How did you purchase your first timeshare?

[chriskre Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close chriskre]

Just curious.
How did most of you purchase your first timeshare?


I will go first.

I purchased my first timeshare direct from a developer here in town at Bethel Beach Club which became Bluegreen Solara Surfside.
I rescinded that first purchase after reading thru the condo documents and then went on to just rent timeshares as I needed them.

Then one day I was on ebay and found that you could buy some nice stuff resale so I bid on and won two beach units in Ft. Lauderdale & Hollywood.

I then added a developer purchase from Disney Vacation Club which I did not rescind.

So I have a mix of direct and devloper plus a few ebay acquisitions.

How about you guys?

[Carolinian Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Carolinian]

I had been to a number of developer sales presentations and always passed on buying. The idea intrigued me, however, and when I got an invitation to tour at Outer Banks Beach Club, I thought that might be one worth actually thinking about buying. However when I got there, for some reason I do not recall, they did not want to tour me (I was single at the time, and that might have been it) or give me the gift. While driving down the Beach Road in Nags Head afterward, I noticed a sign for resales at Outer Banks Resort Rentals, so I went there to see what they had. The cheapest summer week on their list was a late August week at another OBX resort at $4,000. I made an offer of $2,000 and it was accepted by the individual who had it listed. I wanted to do some exchanging and on studying the RCI directory, I found many of the European weeks I wanted to trade into were white or blue weeks, I decided to buy one each of those to trade for those times in Europe. I looked at HOA resales on the Outer Banks Resort Rentals list, and bought a white week and a blue week. Since then, I sold all three of those weeks, as I refined what I owned.

[Hobbitess Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Hobbitess]

Maybe I answered wrong, now I think on it.

Hubby's boss gifted us with an RCI week (he'd used up his vacation time on family medical crises ) at a Bluegreen resort (CMV). We'd never had any interest in timeshares because we didn't want to go the same place every year and trading sounded like a hassle, but we both loved the idea of the points system as soon as the salesguy explained it. No way were we going to commit to something long term until we'd done our homework, but we did get a Sampler (9000 points to use within one year), and before we'd used that up we bought some points resale.

I clicked "resale first," since a Sampler isn't a true TS and if we couldn't have gotten a Sampler we would have gone with resale first.

[Nancy Platinum Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close Nancy]

I bought mine through a "Firesale" at timeshare trying to unload Blue weeks. I bought 2 for less than $500 each. Although I wish I had better weeks, these (along with a S. Africa week) have served me well.

[Glitter Brunello Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Glitter Brunello]

I rented a unit at Morritt's on ebay. Couldn't believe how fabulous the space was! Started doing research and bought a Marriott resale. Not a perfect purchase, bought Orlando not prime season, but when I realized it I was able to sell it for enough cash to buy a Hilton Head Marriott in prime season, which worked out really great for us for many years. Then I learned about spending less for more "utility" weeks, bought a couple more we would actually use but still have good trade value with independents and/or big guys, got sucked into RCI, etc etc etc...

[taffy19 Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close taffy19]

We bought all our timeshares from developers but never felt stuck with it as we use all of them every year and will keep them as long as we can return.

We could have bought some on resale already when we bought but didn't know about it and would have saved a lot of money. There is no excuse for this today with the Internet but people still make the same mistake as they are busy sightseeing or enjoying the resort and developers are counting on this or they wouldn't sell.

You need one more choice in your poll even if it is "none of the above".

[LynnW Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close LynnW]

Bought our first timeshare before we knew anything about resales but have never been sorry. It was 3 weeks at Meadow Lake Golf & Ski Resort in Montana since converted to RCI points. It is a well run resort and we still love to go for at least a week every year. Also we've had some great exchanges.

Lynn

[Ryne08 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Ryne08]

We purchase our first timeshare thru a developer in 1986. Never again!!!!!!!!

[Presley Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Presley]

First purchase was DVC direct. I have since sold that and bought a lot of resales.

[Luanne Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Luanne]

Bought the first one back in 1974, probably even before there were resales. I'd never even heard of timeshares back then. We went to the resort (San Diego Country Estates) with my parents to check it out. My dad had been playing golf with one of the salesmen there. It was very low key, he told my dad he might want to check it out. The resort was about an hour away from where we were living at the time. We went down, checked it out, and bought. My parents bought a 2-bedroom unit and my ex husband and I bought another 2-bedroom unti. They were sold as floating time in two week intervals. The draw for us was that the time could be broken down by night, and golf privileges were included free. We used the resort a lot as we could go for just the weekend. Within a year we bought another unit, a 1-bedroom to use for trades. We bought this together with my parents so that each couple got use of one week per year.

[PigsDad Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close PigsDad]

Bought resale through broker Seth Nock, but only after rescinding a developer purchase. Since then we purchased a second week via a RE resale agent at a resort.

Kurt

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

We bought both of our timeshares directly from the developer several years ago. I am not the least bit sorry that we did. In each case we wanted the particular TS and there were no resales due to both resorts not being open yet. Both of our timeshares worked out very well and we have certainly gotten our money's worth from them with great stays, bonus time, and many wonderful exchanges with SFX. We sold our first one a few years ago as we were getting too many banked weeks ( 17 ). I sold the TS plus several of my banked weeks separately. Both of the presentations that we attended where we bought were very good. There was no pressure to buy and they were pretty honest. In fact, after we agreed to buy the first one, the sales manager asked us if we were absolutely sure that we wanted to buy.

I would never buy a TS today at any price as there are so many alternatives available without being locked in to paying M/F every year.

[catwgirl Contributor - Bronze Find all posts View Profile Close catwgirl]

Bought my first one the "wrong way" of course. I was clueless, and bought from the developer after a nice weekend stay at the resort. I even financed it. Crazy! At least it was only about $7000 way back then (1992). I've learned a lot since then. But I still enjoy the occasional weekend on bonus time at that resort.

[Pstreet1 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Pstreet1]

We had never heard of timeshares and wound up staying at Villas de Santa Fe because it was listed in the AAA guide as a hotel. Of course, we discovered the timeshare salesbooth in the lobby, and we sat through the presentation. We didn't buy, but we were intrigued. I got on line and discovered the resale world. For a while, I was buying regularly. Finally got some sense and started unloading them. Now, I have one I'd like to get rid of because we are definitely traveling differently now.

[jackio Gold Contributor Find all posts View Profile Close jackio]

We went on 2 tours in 1996 - Westgate and Vistana - with intentions of purchasing one of them. The developers did not understand the concept of "I'm checking out a couple and I'll get back to you on which one I want". While there, I saw a business card or flyer for a resale company. I called them and bought a Vistana week 27 from them for $5200. It never occurred to me to negotiate the price, which I know now was stupid. We used and traded for a few years, then rented it to my brother for a few years. He loved it so much he bought it from me for $4,000. So I really got my money's worth.
I bought the great South Africa special from Herb, which included 10 years of RCI for $500. I was really happy with that one, then gave it away.
A fellow TS4M'er sold me my Hawaii week, and another two gave me Foxrun weeks.
I bought Sand Pebbles from their in-house resale broker and am really happy with that.
My two Summer Bay (now HIVC) Las Vegas weeks were bought off Ebay.
I have given a couple of weeks away, and now have 4 weeks. I would like to get that down to 2 or 3.