We've been considering either buying a place on Hawaii and have it entered in to the buildings rental program or getting a timeshare and while both options have their pros and cons I'm trying to understand how the timeshare maintenance fees are as high as they are. If I were to buy a place outright a fairly nice resort facility would have a monthly HOA fee of let's say $1,500, $1,000 for the property tax, an additional $500 for electricity (although that's sometimes included in the HOA), and then $1,000 a month for upkeep/upgrades which is basically $4,000 a month or $1,000 a week. That may not be everything but I think it illustrates the point when you compare that to a weeks maintenance fee at the Westin Princeville that is roughly $3,000 for the 2 bedroom. How in the world can it be so much higher? I would expect somewhat of a premium but I just can't see how it's 3x as much.
I really like the idea of a points based timeshare where we could go to our home resort and book early and get a confirmation or chose another island or locale altogether if there is availability but the flipside to that is for $3k I can get a nice place through VRBO for a week or more. Obviously not apples to apples going that route but I'm finding it hard to swallow what seems to be a huge premium on what the timeshares maintenance fees are so just curious what I'm missing. We could purchase elsewhere, looked at the Westin Kierland before as their maintenance fees were considerably more reasonable but don't know if we would always be able to get a week when we actually wanted to get the week given Hawaii's popularity and that I imagine a lot of home resort owners book before the 8 month mark.
Thanks in advance!
I really like the idea of a points based timeshare where we could go to our home resort and book early and get a confirmation or chose another island or locale altogether if there is availability but the flipside to that is for $3k I can get a nice place through VRBO for a week or more. Obviously not apples to apples going that route but I'm finding it hard to swallow what seems to be a huge premium on what the timeshares maintenance fees are so just curious what I'm missing. We could purchase elsewhere, looked at the Westin Kierland before as their maintenance fees were considerably more reasonable but don't know if we would always be able to get a week when we actually wanted to get the week given Hawaii's popularity and that I imagine a lot of home resort owners book before the 8 month mark.
Thanks in advance!