What to Buy / My Survey

[DVacationer]

Educating myself on TS, and hoping the community may be able to point me in the right direction

1) Is there a vacation destination you wish to visit most of the time or on a regular basis? If so, where?

Yes – Florida, particularly the Orlando/Kissimmee area due to theme parks, warm weather, driving convenience, and love of theme parks. I also occasionally visit Tennessee, Virginia Beach, and Las Vegas.

2) Do you want to visit your home resort at least half the time, or do you want to trade more than half the time?

I want to visit my home resort yearly, while also having points to use during the year for other destinations. My top priority is owning a guaranteed summer week at a clean, well-managed resort.

3) What are your 5 top trade destinations?

1. Virginia Beach
2. Gatlinburg, TN
3. New York City
4. California (Southern preferred)
5. Las Vegas

4) How many people do you usually travel with – total, including yourself?

1-2. I solo travel half the year, but my partner also tags along when his schedule allows. I’d want a TS I could grow into since children would happen in the future. (No more than 2)


5) Can you travel any time, or are you locked into the school schedule?

Locked into the school calendar as a teacher, so I can travel during June through July. I also have presidents week, Thanksgiving, week before Easter, and the 3rd week in October.


6) Can you make firm plans 12 or more months in advance?

Yes — I’m very organized and can book a year out if needed.


7) Can you vacation for a full week at a time?

Yes — a full week is ideal and preferred.


8) What level of accommodations do you prefer on a scale of 1 to 5 stars?

Prefer 4 to 5 stars. I care a lot about cleanliness, modern furnishings, and amenities. I’ve stayed at Hilton Grand Vacations properties and liked their standard.


9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?

Preferably under $1,000. Can stretch to $1,500–$2,000 if the deal includes a fixed summer week + annual points + low maintenance fees.


10) How much can you afford to spend every year for a maintenance fee that will come due right after Christmas, and increase each year?


$1,500 max per year, though ideally closer to $1,000. I’m value-conscious and want to make sure I’m getting what I pay for.

11) Are you a detail-oriented planner?

Yes — very much so. I’m already budgeting, researching deeply, and planning vacations well in advance.

12) Do you understand that once you buy a timeshare, it may be very difficult to sell or give away, and you are responsible for all fees, until you do?

I plan to buy resale only and treat this as a long-term commitment. I’m being very selective and ensuring I know what I’m getting into by working with a community.

 

[CO skier]

9) How much can you afford to spend upfront, without financing?

Preferably under $1,000. Can stretch to $1,500–$2,000 if the deal includes a fixed summer week + annual points + low maintenance fees.

It is so easy to book a summer Florida vacation in a points system, why do you want to get locked into a fixed summer week?

 

[jp10558]

I think you probably actually want 2 weeks - one fixed and one points. Though the points are probably unnecessary if you don't want to potentially book like 2-3 day stays. Orlando is by far the easiest place to book whenever, but if you're extremely picky then a fixed week is the way to go. The problem is - you're asking for HGVC, likely 2 weeks for less than that costs. The only other common TS at that level is Marriott which costs more. I have a HGVC Seaworld 2BR at some random time of the year - I think Week 44 cause TBH I don't care about the underlying home week, and that MF is $1850 now (well, including club dues and fees - what you actually would pay). If you use it as a home week, that's it, you get a week for that money. Buying a Seaworld deed (heck, people might give them away with the MFs getting that high) would still need a bunch of closing costs - I'm guessing at least $5k if you go through one of the brokers. You might get it down to $3k if you could private party it entirely.

Now, you could just get points is points from Craig Lodges - I kinda wished I'd done that. There's most likely not going to be an issue booking except that you need to book it each year 9 months out. Those are cheaper, around $1,100 MFs for a 2BR and purchases can be $3kish to $6kish per week depending on how you find the week and what exactly you buy. The plus side of using points is points is you don't eat all the points for the home week booking, instead you pay club points rates, which in Orlando for a 1BR is going to be likely 8000 or less. So if you did get the 2BR you'd have some points left over - 2,200 or so. However, that's not going to get you a second week somewhere else, even in a studio - I think those I've seen at 4,000 basically (I'm rounding so I don't have to look up the couple hundred pts each way on these). You might get 2-3 days. Of course, if you bought a second week and paid those, then you would be able to get 2 weeks and a little bit.

