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Jya-Ning -
Looks like we are going to be busy doin' a whole lot of educatin' around here.
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Since I can call myself "fresh meat" here, may I make a comment/suggestion?
As a newbie to TS, the first thing I looked for (unsuccessfully) was an "education" section. Not just the acronyms used, but actual hands-on info to help get the fresh meat "up to speed".
All we can do is jump in the deep end and ask those silly questions that you guys have probably seen a thousand times over ("What are points?" "What's RCI and II?" "How do you trade?" "How much?" etc etc)
I know it would take a ton of time to type out and post an education centre for the newbies, but it's just my 1.5cents worth....
Cheers to all,
Mike n PamComment
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Originally posted by wallace2
Welcome to the Timeshare world. Where most of the things you probably will not hear in a daily conversation. And on any given day, we are all fresh meat in one aspect or the other.
Are you trying to understand what Timeshare is? Or are you trying to figure out what your perfer traveling style is?
If you try to understand what timeshare is, there are a lot of attemps. ADRA in my link has a short booklet in their weebsite talk about what timeshare is. You can also try to go Timeshare Users Group - Timeshare Owners Helping Each other - Unbiased Timeshare Information for All Owners - Buy Sell & Rent your Time shares! and look at the advise session. Even SEC has one. Mike has post a link in your thread when he replied to you.
This is my simplest version, Timeshare is a group of people that like to own something that is for the purpose of vacation, but not full ownership. The developer builds on this concept that there are people don't want to own the whole ownership just for vacation purpose. And in order to sell, they come up a lot of program.
My other simple version suggestion is this, find out how much you think is reasonable to spend on the travel lodging year in year out, how many days you like to travel year in year out, what is your travel style? What kind of quality you expect in your lodging stay? Do you forsee you just drive to a place, or fly to a foreign country. It is very easy to fancy take a private jet to your own island, take a world chef and best enterainers or some personer trainer with you, stay for 7 days and come back, in reality, you may find you can be fine after look at all these cost to just call a friend, stay in their house, take a cooking lesson and attend a couple message class. A lot of these can be a moving target depends on your income situation, but it is upto you to make the honest assumption. Only when you know wht you are and what you want, you can come out question that make people educate you.
There is no sure answer if a TS is right or wrong for you. But TS will guarantee you have to spend a certain amount of money every year in advance. And since it is share, so you will face a lot of restrictions, but you have took the tour, and you can adjust to this concept, thus you can commit to make it work.
The most important feature you should know about timehshare is it is buyer's market, and most of the time, it is very slow market. because of that, it takes a lot of efforts to sell it, developer usually spend 25% to build, but 50% in advertisemet, and 25% in over overhead, and some unknow profit on top of it, so the resell price is very depressing if you bought from developer.
If today, there is guarantee you will not loss money and very easy to sell, then you will not try to ask question, but just buy one, play with it, and if it works, great, if not, you just sell it.
So, the 1st thing I believe you should try to define is how much money you will spend for vacation lodging. That is total cost. And unless you try to do business of buying and selling, or become landlord, minus MF that is the most you will save. If you don't see eough margin there, stop, it is much easy to rent and more flexible, and it can adjust to all possible situiation you may face in your life time, don't buy a TS.
Then you need to determine your exit method. If you just try to use it for 3 years? 5 years? 10 years? left for your estate to worry about it?. Observe how each exit.
Once you figure these two out, the question how much is easy. 3 or 5 years, you can assume you put it on eBay starting with $1, so you only buy those that have few bids. You can assume the worst is you will pay 1 extra year MF and closing when you sell, so you know how much you want to pay in front. Or realistically, you assume you get only bid of 1/2 the avg bid (or the worse bid if you like). By doing that, You just try to avoid get hit by SA. But there are ways to reduce that risk. General speaking, a point base mini system is much better in this case, since if it is half decent, point are close to be point, so the price per point usually is very stable and various by the MF. But with the owner base, it is much easy to get rid of. There are some small point based system you may want to avoid it, but you can easily figure them out by watching eBay for a while.
10 years or longe, you can assume you can use 3 or 4 years in selling, so you may not loss too much. you may use 1/2 loss. Then you can do whatever you like to calculate the how much part. You will ad some reasonable SA assuming by compare the resort in the similar area to determine if the MF has enough reserve funds build into it, if so, assume SA is equal to 1 year worth MF, if not assume SA is equal to 3 year MF. Then you look at the possible nature disaster, and determine the possible maganiture and frequency, each time a nature disaster happy, you can assume it add 1 year of Mf.
If you let your estate to worry, make sure you see the way you manage it to your estate through good time and bad time.
The next question is what to buy. If you can take off any time and to any place let us say stay in the beach when the temp is below zero, or come to Las Vagas when the temp is 100, then you don't need to worry about trading power, you should buy the lowest MF.
If you are only interest in the overbuild area, like Orlando, Banson, Vegas, And any places you never heard of but has more than 3 resorts which is not a city (by simply look at RCI and II directory, you don't need to be a member), and you have no preference resort, and you are somehow relatively flexible, then buy the lowest MF. You just need to figure out if you want buy a resort affliate use II or using RCI. RCI has much more inventory then II, II has more hotel based resort chain then RCI. Or you can just use other exchage company, then you just need to make sure you buy things they accept.
