Creating a liquid timeshare resale market

[timeos2]

Perhaps, but I will have a one-year MF billing cycle to figure it out.

Why would you pay any PCC when the resort under this plan would be willing to take it for less or even no charge? With a guaranteed end to your obligations? What possible part of paying a PCC even a thousand dollars could be better than deeding to your known Association who ultimately has the power to bill you if the transfer isn't done or isn't legal?

And yes, education is the key. That's why resorts need to have REAL owner updates NOT a disguised sales pitch from the regular weasels. Again proactive resorts ar doing these things and not sitting back wringing their hands over the actions of PCC's. Nor are they blindly accepting every deed that an owner wants to get out of simply because it is convenient. It all has to be in balance and must be carefully planned & implemented. And resorts/Boards/owners must be open to new ideas not just live thinking what worked in the past is the only way today.

 

[ronparise]

Like I said in a previous post: show me the value proposition. What's your offer to me: $3,500 SA coming next year? <hear the crickets?>

If this were the case, you would not take it and I would be stuck with it. C'est la vie.

There is no value proposition.. for you..because the trust isnt set up to serve you..you are eager to own your week pay your fees and use the place..I have nothing to offer you

The value is there for those that want to sell whether blue white or red weeks. We will be a market maker for a product where no market maker currently exists

The key will be finding folks to use this stuff I dont think we will have a problem getting red. white or blue inventory

 

[am1]

There is no value proposition.. for you..because the trust isnt set up to serve you..you are eager to own your week pay your fees and use the place..I have nothing to offer you

The value is there for those that want to sell whether blue white or red weeks. We will be a market maker for a product where no market maker currently exists

The key will be finding folks to use this stuff I dont think we will have a problem getting red. white or blue inventory

It will require the same hard sell that scam these owners for tens of thousands of dollars. Most of them will not understand what you are selling. Ron you may be okay with this but what about the general TUG population?

If only owners who wanted to own, bought weeks we would never have this problem.

 

[Ridewithme38]

It will require the same hard sell that scam these owners for tens of thousands of dollars. Most of them will not understand what you are selling. Ron you may be okay with this but what about the general TUG population?

If only owners who wanted to own, bought weeks we would never have this problem.

Why would it require a hard sell, all you'd really have to do is email the people who posted in bargin deals...you could get about 100 weeks just from that...and with 10-20 more coming in a month...you'd be set

 

[strandlover]

Why would it require a hard sell, all you'd really have to do is email the people who posted in bargin deals...you could get about 100 weeks just from that...and with 10-20 more coming in a month...you'd be set

OK let's see the business case:

Cash inflows, outflows over 5 years. Marketing strategy...

It's a house of cards.

 

[strandlover]

There is no value proposition.. for you..because the trust isnt set up to serve you..you are eager to own your week pay your fees and use the place..I have nothing to offer you

When I am not as eager, I hope that this ship is still afloat and please have a value proposition ready for me.

 

[ampaholic]

When I went to business school (yes, a real one) a smart Prof stated in a lecture "All business plans entail risks and nay-sayers, don't let the latter inflate the former".

At least it sounded like that's what he said.

 

[ronparise]

It will require the same hard sell that scam these owners for tens of thousands of dollars. Most of them will not understand what you are selling. Ron you may be okay with this but what about the general TUG population?

If only owners who wanted to own, bought weeks we would never have this problem.

I think a good model would be Worldmark, nobody ons a deed everbody owns credits there are some good resorts some ok resorts, and they own just some units in other resorts..Every member owns a share of the whole thing and every body pays the same mf per credit. The best thing is that you can buy credits from other owners. at about their cost. So you can small account; say 6000 credits and your mf is under $500. This is pretty much a blue week one bedroom throughout the system. But if you want more, just buy them from another owner. with no long term commitment

This is a system foreign to most of us..no deeds, no home resort, no 5* quality, and yet there is an active resale market place, and prices haven't fallen to zero...folks seem to like this model

Im suggesting something similar a collection of weeks in various resorts; balanced; red, white and blue, so that the average tpu will get a decent resort in white season. but make these reservations available without a long term commitment. Hotels and motels have been doing this for a long time, renting space by the night...Im suggesting doing it a week at a time...

Im confident that we can get as much inventory as we need...The question is can we find folks that want to use this stuff. I think so, My craigs list ads carry a tag line.."better than a hotel, but cheaper" and Ive had no trouble renting what I own

If we need money to kick start it I suggest that ARDA could get money from their members to make it work...There are always articles in the ARDA magazine talking about the need for an effective resale market place

 

[ronparise]

When I went to business school (yes, a real one) a smart Prof stated in a lecture "All business plans entail risks and nay-sayers, don't let the latter inflate the former".

