Emerging markets increase value of timeshares?

[Nolathyme]

I was watching 60 minutes last weekend and they had a segment about contemporary art fetching outrageous prices. They mentioned that the Chinese and Russians are bidding up the prices.

Are there any rules about foreigners buying US timeshares?

Has anyone noticed an increase in foreigners staying at timeshares in the US?

Could this be a way of turning around the decline in prices?

 

[JeffBrown]

Are there any rules about foreigners buying US timeshares?

We've run across this in many transfers and some resorts simply won't allow a transfer to a non-resident of the US, other's don't care if it is sold to a foreigner. So, it is on a case by case basis and your resort can change the rules so be cautious.

For instance, Celebrity/Legacy Resorts had transfer paperwork on a property going to a foreigner. They received that paperwork on October 15, 2010. In March of 2011 they came back and declined the transfer.

Jeff Brown
Sumday Vacations

 

[theo]

An anecdotal observation...

Has anyone noticed an increase in foreigners staying at timeshares in the US?

I don't present this as a statistically meaningful observation, but I happened to notice one day while floating around the pool during week 10 in coastal SW FL this year, that no one in or around the pool was speaking English. This comprised about a dozen or 15 people, many of them clearly members of the same family. I did not recognize the language in use (it wasn't French, Spanish, German, Russian or Portuguese, any and all of which I would easily at least recognize). I was speculating maybe Dutch? I just dunno...

In any event, the point is that I've been at that same facility during week 10 for many years. Never before had I heard a foreign language spoken on site, yet on this one particular day and moment in time a foreign language was the only language being spoken on site, so the contrast stuck in my (alleged) mind.

That all aside, if the current resale market is "down", it would seem to be "down" for all buyers, regardless of their country of origin. Maybe we could get the Chinese to start buying up unwanted, low value timeshares instead of owning such a huge interest in our country's Treasury notes...