First, I think defaulting should be the nuclear option. Sure, you don’t have to worry about credit, but the other owners have to pick up your bad debt. Essentially, you’d just be making the situation worse. I owned a vacation villages at parkway and had no issue unloading it. The buyer paid the transfer fee. I paid the $175 closing cost.
Second, with the exception of the few people in the world who are older then 102, this situation has not happened in anyone’s lifetime. It’s next to impossible to say what will happen. We can only go by the past. The economy recovered after the Spanish flu. The recovery rate on any given area depending on how they responded to the pandemic. Areas that didn’t take precautions soon enough, got hit the hardest. Those are the areas that got hit hard economically as well. The ones who were proactive recovered faster. Social distancing measures worked during the Spanish flu, and it will work now. Even in the areas hit the hardest, it won’t take 10 years to recover. Maybe a year or two.
I think your outlook is more dire then It actually will be. Sure, there are a lot of people collecting unemployment, but there are other measures in place to help small business continue and keep their employees paid. They did not have that during the Spanish flu. Also, there are many resort systems including Wyndham who are doing everything within their power to reduce the amount of defaults. That includes allowing people to defer maintenance and loan payments. They have to if they want to survive. There are a ton of things happening that will reduce the negative impact on the economy. What you should be worried about is your next tax bill. Those economic stimulus plans have to get their money from somewhere. We will likely be paying for it over the next 5 years or more.
My personal problem is both of platinum memberships with Wyndham and Diamond are achieved with PICS that allow me to be at the Platinum level if I get rid of those less desirable timeshares I will lose my Platinum status but would still be Gold VIP in both systems. I sense Wyndham will have a real hard time finding new owners and many owners will consider their timeshare maintenance fee and their timeshare mortgage as a very low priority in the present economic situation. Wyndham got out of this situation with Club Wyndham Access in 2009 but I don't think they can come up with a solution this time, so they will be forced to pass those unpaid fees to the rest of us owners with high maintenance fees.
Bottom line is wait and see. It is way to soon to jump ship and leave others holding the bag.
