Just to compare: we lost 3x our Craig investment in a single developer retail purchase over the past 5 years - that's real dollars if we sold today resale. Now consider which of these option has less risk?
Obviously buying retail is a bad choice and has nothing to do with whether a Craig purchase is a good idea. How much you'd lose on a developer purchase is a comparison of apples to footballs.
What II resort with trading power can be bought for $0?
As to what II resort can be bought for zero, the answer to that is plenty of them. I have a couple of sheraton Desert Oasis units that were free, and they have Craig level fees and lock off to 2x one bedrooms that trade very well in II, plus have Vistana and secondary Marriott preference. There are 4br lockoffs in the east coast, lower point Hyatt units, etc. Tons of choices. It isn't that Craig is a bad II trader, it's just that if that's what you want you can get something as good or better for essentially free, so why pay $6k for Craig.
* The GPB per USD is at an all-time low. Even if prices decline, the actual cost may be the same or more if the dollar weakens. While MF will fluctuate, you only get one chance to lock in a purchase price. I don't know what the poster has offered but you can always go back and negotiate with the seller now to ease your perception of risk. That's what I would do.
The GBP is at a low level, which is a factor. That doesn't make it more likely to go up than go down, however. I do think prices are likely to go down so re-negotiating the deal to a lower price would be one way of easing the risk. I would comment that if you think the GBP is going to go way up, you're committing to ongoing fees in that currency, so it seems to me that would make Craig much less desirable for a US based purchaser as well.
In addition to II, one can rent out the Craig summer units for more than MF to recoup the remainder of the purchase price then move on.
* The Elite benefit may be taken away from future purchases. Possibly with the next rule book in 2023. (We will be grandfathered as long as HGVC offers elite benefits because it is written into our contract.)
Anyone buying to use or rent these units in the summer isn't affected at all and should go ahead. If they left it would probably up the bad debt to the association as some owners will default but probably not the end of the world. I wouldn't value the elite perks very highly, and think it's likely that they will get reduced over time anyway and moved to Max owners only as they try and sell the "latest and greatest" thing. If they slowly reduce the elite benefits to nothing and add new benefits to Max I wouldn't expect HGVC to give you that.
* IMO these prices are already at or near rock bottom with < $6k US purchase. If potentially losing this amount of money keeps you up at night you should not buy a timeshare (or play in the stock market. Have you looked at your stock portfolio recently?)
I have more money than I need because I don't waste it. Nobody said anything about being up at night over $6k, but a couple of people did ask for advice. Since most of the comments they got are from people who already own Craig and have a vested interested in pricing staying high I thought I'd chime in with an alternative opinion. Obviously I don't expect to change your mind (and as I mentioned for those who already own worrying adds no value at all).
Since we're on a complete aside, I'm up more than 15% year to date stock portfolio wise because I rotated into a decent portion of my portfolio into energy stocks (which were historically cheap) at the beginning of the year. That doesn't mean I'm correct about this, since it has absolutely nothing to do with whether it makes sense to buy Craig or not.
Except for maybe by analogy - Warren Buffet has said there are no called strikes in investing, which means wait for an obvious fat pitch before you swing. I think timeshares are the same. It's never an emergency to buy one, they're a luxury good. So personally, I wait for things that are obviously a great deal for my family before I buy. The uncertainty around Craig excludes that from the list for me right now. YMMV.