OK, but now that we've discussed financials with HGVC - you've got another problem, HGVC only has locations in NYC, California, and Las Vegas in addition to Orlando. NYC costs a lot more I believe, and only has 1BR or smaller from my searches - and is only available to book like 60 days out as club bookings in a few of the places, and none of them give you the full 9 months so booking those could be tricky. However, there's a silver lining - if you want to go to Virginia beach or Gatlinburg - HGVC does give you RCI. So you can just go to there and look for cash "extra vacations" which you book like a hotel or AirB&B, though often cheaper (at 1BR it's less sure than 2BR and I never look for 1BR so can't give you a vibe on that). Gatlinburg is what I'd consider easy, Virginia beach much more challenging but they do come up sometimes. You could consider Myrtle Beach where HGVC DOES have a lot of units, as does RCI for cash. However RCI resorts are almost always 3-3.5 stars and below the HGVC standard - but they are in way more locations and often for cheaper. For an idea, my youtube does show a number of different exemplars to see what the units look like.

My long and short of it is for solo travel - TS probably are IMO 50/50 (if you do studios) going to benefit you over a hotel room price wise. What you often get is the rest of the resort and sometimes a kitchen.

Regardless of the sorts of units you might want (Studio/1BR) I think for 2 weeks you describe, you need to buy 2 weeks, and your budgets are probably 40% of what you'd need in reality unless you compromise on the 4 star part and hussle a lot. Not saying an experienced TUGger couldn't come up with something that would do close to what you want, but it'd involve a lot of somewhat complicated and time consuming stuff as well as 3 star places.

If I may ask, how much are you spending now with AirB&B or Hotels if you did a mock set of stays you're looking for? Are they really under $1k?

 

[davidvel]

JP10558 makes a lot of great points especially the suggestion to tell us where you stay now for a week and where (+view/size) and how much you pay. Anytime kids are out of school (+ski weeks for those resorts) are the most prime season for any resort, though common thought is Orlando is overbuilt with TS.

 

[austdav]

You can buy a Magic Tree resort in Kissimmee. They will give you a 1bd for free, MF's are $550 a year. They have 2bd's for around 1k. & MF's are $625. They do not always have 2bd's though. Regardless they will do a quick deed and the transaction will probably be less than $100 dollars. So the easiest way to buy is right from the resort. They are floating weeks so you can book any week of the year. Understand, this is a gold crown resort for less than a motel stay and it has traded well. At least for me. You can belong to any or all trading companies. I belong to both rci and II.
I bought my first one in 2019 and now have 3wks. I usually stay Christmas, new year, and spring break. All for the price of 1 week in most point systems. I have a 1bd platinum week in hgvc at seaworld but never use it in orlando. To make your points worth anything you have to go to places that cost more to begin with. It doesn't pay to trade either. It's just another $300 bucks on top of already to high MF's. I was giving it away but the buyer backed out because of health reasons. You will have to buy a large points package to do what i think your wanting to do. And MF's will be a lot higher & will increase every year. Magic Tree has had the same MF's for about 20YRS except when they lowered them after covid to help people. Virginia beach will be harder to get since there main season is from june-august. May have to own there to get a specific week. Diamond now HVC has a lot of places there i think.

 

[andre10056]

You can buy a Magic Tree resort in Kissimmee. They will give you a 1bd for free, MF's are $550 a year. They have 2bd's for around 1k. & MF's are $625. They do not always have 2bd's though. Regardless they will do a quick deed and the transaction will probably be less than $100 dollars. So the easiest way to buy is right from the resort. They are floating weeks so you can book any week of the year. Understand, this is a gold crown resort for less than a motel stay and it has traded well. At least for me. You can belong to any or all trading companies. I belong to both rci and II.
I bought my first one in 2019 and now have 3wks. I usually stay Christmas, new year, and spring break. All for the price of 1 week in most point systems. I have a 1bd platinum week in hgvc at seaworld but never use it in orlando. To make your points worth anything you have to go to places that cost more to begin with. It doesn't pay to trade either. It's just another $300 bucks on top of already to high MF's. I was giving it away but the buyer backed out because of health reasons. You will have to buy a large points package to do what i think your wanting to do. And MF's will be a lot higher & will increase every year. Magic Tree has had the same MF's for about 20YRS except when they lowered them after covid to help people. Virginia beach will be harder to get since there main season is from june-august. May have to own there to get a specific week. Diamond now HVC has a lot of places there i think.

