Never buy a timeshare from Wyndham

[Bill4728 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Bill4728]

If FF wanted to help their owners, they would offer to buy all resales at 1/4 the current FF selling price.

FF would get all these units back for them to resell at a cost to them which is likely less than the cost to build a new resort.

And the owner would get $0.25 cents on their TS purchase instead of the <$0.10 cents they get now.

Win - Win

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

Isn't this similar to the ROFR at some of the other resorts that a few posters here or OY are so against? What is the difference?

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

ROFR is bad business for the owners - Buy back could be good

Isn't this similar to the ROFR at some of the other resorts that a few posters here or OY are so against? What is the difference?

No. ROFR is a ruse to make owners think they are protected but they are actually even more exposed. A standing offer to buy back points/weeks at a set price is a true floor value and would help stabilize and perhaps even raise resale prices. Almost 180 degrees from the effect of ROFR.

EDITED TO ADD: Despite my general misgivings about ROFR I will say that it's very existence does help create a developer endorsed resale market. That is 100&#37; better for owners than the devaluation tactics employed by Wyndham and others to discourage resales.

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

If a Wyndham buy back is guaranteed, I see the difference.

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

Reesie,

The 50% discount you accuse resale buyers "fleecing" from developer buyers is in fact the developer's cost to market and sell their weeks/units/points. The true value of a developer timeshare is 1/2 of what anyone pays.

This fact is not part of the excellent feel good presentation that developers show to prospective buyers. Also, there is no information about the deep discount that the retail buyer incurs as soon as the recission period is over. Would anyone buy if they knew these facts?

I applaud anyone who becomes educated before attending a developer presentation. Knowledge is power. For many, perhaps most, of the folks who contribute to this BBS and others, first purchased a developer unit/week/points and then learned about the resale world. We all have learned hard financial lessons in life. Why should we not learn from these lessons and find a cheaper way to timeshare?

A true fair market sale of anything, including timeshares, is what a willing buyer is willing to pay to a willing seller. It's that simple. When a retail buyer wants to sell their timeshare, he/she will only get fair market value. Nothing more, nothing less. What price the buyer originally paid for the timeshare is of no consequence.

This is exactly where the problem lies. Developers market their products in a very wasteful and outdated way and they are mainly after the vacationing people who never have heard of timeshares before. They sell them on emotion because the resort looks so nice but with a lot of lies or half truths in their presentation. This is why this industry has such a bad name.

There has to be a better way to sell timeshare resorts today. Why can't they hook up with travel agents or travel web sites and pay them a small referral fee if people buy a cheap promo package? All they need to do is refer them to the developer's web site with a their member number. The developers could also offer cheap travel packages through local radio and TV advertising and have people go to the "virtual tour of the resort" web site so they can decide if they want to go there or not and buy, once they are there, at cheaper prices than what developers charge today. They would need a much smaller sales staff in this case and no free presents to lure them off the street.

Builders are doing this already with vacation condos outside the country and it seems to work but they also have local brokers, in the USA, referring "Exploration tours" to their clients and they earn a commission, if they buy or a small referral fee for touring because they bought a package.

Here are a few of these web sites of brand new Senior condo projects that they are starting to build. One is "Luma" and the other one is "Sensara". They are the first two Senior projects in Mexico and both are in Nuevo Vallarta at Paradise Village. This is a very large master-planned community and they have timeshares too on a great beach and next to a very modern, eco-friendly yacht harbor.

There are many vacation condo projects offered this way already even in Panama. Our boat neighbor bought here and it is beautiful. He lives on the boat when he comes to the USA and he keeps telling us how happy he is that he moved to Panama almost two years ago.

Selling timeshares like they do today, cannot not continue much longer because people are getting internet savvy and that is good. They will find re-sale prices before or right after they have bought. The only other way developers can fight it is by offering perks that do not transfer with title. I see no other way.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Ooohh, developer accountablity!! Like when a developer subsidizes maintenance fees while a resort is in active sales to keep the annual costs artificially low??

Folks at some prominent name-branded resorts have been handed some nasty surprises when that nice, accountable, reliable developer ended that subsidy. Such as folks at the Marriott Kaua'i Beach Club getting a $500.year increase in annual fees for a 1-bedroom unit.

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

Such as folks at the Marriott Kaua'i Beach Club getting a $500.year increase in annual fees for a 1-bedroom unit.

YIKES!! I would be really pissed off if I were facing such an unexpected nasty surprise.

[Reesie Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Reesie]

Two Basic Problems - English and Math

There are two problems here -- with English and Math.

1) Mr. Moderator, "commensurate" means "comparable to." I think you were trying to say your forum is here to console or comiserate with retail owners? (Hmmm, were you the one who said my site was full of grammar & spelling errors? I know, that was supposed to be a quick dismissal. Careful with those big words, there.)

2) The math on this site, and in resale, doesn't compute:
You all here say you believe the following:
50% - Developer's Marketing
+50% - "Real" value
=100%

Where is the money to build new resorts?

