thank you all for the info.. we have just started looking so we want to weight our options. It is hard getting reliable information.
Information you get here is the truth, however unpleasant it may be to hear. Tug has been around for more than 20 years, and has tens of thousands of people who have come here for information. Nobody is trying to sell you anything, so there is no "angle." Just truthful information.
Be very careful about companies that promise to get you out of your contract for a fee. They charge you upfront, and then don't do anything. You get stuck with what you started with, plus you've lost the money you paid them. No reliable company will ask you for money up front. Scammers are everywhere in the "Get out of your timeshare" world. They prey on the frustrated and uninformed seller. Don't fall for the scam. But also understand if you owe money on your contract, nobody will want to buy it. So you're caught in the middle.
To give you real world numbers: When I bought a free and clear 12000 credit WorldMark account on eBay several years ago, I paid about $1600 for it, and I got a fully-loaded account. It had two years worth of credits (24K) and 2 housekeeping tokens already in the account, with the next year's 12K available to borrow. So it couldn't have had more availability to me. The seller paid all the fees. I scored a great deal (as a Buyer) but the Seller lost a great amount, because he just wanted out. He had owned the account more than 10 years, and the mortgage had long since been paid. I'm sure he lost plenty.
You've already invested a good deal of money into what you own. Rather than bail out and throw that away, try and find a way to make it work. Read some of the forums here about renting your timeshare, to have it pay for itself. If you can do that, you can keep what you've already paid so much for, and if your situation improves, you can enjoy what you own.
Dave
