How to Sell Membership

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

Hello everybody! I'm a new member here, and I'm looking for some advice.

My wife and I bought our Bluegreen membership about a year ago, and we have now decided we want to sell it. We just think we made a poor decision, and we want to get out.

I called Bluegreen to ask them what to do, and they referred me to a company called Pinnacle, who will attempt to sell it on their website for a $39/year fee.

Does anyone know if this is a good way to go? Is there a better route to take?

I will say that we did take a great trip to The Hammocks at Marathon for a week this past June. I highly recommend this one. It was beautiful, and the staff is great.

We just feel like we could have negotiated for more points when we bought this thing, and right now we are not getting what we are paying for. We have completely paid off the mortgage, which is nice, but the "maintenance fees" are starting to feel like a rip-off.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

Greg

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Greg,

Pinnacle Vacations charges a high commission to sell your timeshare. Unless you are willing to sell it for really cheap, that may not be the way to go.

You can net more if you try to sell it yourself. Or, you can find a broker who will sell it for far less.

The key is to be realistic about what you'll get. Price it between $.40-.50/point or you have no chance of selling it.

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

Gee, Boca, it sounded like they want more points when I read the post. Can't they add some points cheaply and get more bang for the buck? I think that would be a better solution for them.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Greg,

Cindy is right. If you think that your maintenance fees are too high for what you get, I can probably provide you some options for reducing your maintenance fees. If you are interested in that, let me know.

[SEI BG Member Find all posts View Profile Close SEI BG]

I was confused as to what they didn't like about their package. Was it too small, or did they simply not have enough time to vacation? Those are two totally different things. If I may ask, how many points do you have? What would you be asking for them?

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

Reducing Maintenance Fees

Hello Everyone,

When we signed up with Bluegreen, we had no idea we would be unable to secure the type of vacation we would like on our 7000 point EOY ownership. Although we are only capable of vacationing EOY, we pay maintenance fees each year in the amount of around $422.00. Can anyone provide me with info has to how we may reduce our maintenance fees or get additional points for cheap. With the points we currently have, we're unable to even secure a full week EOY. I wish our salesperson would have given us more insight as to how this vacation club worked, instead of just trying to secure a sale, any sale.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Hello Everyone,

When we signed up with Bluegreen, we had no idea we would be unable to secure the type of vacation we would like on our 7000 point EOY ownership. Although we are only capable of vacationing EOY, we pay maintenance fees each year in the amount of around $422.00. Can anyone provide me with info has to how we may reduce our maintenance fees or get additional points for cheap. With the points we currently have, we're unable to even secure a full week EOY. I wish our salesperson would have given us more insight as to how this vacation club worked, instead of just trying to secure a sale, any sale.

That does seem high. I may be able to help determine if there is anything you can do. I need to see the details of your maintenance fees. If you would like some help, send me a PM.

For 7000 EOY points, you should be paying less than $200 per year for maintenance fees and taxes.

I can think of 2 reasons why you are paying double that. One of them is bad. The other is really bad.

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

That does seem high. I may be able to help determine if there is anything you can do. I need to see the details of your maintenance fees. If you would like some help, send me a PM.

For 7000 EOY points, you should be paying less than $200 per year for maintenance fees and taxes.

I can think of 2 reasons why you are paying double that. One of them is bad. The other is really bad.

Yikes, that sounds ominous. MyTyme, I hope Boca can help you. Contact him and he'll do his best. He's a stand up guy.

[EvelynK72 Member Find all posts View Profile Close EvelynK72]

I can think of 2 reasons why you are paying double that. One of them is bad. The other is really bad.

Boca

Can you explain this further? It might help those who are considering BlueGreen and let them know what things to watch out for.

Evelyn

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Boca

Can you explain this further? It might help those who are considering BlueGreen and let them know what things to watch out for.

Evelyn

Bluegreen has 5 Trust Funds that form the Bluegreen Vacation Club trust. Each Trust fund is like a mini-club within the club. The reservation rules are the same, so from that point of view, the points work like any other point.

There are 5 trusts because about every 3-4 years, on average, Bluegreen overhauls the Club and how it calculates maintenance fees. But, the older points remain in the market until the owners want to sell them.

What results are very inconsistent maintenance fees on the resale market. You can have drastically different maintenance fees for any given week at a resort.

What makes this even more difficult is that owners don't know how to read their maintenance fee statements. And, most brokers are clueless about how to verfiy a Bluegreen deed. Therefore, advertisements for maintenance fees are incorrectly stated about 50% of the time or more on listings.

