Economy-timeshare trades to be higher or lower?

[Janette]

I had a question put to me by a non-timeshare person. As economy is having such terrible problems, will timeshare trading go up or down? If folks have bought where they have to fly to go to their home resort, I think they may try to trade to something closer to home. All of our timeshares are within driving distance,so I probably will trade less. What do you think? Will the trading companies take a big hit?

 

[funtime]

it could be that there are more deposits made as people postpone a vacation and do not want to lose their timeshare week. I think that there will be greater trade availability for Hawaii and Mexico and I have already started seeing this in II. Funtime

 

[barndweller]

I agree with funtime. I think a lot of people will just deposit and not take vacations but stay home and save the expense of travel. We are already seeing a lot of great trades available to top quality resorts and the more difficult to get trades. The folks who have traditionally rented out their units at a profit are going to have a hard time netting enough to cover MF much less see extra so they may be using their own units.

In 2009 we plan to mostly use our own and have already traded the few we won't use for nice upgraded places close to home. Fly-to locations will be the hardest hit. Hawaiian & Carribbean locations will have lots of availability next year and probably even Mexico since airfare has gotten crazy.

 

[KCI]

We decided several months ago to limit our timesharing to places within driving distances of our home. We have booked 6 timeshares for next year all within a day's drive of our house. We decided this because we felt flying would just be too much hassle until things settle down. We have a huge amount of ff miles so cost wasn't the big thing as we plan a year or more in advance and have had no problem booking ff miles but even with them, flying will be a hassle we don't need right now. We still have a few units which we have not traded yet but will probably use them to go to FL as it is an easy drive from SC.