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Maintenance Fee increases; the reality... (by KC):

cristinay2 asks in part: >> I understand the purpose of a maintenance fees but what I don't understand is why do they keep increasing each year when the values of Timeshares Resorts are going down?<<

There is really no relationship whatsoever between the market value of a timeshare and the ongoing, daily costs to maintain and manage the infrastructure of a facility. Maintenance fees will ALWAYS increase, at least slightly (sometimes considerably more than slightly) right along with the associated rising costs of inflation, facility labor, utilities, supplies, insurance, etc. These costs have a solid "bottom", below which it is simply not possible to go --- such things simply "cost what they cost".

Market value, on the other hand, can (and does) change downward. More significantly, market value has no bottom at all until it finally reaches ZERO. Many timeshares in low demand seasons / difficult locations have, in fact, already found that bottom, as clearly evidenced by the many weeks offered on eBay for a penny, or a dime --- or a "dime a dozen". In the case of a HI timeshare, airline travel costs (heading no place but steadily upward) are already astronomical and so will continue to negatively impact market value of Hawaii timeshares, since there is just plain no other way to get there. Aloha Air and ATA now no longer even exist, further reducing competition on ticket prices. Once travel costs far exceed ownership or rental prices, people start looking for alternative vacations much closer to home --- as they clearly are already doing right now. =============================================

Re: >> ...since we bought it in 1999, the MF has been increasing each time we visit but we don't see any significant improvement at the facility. As a matter of fact when we went back in 2007, the grounds, equipments and appliances looks the same as 8 years ago. I'm curious where my MF has been going?<<

See reply in preceding paragraph above. It simply costs more all the time, just to "stay the same". Your MF are likely going exactly where they have always gone, it simply costs more all the time just to do the exact same things. Meanwhile, appliances, fixtures, pool pumps, furniture, carpeting, etc. get daily usage and require maintenance or repair just to "stay the same". Consequently, with rising costs, MF money just spreads thinner (just as it does for our grocery bills, gasoline costs, etc. ). Timeshare facilities are not in ANY way immune from rising costs; this is simply a harsh reality which cannot (and will not) ever change.