Original Message:
BUYING DEVELOPER vs RESALE (typical scenario) (by Lisa G.):
jayjay wrote:The most expensive timeshare we ever bought was our first from the developer in a brand new area facing a waterpark (very coveted location) of a very popular gold crown resort in Florida, and we paid 10K for it. I thought 10K was outrageous. We were not educated about resales at the time we bought from the developer.A few years later when we were ready to sell I advertised it for 5K (half price as I had read that no way would we get the developer purchase price back on a resale). I advertised it on several internet sites with no interest whatsoever. I kept dropping the price and finally got an offer of $2900 which I took and was glad to get it. We lost 7K on our developer bought timeshare, which is typical on the resale market.
We definitely learned a (very expensive) lesson concerning buying developer timeshares. We went on to buy 8 resales (at very good prices) where we liked to go. When we were ready to sell them, we had no problem at all since we bought at such good prices to begin with.
A tough way to learn about developer bought timeshares vs resales.
A resale timeshare is the exact same product as a developer timeshare and costs 1/4 to 1/3 of the developer cost.
JayJay & Bonnie, you seem to be very knowledgable about timeshares. My question is specifically about buying on the resale market. We have been visitng RedWeek daily and are seriously considering buying a floating week at one of the Florida Vistana resorts. Thank you for that input, Bonnie! It's scary buying sight unseen and I'm nervous about doing it on the internet. How can we be sure we are registered as owners with the resort? We're looking to buy even yrs prime week - not sure what "prime" week means? We're leaning towards biannual due to the annual fees being so high otherwise. It seems these locations would have high trade value... I assume we can join & use RCI?? This is all very confusing and intimidating to me. I see postings that say timeshares are a rip-off and a scam. I look at it as investing in our vacation time over the long haul and leaving something fun and intrinsically valuable to leave our children. Can anyone answer any of these questions and/or offer advice before we take the plunge??? Thank you so much in advance!