At least it sounded like that's what he said.

All you need for a successful business is to find a problem and solve it...

we have identified a problem....and proposed a solution...now what?

 

[ampaholic]

All you need for a successful business is to find a problem and solve it...

we have identified a problem....and proposed a solution...now what?

We have a vehicle and a destination - we need gas.

In this case - capital.

When is that Mega Millions drawing again?

 

[Ridewithme38]

We have a vehicle and a destination - we need gas.

In this case - capital.

When is that Mega Millions drawing again?

241 million! i even bought a ticket...of course the ex gets 17% for child support if i win...but hell, i settle for the rest

What is 17% of 241 million after taxes?

 

[Beefnot]

241 million! i even bought a ticket...of course the ex gets 17% for child support if i win...but hell, i settle for the rest

What is 17% of 241 million after taxes?

Are you not divorced yet? Why would she get any of it?

 

[ampaholic]

Are you not divorced yet? Why would she get any of it?

The child didn't get divorced, so would still get "child" support. The ex wife / mom wouldn't get a penny.

Since the child is young, the mom would manage the funds if she has partial or full custody.

 

[hypnotiq]

241 million! i even bought a ticket...of course the ex gets 17% for child support if i win...but hell, i settle for the rest

What is 17% of 241 million after taxes?

Wow. Youre only on the hook for 17% in child support?

Did you have a sugar momma?

LOL

 

[hypnotiq]

The child didn't get divorced, so would still get "child" support. The ex wife / mom wouldn't get a penny.

Since the child is young, the mom would manage the funds if she has partial or full custody.

I cant speak for Ride's state, but I can speak to WA state.

The mother would challenge the child support order and he would have to go back through the CSW (child support weeksheet). There is a formula for how much he'll have to contribute to the cost of raising the child based on each parents income.

Given that he would have 120mil, he'd end up with 100% of the cost of raising the child.

 

[Beefnot]

That is plain silly that winning the lotto means it now costs exponentially more to raise the same child. The law can be so stupid.

 

[Carolinian]

Finally, some common sense instead of fantasy!

Yes, I care about my home resort, not the industry. The solution is at the grass roots, not on a Viking Ship. There are opportunities to market blue weeks on a smaller scale. One MF default and the HOA deeds the week back, that's it that's all. Incent (with a nice commission) front desk staff to rent (or sell) these weeks when calls come in. If someone rents blue week in year one, offer it sell it to them for $1 and stay that week for life.

I don't care about entrepreneurs who have spun off businesses owning impressive timeshare portfolios. Congrats to those who are successful. You deserve whatever profits come your way. You took the risk.

But please, don't come to the rest of us when your house of cards is crumbling. We are not TARP v2.0

 

[Carolinian]

When it comes to impact on the industry, that is why it was much more worthwhile to discuss it on the old TimeshareBeat boards, as most of those were in the industry and understood the impact. Too many on boards that are mostly exchanger members do not have that level of understanding of the industry and cannot seem to grasp it, even though many of the chickens are now starting to come home to roost from RCI's change in policies.

Many people who have always had poor success in exchanging do indeed have themselves to blame for not understanding the system. But there are lots of experienced exchangers who DO know what they are doing who see a serious decline of the exchanges they can get as some of these policies have kicked in. When people who have owned a long time say ''I never can get anything'' they are probably in the first group but when they say ''These days I just cannot get the things I used to get for years'' then they are in the second. One former active Tugger who now hangs out on another t/s board searched one area on RCI daily for years, SW Florida, and documented that day by day. He can tell you first hand the impact of RCI's changes. People like that are not so easily dismissed.

I don't participate with RCI, and other than Disney being with them, I would prefer to keep it that way. I probably don't disagree with much of your beef with RCI. What I do disagree with is the incessant rehash and the overstatement of impact it has on the industry. In general, I would venture that people who have serially poor success exchanging have done so because either their expectations are unrealistic or they don't really know what the hell they are doing. So they get jaded, plain and simple. And I suspect that is the majority of timesharers. Because most folks are lazy or simple or not research-savvy, perhaps the TUG mantra of buy where you want to go makes sense for them.

P.S. Actually, I am an anti-vegetarian, if there could be such a thing. I love steak. Love it.

 

[Ridewithme38]

Ebb and flow is all it is...too many people are holding on to old outdated trading styles that just don't fit with the current 'tide' of exchanging....i bet if that guy(who may have me on ignore over there) adjusted his ownerships to fit the current flow he'd find there is actually MORE availability...Sure traveling by horse drawn cart was nice and you knew how long it took you to get somewhere and what trails to take....But now we have cars, if you want to sit and talk all day about how much you miss horses, that doesn't change the fact that cars are the new way to travel...unless you adjust to the new paved roads, you'll never find your way

When it comes to impact on the industry, that is why it was much more worthwhile to discuss it on the old TimeshareBeat boards, as most of those were in the industry and understood the impact. Too many on boards that are mostly exchanger members do not have that level of understanding of the industry and cannot seem to grasp it, even though many of the chickens are now starting to come home to roost from RCI's change in policies.