Hi austdav.

You may be the one previously, some months ago, recommending the purchase of Magic Tree. If it happened to have been you, you made it sound great then, just as you've done above. But if there's one thing I've learned about timeshares, it's real easy to buy, oftentimes horribly difficult to sell (actually that can be said about virtually anything). But if the upfront cost is minimal, then the potential loss is minimal as well, as long as you can at least likely give it away. So Magic Tree seems to be, as you've pointed out, a relatively riskless purchase.

Still, I've had so many things that have come up over the years that caused me to cancel plans to travel that it's become essential that I be able to easily rent my timeshares out, if necessary. But how do you determine if a timeshare is in demand as a rental?

Easy. Create an ad in airbnb for an imaginary timeshare and see what happens upon charging a minimal amount over maintenance fees. Turn "instant book" off so no one can actually book without making inquiry first. I hate wasting others' time, having to tell them "oops it's not available for that time after all", "it just rented", or whatever...but I consider that necessary due diligence research.

It turned out, however, that I didn't waste anyone's time as I didn't get a single inquiry. Not for the 1 BR ad I created. Not for the 2 BR. I don't really understand it as I get ample responses for the four timeshares I own in three different areas (Key West, Fort Myers Beach, and Orange Beach, Alabama). So why not Magic Tree?

My guess is that there are too many four bedroom houses in the Orlando area renting for a ballpark $100 per night. Still, this is a resort with a nice communal swimming pool, hot tub, movie theater, etc. One would think that people might prefer a resort even if it's not a Marriott. And yet, zero inquiries.

Airbnb allows you to see how many page views and I did see a few of them. But only a very few. So I'm not sure why, it looks OK to me, but people must not be seeing any compelling reason to want to go there.

Just sayin'.

 

[jp10558]

Hi austdav.

You may be the one previously, some months ago, recommending the purchase of Magic Tree. If it happened to have been you, you made it sound great then, just as you've done above. But if there's one thing I've learned about timeshares, it's real easy to buy, oftentimes horribly difficult to sell (actually that can be said about virtually anything). But if the upfront cost is minimal, then the potential loss is minimal as well, as long as you can at least likely give it away. So Magic Tree seems to be, as you've pointed out, a relatively riskless purchase.

Still, I've had so many things that have come up over the years that caused me to cancel plans to travel that it's become essential that I be able to easily rent my timeshares out, if necessary. But how do you determine if a timeshare is in demand as a rental?

Easy. Create an ad in airbnb for an imaginary timeshare and see what happens upon charging a minimal amount over maintenance fees. Turn "instant book" off so no one can actually book without making inquiry first. I hate wasting others' time, having to tell them "oops it's not available for that time after all", "it just rented", or whatever...but I consider that necessary due diligence research.

It turned out, however, that I didn't waste anyone's time as I didn't get a single inquiry. Not for the 1 BR ad I created. Not for the 2 BR. I don't really understand it as I get ample responses for the four timeshares I own in three different areas (Key West, Fort Myers Beach, and Orange Beach, Alabama). So why not Magic Tree?

My guess is that there are too many four bedroom houses in the Orlando area renting for a ballpark $100 per night. Still, this is a resort with a nice communal swimming pool, hot tub, movie theater, etc. One would think that people might prefer a resort even if it's not a Marriott. And yet, zero inquiries.

Airbnb allows you to see how many page views and I did see a few of them. But only a very few. So I'm not sure why, it looks OK to me, but people must not be seeing any compelling reason to want to go there.

Just sayin'.

I don't own Magic Tree, but I've seen austdav mention it a lot before. From what I can tell (having never stayed), the experience may well be perfectly average - but that's the problem. There's lots of better options in Orlando. I question how well Magic Tree trades given how often I've seen it in RCI Last Calls. I imagine it might be trading similar to my Fox Run (though at $300 less MFs) which means it can pull decent places in the off season, but probably nothing in prime seasons except maybe other very overbuilt areas like Branson or Las Vegas. Where I think it might well shine is doing what austdav says, staying Christmas and New Years in Orlando for $1300 in a 2BR. I don't really recall seeing those "event weeks" that available otherwise, though perhaps I should look. It does seem like you can "lock in" a pretty low weekly rate there - but primarily to stay there. I may have to rent there sometime just to check it out - maybe this January after my traded for Marriott Grande Vista and my Wyndham Palm Aire weeks.