With this 50% "developer marketing" bit, you all are trying to convince your conscience that:

-you're paying for the "real" value of the timeshare to retail owners, you're just not paying "developer marketing"

-you're not fleecing owners the 50% out of which new resorts are being built

-you're smarter than the retail owners who got "suckered"

In reality, as I already stated, we "suckers" are paying for all of the new resorts being built for all, yes, even the resale bottom-feeders, to enjoy.

And I restate, if I have my way, developers will market in a more respectful & sophisticated manner, and resales will disappear -- op, uh, and so will resale bottom-feeders.

This is your sandbox, so it's fine with me if you want to disillusion yourself that I am "advertising" because my site, which sells nothing, advices against high pressure sales & resales, while your "forum" site sells resales for how much commission, with a forum facade.

Get real.


Reesie
First Class Dirt Cheap Vacation

[timeos2 Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close timeos2]

Full price guarantees nothing

Here is a dissatisfied owner who bought full price retail. Sounds like it didn't change the end result.

Sorry about the misspelling (darn spell checkers!) and the new resorts can (should) be built from the 50% true value as that represents the cost to build and a profit. The other 50% is waste and isn't needed to create the property if it was marketed correctly. Resales thankfully cut the chafe and leave the wheat for the informed buyer.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

There are two problems here -- with English and Math.

The math on this site, and in resale, doesn't compute:
You all here say you believe the following:
50&#37; - Developer's Marketing
+50% - "Real" value
=100%

Where is the money to build new resorts?

50% is a rough number that has been groundtruthed in several fashions. First is that some individuals associated with timeshare developers have participated on these boards in the past. They have confirmed that about 50% of the of developer sales price goes to marketing expense. The actual number can vary from project to project, but as a rough rule of thumb 50% seems to be a generally good number.

Second is from data extracted from audited annual SEC filings of some publicly-traded companies that are involved in timeshare projects. A few of the financially inclined members here have found information in those reports breaking out sales and construction costs specifically for timeshare projects. Again, the selling costs have been roughly equal to construction costs.

Third is by applying basic knowledge of the real estate market. I'll take Hawai'i, as that is a place I am a bit familiar with. Oceanfront condos that are being built and sold as timeshares are comparable to units that are selling as whole ownership for about $1 - $1.5 million. That is the value of the property as real estate. Since there is an active development pipeline at those prices, that is a price point at which a developer can build a condo project, sell the units, and generate a satisfactory return on investment.

If the developer turns that condo into timeshare, the developer will sell the equivalent of 51 weeks from that unit for an average selling price of about $40,000 - $50,000, netting gross revenues of $2 million to $2.5 million. Again, the marketing cost is about one-half of the sales revenue.

***

As noted above, the developer in my example only needs about $1 million to $1.5 million of sales revenues to generate the money to maintain a development pipeline.

Next note that developers are actively building both whole ownership and timeshare projects - that indicates that the ultimate rates of return for both types of projects are equal - if rates of return on timeshares were higher that whole ownership projects, whole ownership developers would stop building whole ownership and do timeshares instead. Conversely, if timeshare developers were generating lower rates of return than their whole ownership brethren, the timeshare developers would switch to whole ownership projects.

The observation that both types of projects are being built in stable proportions indicates that rates of return are comparable. Since the developer costs of construction are the same for both types of projects is the same and the rate of return on invested capital is equal, it follows that the added revenue stream associated with selling a unit as timeshare is consumed in the process of selling the units as timeshare versus selling the units as whole ownership.

I used Hawai'i, but the process can be repeated in almost any locale with similar results. Because sales cost don't increase linearly with construction cost, the 50% number might go down some at the "high end" of the market and might be higher at the "low end". It might also be a bit less where the developer has installed itself as the resort manager with a juicy management fee and effective barriers against being terminated by the resort board. But as a rough rule of thumb, 50% seems to be a generally applicable number.

***

The 50% isn't a number that has been plucked out of the air. It's got some solid basis in reality. If you have substantive information indicating otherwise, we'd like to see it. Most of us are more than willing to change our minds if presented with solid information.

But please understand if we don't agree with you just because you say we ought to.

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

In reality, as I already stated, we "suckers" are paying for all of the new resorts being built for all, yes, even the resale bottom-feeders, to enjoy.

And I restate, if I have my way, developers will market in a more respectful & sophisticated manner, and resales will disappear -- op, uh, and so will resale bottom-feeders.

This is your sandbox, so it's fine with me if you want to disillusion yourself that I am "advertising" because my site, which sells nothing, advices against high pressure sales & resales, while your "forum" site sells resales for how much commission, with a forum facade.

Get real.


Reesie
First Class Dirt Cheap Vacation

Sorry, Reesie, you are the disillusioned one if you are not informing your website readers about resales and where to go find out about them. Only then could your readers be truly educated.

With regard to the math that you think is a justification for paying 50% or less to owners of retail TS weeks/units/points, the actual cost to build a new TS resort is 20 to 30% of the retail price that "suckers" (Your Word) are paying. If you don't believe this, then go check out a web cast presentation given to securities analysts last December by Wyndham where it went through the process of how a TS resort is located, developed, constructed and sold. Wyndham was quite open about the costs and percentages of the retail price.