Many people who have always had poor success in exchanging do indeed have themselves to blame for not understanding the system. But there are lots of experienced exchangers who DO know what they are doing who see a serious decline of the exchanges they can get as some of these policies have kicked in. When people who have owned a long time say ''I never can get anything'' they are probably in the first group but when they say ''These days I just cannot get the things I used to get for years'' then they are in the second. One former active Tugger who now hangs out on another t/s board searched one area on RCI daily for years, SW Florida, and documented that day by day. He can tell you first hand the impact of RCI's changes. People like that are not so easily dismissed.

 

[Tia]

Like not being able exchange back into your own resort for the same # TPU's they gave someone when they deposited??

.......RCI's change in policies.

Many people who have always had poor success in exchanging do indeed have themselves to blame for not understanding the system. But there are lots of experienced exchangers who DO know what they are doing who see a serious decline of the exchanges they can get as some of these policies have kicked in. When people who have owned a long time say ''I never can get anything'' they are probably in the first group but when they say ''These days I just cannot get the things I used to get for years'' then they are in the second. One former active Tugger who now hangs out on another t/s board searched one area on RCI daily for years, SW Florida, and documented that day by day. He can tell you first hand the impact of RCI's changes. People like that are not so easily dismissed.

 

[strandlover]

I think a good model would be Worldmark, nobody ons a deed everbody owns credits there are some good resorts some ok resorts, and they own just some units in other resorts..Every member owns a share of the whole thing and every body pays the same mf per credit. The best thing is that you can buy credits from other owners. at about their cost. So you can small account; say 6000 credits and your mf is under $500. This is pretty much a blue week one bedroom throughout the system. But if you want more, just buy them from another owner. with no long term commitment

This is a system foreign to most of us..no deeds, no home resort, no 5* quality, and yet there is an active resale market place, and prices haven't fallen to zero...folks seem to like this model

Im suggesting something similar a collection of weeks in various resorts; balanced; red, white and blue, so that the average tpu will get a decent resort in white season. but make these reservations available without a long term commitment. Hotels and motels have been doing this for a long time, renting space by the night...Im suggesting doing it a week at a time...

Im confident that we can get as much inventory as we need...The question is can we find folks that want to use this stuff. I think so, My craigs list ads carry a tag line.."better than a hotel, but cheaper" and Ive had no trouble renting what I own

If we need money to kick start it I suggest that ARDA could get money from their members to make it work...There are always articles in the ARDA magazine talking about the need for an effective resale market place

These are all good ideas. But when I went to business school (also a real one), I learned that ideas without a business case is called a scheme.

Yes, you will get inventory, by the boatloads. Suppose someone landed on their head this morning and gave you a million bucks. You will run out of cash before you know it. Then what? You will have a bunch of abandoned timeshare weeks in a trust / LLC. How are you "helping" the industry?

 

[Ridewithme38]

These are all good ideas. But when I went to business school (also a real one), I learned that ideas without a business case is called a scheme.

Yes, you will get inventory, by the boatloads. Suppose someone landed on their head this morning and gave you a million bucks. You will run out of cash before you know it. Then what? You will have a bunch of abandoned timeshare weeks in a trust / LLC. How are you "helping" the industry?

With the money he will take in from people paying him for the blue and white weeks and the rent from those weeks Plus the Red weeks, he should have enough to cover the MF's, sure some won't rent, but there are definately a number of weeks that rent for 2x MF's, I think he'll be alright if he's smart about which weeks he takes in and a (very)good rental agent

Think about it...If you had 100 weeks that when deposited got you 3000 TPU's, then rented those TPU's for $30 each, that's $90,000 divide that among the 100 weeks, that's $900 a week, which is a decent average MF, PLUS the money given for taken the white and the blue weeks....I'd say he'd be pretty liquid pretty fast

 

[ronparise]

The op nearly 300 posts ago presented a problem..."lack of liquidity in the time share market" and then put forward a possible solution

I thought those of us that have stayed around for all 300 posts agreed that the problem exists...we had moved on to discussing solutions.

The last few posts have gone full circle; back to the question...is there really a problem?

