or sell that resort, Tri-west is definitely one of the best.

Jim

 

[TUGBrian]

understood...thanks for the correction Bill. I wasnt aware of those items, and have edited the post to remove said content so it wont be misleading!

 

[Bill4728]

This is a general statement and not a comment about Tri West which I have no info on.

The real question is "Should you avoid all TS resale companies which charge a up front fee when trying to sell your TS?"

The answer is no.

But there are only a very few companies which charge an up front fee in which it makes any sense to pay an up front fee. Those companies are the ones which make most of their money from acutally selling TSs, As compared to those companies which make their money just from listing TS for sale.

Most "up-front fee" companies make their money by getting lots of listings. They also spend most of their money getting more listings & NOT on trying to sell the listing they have!! These companies will tell sellers anything to get them to list their TS with them and make promises of selling the TS at a profit or close to the developer prices. IMHO, These are lies!! Almost no TS will sell for anywhere near the price which the developer was paid for the TS. So unless a resale company can and does guide their clients into reasonably pricing their TS, they are a rip off.

 

[wsmith48]

Brian, Thanks for the feedback. Everything I read plus your feedback has me leaning toward TW. If there is anyone out there that has sold a Timeshare using TW I would appreciate your comments

 

[star11]

Tri-West

I am a timeshare owner and I had listed my timeshare for sale thru Tri-West and they took my money and did nothing for me. In fact, once they take your money you never hear back from them - except for a copy of your listing once a year. No calls, no follow-up, etc. Don't do it!

Tri West want $195 up front fee. Everything I have read says NO NO NO. Tri-West appears to be a leader in timeshare resales. Can anyone give me some advice. Thanks

 

[jdb0822]

I am a timeshare owner and I had listed my timeshare for sale thru Tri-West and they took my money and did nothing for me. In fact, once they take your money you never hear back from them - except for a copy of your listing once a year. No calls, no follow-up, etc. Don't do it!

I would tend to take the advice of our Moderator over that of a 1-time poster (probably an upfront company shill, etc)

just my 2 cents.

 

[e.bram]

Time for TUG Brian to get star11's money back. His post(Brian's)seems to be an implicite guarentee for Tri-West.

 

[Phill12]

I would tend to take the advice of our Moderator over that of a 1-time poster (probably an upfront company shill, etc)

just my 2 cents.

Remember that the person asking this question has only two post and you have only 201 post. How many post do we require before we take someone serious on here!

I believe from moderators feeling this owner is a honest man but he is a business man in this to make money.

My feelings are and always will be to say no to upfront companies.The bottom line is your still paying to have your timeshare listed on someones list.

Just because someone knows someone in business and thinks they are the exception to the long standing rule isn't enough to change my mind.

I have never heard of this company and do not know if I have ever seen their list of timeshares for sale or not so to me this isn't that good of a advertising site.

Bottom line here is what do they do for your money other than what all others do and that is to list your timeshare on some list and nothing else.
Do they help with sale and closing and later get a commission to make more money?

If not then they are just charging a smaller fee than most to do same thing you can do yourself.

There have been many companies that will drop their price low if it gets this some money in the mail because bottom line is there just after the money and at some point take what they can get for doing very little.:annoyed:

Like I said I would say no and no exceptions to this rule.

There are companies that do list timeshares and charge commission only after sales and do the job!

PHIL

 

[Lee B]

I have been getting monthly(?) TS bargain emails from TRI-West for years ("Hotlist," I think). I bought from them twice off of that email. I presume you can sign up for those on their website. I suggest you explore their site and sign up. You can always unsubscribe later.

LB

 

[TUGBrian]

I dont offer a guarantee that a timeshare can be sold, thats silly.

I ensured you that if you were going to do business with mario, what he is charging you will be earned by him...vs just pocketed and them walking away without doing anything to actually sell your timeshare.

If star11 wants to email me their contact info, I can do more research.

 

[Cathyb]

softballdad: Mario and his company have been around for over 20 years in the timeshare business. As Bocabum stated, he has a large client base and is well respected in the industry. Personally I would rather have a company with that kind of record than a no fee company in business for less years.

 

[Harry]

Believe it or not, I agree

I have purchased from them twice and found them extremely good and ethical. I have never used them to sell, however but may in the future. As one who has sued 2 timeshare companies in two different jurisdictions and won, perhaps they would not even take my listing.....

Harry

 

[Phill12]

softballdad: Mario and his company have been around for over 20 years in the timeshare business. As Bocabum stated, he has a large client base and is well respected in the industry. Personally I would rather have a company with that kind of record than a no fee company in business for less years.

Cathy, that is great that they have been in business that long but I'm saying I have never recalled hearing the company name. So their listings have never grabbed my attention that I know of.

Do they do anything other than list your timeshare and send some e-mails out?

This may be a very honest company but after all this time having warned of these companies are we now saying except in this case because Brian knows him?

Soon we will have hundreds working on this exception rule because someone knows them.

I don't think so!

 

[e.bram]

Madoff was around for more than twenty years and had a great reputation.

 

[DeniseM]

This may be a very honest company but after all this time having warned of these companies are we now saying except in this case because Brian knows him?

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. of course, but as far as recommendations on TUG, you do understand that Brian is the owner of TUG, right? He has a vested interest in making sure that all recommendations on TUG are for reputable companies.