When buying a Bluegreen timeshare, make sure you get a Florida addendum. A Florida addendum is a required disclosure document for Florida timeshares or timeshares transacted in Florida that says exactly what the maintenance fee was for the prior year and whether or not it included ad valorem taxes. It also has the clause that says you can cancel within 10-days for any reason. Since the Bluegreen Trust is in Florida, you have a legitimate right to request it. Since Resort Title must follow Florida Real Estate law, you can cancel the purchase if the estoppel comes back with the wrong maintenance fees. All legitimate brokers have these disclosure documents. Many pseudo brokers do not.

In general, if the Bluegreen property has maintenance fees higher than $.055/point, DON'T Buy it. The only exceptions to this rule are a) for a Christmas Mountain Village or Shenandoah Crossing UDI or b) for a combinable new program points deed.

There is a good chance that I can help this owner fix their problem. But, it will require purchasing more points. They would need to buy 7000 or more annual points. If their week doesn't qualify for an upgrade and it is a converted fixed week, then they have an unmarketable deed. These sell for about $.20/point on the market unless they find a buyer who doesn't know what they are doing and buys points based on the purchase price and not the MF. By the way, this happens a lot.

I would explain more, but it gets even more complicated.

[SEI BG Member Find all posts View Profile Close SEI BG]

Does the $.055 cents per point mean for either EOY points or annual points? When we recently bought EOY points off the resale market at Big Cedar, we were told they were higher because of the resort. The closing company said they tried to get a more definitive explanation of why these maintenance fees were higher, but the only thing they were told was that this resort commanded them.

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

There are 5 trusts because about every 3-4 years, on average, Bluegreen overhauls the Club and how it calculates maintenance fees. But, the older points remain in the market until the owners want to sell them.

There is a good chance that I can help this owner fix their problem. But, it will require purchasing more points. They would need to buy 7000 or more annual points. If their week doesn't qualify for an upgrade and it is a converted fixed week, then they have an unmarketable deed. These sell for about $.20/point on the market unless they find a buyer who doesn't know what they are doing and buys points based on the purchase price and not the MF. By the way, this happens a lot.

I just purchased 8000 annual points and it is supposedly a fixed week converted to points. MF = $498. I did not pay $.20/point for this but thought I was getting a decent deal. Now I am not sure.
Also, are you saying that every 3-4 years I will have to buy 7000 more points to stay current? That sounds like being sucked into a black hole to me.
Please understand that I am not trying to knock anything or anybody here. I am new at this and will try to see if it suits my needs or not.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

I just purchased 8000 annual points and it is supposedly a fixed week converted to points. MF = $498. I did not pay $.20/point for this but thought I was getting a decent deal. Now I am not sure.
Also, are you saying that every 3-4 years I will have to buy 7000 more points to stay current? That sounds like being sucked into a black hole to me.
Please understand that I am not trying to knock anything or anybody here. I am new at this and will try to see if it suits my needs or not.

Converted fixed weeks is one of the Trusts. Your MF isn't bad. My benchmark would be about $440 for 8000 points. $498 isnt' bad. But, closing costs for buying and selling that unit are higher.

No, you don't need to buy more points after every 3-4 years. I said that this owner would need to buy more points to fix a bad situation which is that they are WAY overpaying for maintenance fees.

If this owner took my advice and bought 7000 points of the type I recommend, they will have maintenance fees of about $573. That would be the equivalent of just less than $.055/point. This would be as opposed to $422 for the equivalent of 3500 annual points or $.12/point.

[BocaBum99 Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close BocaBum99]

Does the $.055 cents per point mean for either EOY points or annual points? When we recently bought EOY points off the resale market at Big Cedar, we were told they were higher because of the resort. The closing company said they tried to get a more definitive explanation of why these maintenance fees were higher, but the only thing they were told was that this resort commanded them.

$.055 would be the annual equivalent per point. If you are talking about 10000 EOY points, I consider that the equivalent of 5000 annual points.

The resort doesn't set maintenance fees based on the demand of the resort. The resort sets the maintenance fee budget based on the expenses that the HOA agrees to spend on the resort over the course of several years.

But, the trust funds are broadly averaged over multiple resorts. So, the information you received is incorrect.

[SEI BG Member Find all posts View Profile Close SEI BG]

If that info is incorrect, how would you explain the higher maintenance fees? I hope your answer isn't bad.