Carolinian doesnt think so. or rather Carolinian has used this thread as a soapbox to once again blame RCI for everything thats wrong with the world...He may be right. but for me thats a "who cares" when it coms to this discussion...I would as this question of Carolinian...If you could either abolish RCI or put it back to the way it once was, or remake it to exactly the way you want it; would that give us a effective and efficient resale market place for our timeshares? ..Now it might take one group of sellers out of the equation (the folks that want out because RCI screwed them) but wont there still be sellers looking for buyers?

I do agree with strandlover... "ideas without a business case are scheme"

Im not sure what he means by a "business case" but the way I read it in the context of what we have been discussing is an idea that doesnt solve a problem is not needed...I assume that means strandlover doesnt see the problem that was presented by the op

Maybe Carolinian is right..tweek the RCI business model and who knows, maybe the number of folks that want to sell their timeshare will drop to almost nothing and the ones that do want to sell will have no problem because there will be so many buyers that want in to the rci trading opportunity...I dont think so; I think RCI is a fact of life and we have to adapt to rci, not rci to us

As to Strandlover..just saying there is no problem, doesnt make the problem go away...I may be full of crap, and I didnt go to business school, and I admit it, Im more of a schemer than a businessman..but isnt that what we are talking about here...isnt timesharing itself more of a scheme than a real business?. Timeshares are a great idea but when they got away from the Hapimag model (corporate buy back after 4 years) the problems began... We have discussing the problem of ..no liquidity...and I think thats a real problem Its a problem for the person that cant sell what he owns but even more of a problem for the rest of us, as we watch the number of intervals at our resorts not generating fees get bigger and bigger


Talking about the Hapimag model....Isnt that what the op was suggestion...forcing buybacks by the hoa...maybe hes on to something

 

[strandlover]

With the money he will take in from people paying him for the blue and white weeks and the rent from those weeks Plus the Red weeks, he should have enough to cover the MF's, sure some won't rent, but there are definately a number of weeks that rent for 2x MF's, I think he'll be alright if he's smart about which weeks he takes in and a (very)good rental agent

Think about it...If you had 100 weeks that when deposited got you 3000 TPU's, then rented those TPU's for $30 each, that's $90,000 divide that among the 100 weeks, that's $900 a week, which is a decent average MF, PLUS the money given for taken the white and the blue weeks....I'd say he'd be pretty liquid pretty fast

On what planet will you get 30 TPUs per week for a balance of red, white and blue weeks? You would be lucky to get 15.

Also, who in their right mind would pay $30/TPU to go on vacation and select from a bunch of crappy weeks that no one wants? Many of these people who ceded their timeshare to the trust are no longer keen in the timeshare lifestyle and/or they have fallen into some sort of hardship? They are off the vacation market for the forseeable future.

Plus, as Ron said, this is not for those still keen on keeping our weeks. What under-served segment of the market does this leave you with?

Assuming I am dead wrong on all counts, what about year 2? You will be leaking cash to pay for year 2 MF, praying praying that new blue weeks (+ cash) come in as you are in a cash flow crunch. Another crappy week in the trust that can be had for less than $300 on RCI. The lottery is the only hope.

Craigslist as an advertising medium? May be OK for a handful of weeks, but hundreds? Good luck fielding those emails from scammers and tire kickers.

 

[timeos2]

Realize that the solution embodied by the "tweaks" back to the old RCI model still means the prime time owners subsidize the dog owners. Instead of direct billing of the fees as delinquents it is done by giving inflated value to the dog times thus allowing them to grab much more desirable time with their unwanted or low value weeks. It perpetrates the idea that owners of dog time have a need / right to get better than what they own or the system fails. It also means that the already limited supply (20% is usually cited) of all weeks that are valuable gets "raided" by the 80% that shouldn't have the power needed to get it.

It does nothing to find users / buyers of those dog times it just kicks the problem into the laps of the prime time / resort owners. Unlike points - which can tie the underlying value or rental/trade to the costs paid vs a game that pits rigged values - the very thing often railed against in the setting of point values - done by an anonymous group in secret to allegedly balance the trade values. It's bogus, always was and an open, exposed system of point values is a far better way to handle trades.

But trades are not the primary problem anyway. They play a small part but far more damaging is the unfettered rental of inventory by the exchange companies that undercuts the very fees need to support the weeks they get for free and then make pure profit - unshared with the owners or resorts - renting to anyone. That is the real problem that has created the glut of lower value owners looking to bail out. It makes no sense to own dog time at seasonal resorts when you can rent whatever you want in those times for an average of 1/3 the cost of the fees.

Yes there is a problem. Yes RCI/II and others are in the middle of it. No it's NOT trade method or values - it's cut throat rentals killing low value times & exploiting the system that should be offering great trades by renting them and leaving garbage for the paying members that supply the very inventory they rent for a hefty pure profit. How can a viable market be formed with that going on?