 

[Phill12]

Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. of course, but as far as recommendations on TUG, you do understand that Brian is the owner of TUG, right? He has a vested interest in making sure that all recommendations on TUG are for reputable companies.

Yes I understand he is the owner but he is just another name to me like all you moderators.

Everyone has a opinion but just because he owns doesn't mean we move on every word he says.

This isn't a insult to anyone but we all are just faceless names on these forums except for the few that have met.

 

[DeniseM]

On the internet, we don't have that personal interface with everyone, so reputation is everything. That's what makes the reviews and recommendations from other Tuggers so valuable.

 

[Cathyb]

softballdad: The key word is 'RESPECTED'. It is very hard to stay in the timeshare world for 20 years and still be respected. Have you thought to check the Better Business Bureau on his company to ease some doubt? I guess us old-timers on TUG have more trust in its long time members than you more recent joiners -- so sad.

 

[TUGBrian]

If you dont want my recommendation, then move right on down the thread and ignore my post, it was intended to answer the question of the OP anyway.

Its pretty rare that I will get involved in threads like this, as nothing I say will ever make everyone happy.

We had a joke awahile back that if I were to post a poll asking if the sun rises in the east or the west, I still wouldnt get 100% accuracy...and more importantly id get emails telling me that that the poll was invalid because north and south werent options.

Everyone is going to take things differently.

Fact is, its easy to make money by being unethical...and its not how I do business at all. I have zero problem making the above statement because I truly believe mario is a honest man and truly cares about the timeshare community. I got this belief from my father who believes the same thing, and personally after meeting mario and listening to him preach about the problems in the industry and his never-ending crusade to end them.

I sleep fine at night defending people who truly are "good people", and if that annoys others by doing so...so be it. Noone said doing the right thing was easy.

That said, are there alternatives to using legitimate resale companies like marios or others? absolutely...we at TUG exist to inform people of the ways to sell their timeshares THEMSELVES.

That said, there are still many MANY people who simply dont want to do that, dont have the time to do that, or simply dont want to learn to do that. In these cases, they choose to pay someone to do it for them.

We all know that paying someone and upfront fee is likely to end up in you losing your money and still owning your timeshare. Especially in this current economy. There are risks in everything.

However if someone has joined TUG, Im assumign they have read the how to sell article as its sent to them some 5 times during the join process =) so if they are asking about a resale company...its likely they are just looking for someone to "do it for them"

Had this poster asked a generic question about using a resale company, you wouldnt have heard a word out of me as I try to let the members handle things like that. However they asked specifically about a person my father knows and respects, and I know and respect, and someone who has supported and helped TUG for many years.

That makes things a bit different.

 

[wsmith48]

OP

Brian, I asked the question hoping to get a wide range of feedback both pro and con. I value your comments not only because you know Mario but supported his fee in spite of TUG's position. Considering all of the responses only one was negative. The others were positive.

I also did a BBB check and Tri-West has a 4 star rating and no complaints.
While it troubles me a little to front load a listing I'm gong to do it. I will keep you and the others posted on how it goes.

Thanks again for your input

 

[richardm]

Brian, I asked the question hoping to get a wide range of feedback both pro and con. I value your comments not only because you know Mario but supported his fee in spite of TUG's position. Considering all of the responses only one was negative. The others were positive.

I also did a BBB check and Tri-West has a 4 star rating and no complaints.
While it troubles me a little to front load a listing I'm gong to do it. I will keep you and the others posted on how it goes.

Thanks again for your input

I agree with Brian that Mario's reputation in the industry is sterling. Also, be aware that some type of upfront fee isn't that uncommon any longer with brokers (even those that advertise as "no upfront fees" often have some type of upfront fee product, upgrade, or referral system to a marketing site)..

Good luck on your sale.

 

[calgarygary]

It is pretty easy to see the difference between Tri-West and the typical upfront fee company. The scammers get your listing by letting you believe that your timeshare has a value that isn't realistic. It is common to see prices of over $20K and sometimes $30K for Vistana, Marriott, Hilton, etc. in Orlando when we all know that the market will never bear that asking price - only developers see it. Tri-West's listings are well under that figure in the Orlando market place - still high but maybe could best be described as hopeful vs. "on drugs". That info. alone suggests that they are working with the lister to get a sale.

 

[Phill12]

I agree with Brian that Mario's reputation in the industry is sterling. Also, be aware that some type of upfront fee isn't that uncommon any longer with brokers (even those that advertise as "no upfront fees" often have some type of upfront fee product, upgrade, or referral system to a marketing site)..

Good luck on your sale.

It is great that this seems to be a good company as some statements from some Tuggers. As I stated I just have never heard of them or seen any of their ads anywhere.

I did go look yesterday and it took some time to find the site. I wasn't impressed with it because at every turn they wanted personal information without giving out much information on the timeshares.

I found ads for my timeshare resort and the list only gave size 1 or 2 bedrooms/bathrooms and nothing more,then you signed on to make offer on a ad that didn't even tell you what building or anything else you were offering to buy.

Also the site states no charge upfront for selling with a commission of min of 15% which would be very fair.

There is a option of paying $225.00 to be on some other list but have no idea what it was.

The only other time I heard of this company was on Redweek back in Aug 2007 when someone asked about this company and not one response out of 237 views and that is hard to do because there is two different people that jump on every post on Redweek with their opinions and they didn't post either.

I do hope it works out for wsmith48 and gets sold.

PHIL