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When my husband and I got married 24 years ago, we bought a used Toyota truck for him, and paid sticker. We were young, broke and naive. The salesguy later told my husband that we were a “home-run”. We paid sticker, used their financing and bought some extra service. The truth was, we were afraid to negotiate. Looking back, we probably overspent by $1K total.

We started using used car lots and timeshare promotions to practice negotiations. We’d overanalyze their numbers, and walk away with our free TV, dinner at a restaurant, movie passes etc…It got easier and easier. The maintenance fees always cracked me up, because the salesperson would brush those aside quickly and focus on the fact that we were throwing away our money paying for a hotel room. I loved it when they’d pass us on to their premier arm-twister.

Time shares are for a locked in vacation price.  If you’re looking at it for an investment, you will be out-of-luck and the vacation value (good feelings) will be deminished.

I’ve done better just paying for a discounted hotel room or rooms with the kids and in-laws.  Being locked into a location and time are not very good for my wife and me. 

I like real ownership and not a pseudo-ownship or perpetual pre-renting of timeshares.  The reoccuring fees were almost the cost of renting some hotel rooms or condos.  the real benefit is being forced to set aside time to take the vacation.

I remember one of the few real vacations my wife and I took, was 4 nights in Cancun at one of the nicer resorts. As soon as we got there, the time share people were bugging us to sit through their presentation. They left notes in our room, voice mails, and tried to accost us when we walked by their table. But we refused to waste our precious vacation time talking to those scumbags. By the 3rd day, they left us alone. This was back in ‘99, when I was only 27. They probably saw us as a prime target, but even back then we knew better. We met another couple by the pool, who were bragging about their newly purchased time share. We secretly felt sorry for them. Having spend the last decade in purchasing, I’ve become even more bitter and jaded. It’s a jungle out there.

I have always wished that I could have been the person who conceived the time share concept. I remember when this was a new wrinkle, back in the seventies, and an older relative and older friend bought. I remember calculating at the time that the value of the little vacation cottages in question was about one quarter the combined prices of all the shares.

I’m surprised time shares have lasted this long, because the word’s been out for a long time that you almost never recover your purchase price. Additionally, you must pay the maintenance and the cost of renovating the place every three years to keep it stylish and in good condition.

Today’s listing courtesy of the McMonigle Group.
What happened to the luxury, one of a kind, trophy property only listings?
This is bad for the brand.
Lower tier West Irvine associated with Pelican Hill, Spyglass, Crystal Cove and Emerald Bay.

I subscribe to an investment newsletter, “dividend.com” run by former Wall Street trader Paul Rubillo.

Today’s e-letter in part focused on saving property taxes which I would like to share with IR and his wonderful staff, George, Shevy and with the IHB readers.

Of course all credit to http://www.dividend.com
Please stop by and have a look at this service

[Begin Quote]
“Speaking of real estate, I wanted to pass along a few great sites I found regarding getting your property taxes possibly lowered. The April edition of Kiplinger magazine highlighted three websites you can check out if you believe you are paying too much in property taxes. They are:

ValueAppeal.com. For $99, you’ll find out whether you’re paying too much and how much you could save by appealing. You get a property valuation based on the same data your county uses for its assessments, a list of ten comparable properties, a customized appeal report to mail to your appeals board and access to a tool that analyzes the property assessor’s comparable properties to demonstrate that they unfairly support a higher value for your home.

EasyTaxFix.com. For $79.95, you get three comparable properties (with the option to select other ones if you think they better reflect your property’s value), a completed appeal form, valuation document and instructions on how to proceed.

LowerMyAssessment.com. You can see your property’s assessed value and market value for free. For $39.95, the basic package provides comparable sales data. For $79.95, the deluxe package includes completed appeals forms in addition to sales data (it’s only available in 11 states). For $299.95, the premier package includes an appraisal by a licensed appraiser, along with appeals forms and comparable properties.

Just be aware that not all of the rural areas may be covered and in some cases, certain states may not be covered - depending on which service you consider researching. Some of these sites also offer a money back guarantee if your appeal is rejected.” [End Quote]

~Misstrial

The Timeshare Monster almost got us years ago at our honeymoon in Maui.

Recently, we went to one but we didn’t think about it as a real estate investment. I actually think that’s the new sales approach, they compared it to the costs of what we spend on vacations. It sort of made sense from a consumptive perspective (“for the children”) but in the end, we didn’t do it. Surprisingly, it was cheaper than I thought, something like $8000 total for X units of time that could be used at many other resorts and hotels. They even had “rollover units”... hehe.

Hmm… maybe I should start an Irvine Home Timeshare for the FCBs. You only have to buy a week in Irvine to get you the whole school district for the year.

I have not been hard sell by many Timeshares saleman. They don’t want to waste time one me. One was a very soft sell and said don’t think of it as a financial investment because it isn’t.  He got my wife and I to sign up, but I changed my mind.  He refunded my money with any hassle.  I didn’t want to take the freebie, but the saleman insisted and then offer to give my family free ski lessions by himself, a ski instructor.  We didn’t take the free ski lessons.  The saleman was an ex-Intel jr. VP, who decided that after getting cancer, life in the electronic buz. was too hard on himself and family.  Timeshare sales took less time and he had more time with family.

IR pointed out the profits from developing timeshares.  There also plenty of money in managing timeshares.  The reoccuring fees are about the cost of a high end hotel.  The hotels have extra expenses to pay for the property/mortgage and the investors/shareholders.  These expenses are absent in the timeshare for the “owners” have already paid and not expecting a ROI from the timeshare mgt, but from a “new investor.”

I love times shares.  Absoulutly love them.  Save money on coffee and breakfast. We have two small kids and a one bed with living room and kitchen is perfect for us so far.  The Westin in Maui is our favorite.  My son loves the pirate ship.

However I would never, ever never ever ever ever buy one.  Redweek is awesome.  You can get time shares for less than the matinence fee. And another site lets you do getaways that are less than $400.  I stayed in az in 1200 sq. feet for less than $400.  Now i have family there so staying a week is no biggie.

With the massive depreciation, are timeshares on the secondary market a bad value?  Obviously buying them directly from the developer is stoo-hoo-pid. 

But as with any other investment, is it possible that timeshares are being undervalued? Are they worth it if you buy them for pennies on the dollar?

Just curious.  I haven’t crunched the numbers but wondered if anyone else already had. 

I wouldn’t mind buying vacations cheaply.