I would have nothing to apologize about if I bought a TS via resale to you or to the person selling it to me.

[Chap7 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close Chap7]

[QUOTE=Reesie;158583]There are two problems here -- with English and Math.

1) Mr. Moderator, "commensurate" means "comparable to." I think you were trying to say your forum is here to console or comiserate with retail owners? (Hmmm, were you the one who said my site was full of grammar & spelling errors? I know, that was supposed to be a quick dismissal. Careful with those big words, there.)

You misspelled "commiserate"

-you're smarter than the retail owners who got "suckered"

We're better informed.

In reality, as I already stated, we "suckers" are paying for all of the new resorts being built for all, yes, even the resale bottom-feeders, to enjoy.

And enjoy them we will...at a fraction of your price.

This is your sandbox, so it's fine with me if you want to disillusion yourself that I am "advertising" because my site, which sells nothing, advices against high pressure sales & resales, while your "forum" site sells resales for how much commission, with a forum facade.

You misspelled "advises".

There is no commission to sell a timeshare on our site.

[Reesie Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Reesie]

Thank you T.R. Oglodyte

T.R. Oglodyte, finally making some sense -- why didn't you say so in the first place.

I, too, am open to changing my mind when presented with solid information.

So -- the conclusion here is that it would even be in the developers' best interest to market in another fashion, perhaps the way I am proposing -- getting all the details on the net, then just doing transactions.

Unfortunately, while you made a solid case that new resorts are built from a profit margin in the 50% you are paying, I'm still not comfortable buying resale for the reasons I've already mentioned.

1) I'm not willing to look all over for the goodies I get from the developer. My time is too valuable, so I am willing to pay for those goodies. They are added value to me and additional service that I value highly. For instance, Ice Gallery will beat anything I did happen to find, and they handle everything for me. I'm willing to pay for that. TravelShare will allow me to break up my exchange trips, so I'm not stuck in one resort for a whole week. They handle everything for me. That is huge for me and I'm willing to pay for that.

2) Every resale ad I've read so far about the timeshares I own contains lies that are easily proven as lies! I've looked on ebay, independent broker sites and private sellers. Every one of them is misrepresenting what you will get. I'd rather go through due diligence directly with the developer, instead of adding an additional layer of deceit to wade through. I want a contract directly with the developer -- I want direct accountability.

Now, if we can only convince developers to do web sales including all of the goodies for 50% less than retail, that would be the ultimate. I would be happy, I assume all of you would be happy, and there would be no "retail" owners getting fleeced. No harm in asking!

T.R. Oglodyte, I really appreciate your addressing my challenge with solid information rather than just dismissing me as a "sucker" who paid full price. This forum name really does need to be changed to resale, or the posters other than yourself need to learn from you how to welcome new guests.

Oh, and too bad there isn't spell check on this forum. Thank goodness there is on my site, and thank goodness, I can at least use words with relevant meaning if I don't catch every misspelling myself. To say someone's site is full of grammar and spelling errors -- what a juvenile way to try to dismiss someone when they don't agree with you. I guess it was actually TimeshareVon -- what are you 5?

Overall, we all want the same thing. You all are just willing to do without some things that I'm not and willing to take risks that I'm not.

Reesie

First Class Dirt Cheap Vacation dot com

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

1) I'm not willing to look all over for the goodies I get from the developer. My time is too valuable, so I am willing to pay for those goodies. They are added value to me and additional service that I value highly. For instance, Ice Gallery will beat anything I did happen to find, and they handle everything for me. I'm willing to pay for that. TravelShare will allow me to break up my exchange trips, so I'm not stuck in one resort for a whole week. They handle everything for me. That is huge for me and I'm willing to pay for that.

I think you have a misperception about the attitude towards dveloper vs. resale on this site. There are many people here who have purchased from a developer; I even made a developer purchase last year - we wanted access to Club Sunterra with an existing week that we owned, so we made a minimum additional purchase to do that.

It is accurate to say that most of us generally do not believe that the added developer perks are worth anywhere near the added cost of obtaining them. That has been the case for us with every sales presentation we have been to. The Sunterra one worked for us because of our specific circumstances - owning one week at a Sunterra resort that generated a large number of SunOptions if converted to the Club. If we hadn't already owned that week in no way would it have made sense for us to by a "complete" ownership from Sunterra.l

****

Many of the people here have bought full packages from developers, before learning of the resale market. If there is a disdain for developer pricing, perhaps that comes from the direct experiences of people who have found that those added perks weren't worth the added price.

IOW - don't assume that the general opinions here are based on unfounded supposition (as you did with the statement about the magnitude of sales and marketing programs). The general skepticism about the value of developer perks comes from direct experience.

It's perfectly fine that in your personal valuation, you find those perks to be a good value. I don't think any of us have any quibble at all with that. I think we do take umbrage at your insinuation that we don't know or aren't accounting for the value of those added developer perks.

[reloader Member Find all posts View Profile Close reloader]

WOW interesting thread