Each place will have its own prime time, like beach in North East is prime at summer time, and at Feb if it is FL beach. So if your vacation time is very fixed, or if everytime you take vacation, the place you go always seems like all the world's people is coming to the same place with you, then you need to buy at the place you want to stay, or buy a mini system that cover the places you want to stay but give you the cheapest cost if you buy mini.
If your family can grow and shrink when you own the TS, and / or if your vacation time may shrink and growth (like you see the possibility of frequently change job) Then a point base system is better for you, since it is easy to manage.
If your family and life is stable, and you know exactly where you want go and when you want go, buy there with a fixed week/unit, nothing beat it, especially if the unit is with great view.
If you see a possibilty to rent then you should consider mini-point system unless you know the rental market well.
If you see a possiblity you always will rent, a shoulder season with low MF compare to the rent price is easier than a hot season. It cost less, you will not face people that buy for use thus has not need to consider rate of return, it has great chance to rent out.
If for some reason you see you are in the blinking of too many Timeshare, then RCI point affliate low MF cost is worth to mention. Since it allow you to use point to a lot of other non lodging usage.
Pesonally, I will try to avoid exchange game by buying a point based system that has enough resorts around the places I lived. By doing that, if I have to use exchange company, I will have better home resort owner advantage, and have a lot of flexibility. ANd I can also try to rent out if I found out I needto do a extreme difficuty exchange.
Jya-NingJya-NingComment
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Is this including both developer sales and the resale market too? I sure did my part to help the resale market in 06 & 07 especially.Originally posted by Jya-Ning View Post
"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed and those who are cold and are not clothed."
-- Dwight D. EisenhowerComment
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Wonder how many billion owners wish they had never heard of timeshares and feel they were scamed by salesmen that only understood the nembers of sales they could make regardless if the product fit the customers needs?Comment
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No, this is just for developer sale. They send out survive to the developers.Originally posted by Carol CIs this including both developer sales and the resale market too? I sure did my part to help the resale market in 06 & 07 especially.
I don't know the %. It has to be guess. Of the 5 bigger public trading companies, two of them includes their sale %.Originally posted by 1950bing View Post
Blue Green 2006's sale has 34% is to the existing owner, a 46% increase compare to 2006. This compare to 2005.
Sales of Fairfield vacation ownership interests relating to upgrades represented approximately 46%, 42% and 37% of Wyndham Vacation Resorts’ net sales of vacation ownership interests in 2006, 2005 and 2004, respectively.
Sales of WM vacation credits relating to upgrades represented approximately 35%, 31% and 33% of WorldMark by Wyndham’s net sales of vacation credits in 2006, 2005 and 2004, respectively. Sales of WM vacation credits relating to upgrades represented approximately 16%, 13% and 11% of Trendwest South Pacific’s net sales of vacation credits in 2006, 2005 and 2004, respectively.
So 1/3 of the sales are goes to existing owners. I doubt how regret they will on their first purchase (they could regret on their 2nd purchase)
These program has usually 10% growth rate (acutaly a little more)
Let us assume 1/5 of the this new sale purchased existing owner will regret (1/15 of 1/3 of 10% new sale purchase)
Let us assume that 80% of new sale purchased by new owner will regret. (80% of 2/3 of 10% new sale purchase)
Most program usually has 15% of unused rate. Let us assume 3/4 of these unused owner will regret. (3/4 of 15% of 90% remining owner)
Let us assume that 30% of the 85% owners that uses their vacation time does not really happy about what they get, and really regret. (30% of 85% of 90% remining owner)
The result is about 40% based on all these angry owners. But I doubt 25% owners are in 8+ angry.
Now regret and will take action to sell it is different thing. For example 100% of new sale purchasers will not be able to sell any way. 15% that can not use their points let us assume 3/4 all wants all and are selling (the other 1/4 will want out in extra one or 2 years if they still can not use their TS), and 10% of the 85% owner that uses their TS want out and are selling, It means around 15% owners are selling their TS now. (or are in the process find some scam and loss more money). I will guess the actual figure will be much less then this.
The hit rate of the 2 reported companies are actually increase a little. It is around 13%, that means every 7.6 visit will lead to one sell. It is up from 11% not long ago.
Jya-NingJya-NingComment
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I can tell you that I'm not one of those unhappy owners......
I am sitting out on my very large balcony, looking out onto the Mediterean, at 8:45 in the morning. It's another gorgeous day. The sun is shining, and the breeze is beautiful.
I am staying in one of the nicest timeshares I've ever stayed at. Marble floors through-out, large two bedroom, two bath. Cappacino maker, daily maid service, Restaurant/bar, on the beach, etc. All for $110.00 a day.
I only wish that I heard of timeshares sooner.
Originally posted by 1950bing View PostAngela
If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change.
BTW, I'm still keeping track of how many times you annoy me.
Comment
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Sale from the 5 public trading companies
Based on the reports whe Wyndham split from CD (2006), the top 5 public trading companies, I pull their 2006 TS sale amount
* means I don't have the sale's figure, since high end hotel does not talk TS in detail. I use the revenue insteadCode:Sales (in million) Company 2005 2006 % Wyndham (WYN) 1,396 1,743 24.86% Marriott (MAR) (*) 1,721 1,840 6.91% Startwood (HOT) (*) 889 1,005 13.05% Bluegreen (BXG) 358 399 11.45% Hilton (HLT) (*) 606 767 26.57%
Top 5 public trading companies have over 5.7 B in sale 2006 along, and total world has 13 B sales in the year 2006. All major player has doubledigit growth except Marriott.
Jya-NingJya-NingComment
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