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Original Message:
Re: Are they worth it? (by KC):
kurt12 wrote:Not the ones I owned. The maintenance fees are nearly the same cost of renting the places I had. The other big problem is the resale value I have gotten are half what I paid. Not a good investment and not a great savings while you own them either.
"Not the ones I owned" is the operative phrase here...
For someone who buys a timeshare in the resale market at the right (low) price, located at a place they really want to (and can afford to) go, at a time of year they will want to repeatedly go there, timeshares can be GREAT. Personally, I think of it as a guaranteed time and place "reserved" for me each year for (over the long term) considerably less than I could possibly rent there (IF I could even manage to find a suitable rental AT ALL in prime time, when *I* want to go there).
That said, timeshare purchases, even in the resale market, are certainly very poor financial "investments". They will NOT accrue in value and maintenace fees will always increase AT LEAST a few percent each year. Also, buying a "weak week" with unrealistic dreams of "trading" it for something else is outright foolish, in my opinion. NO ONE gets to trade in rusty iron pipe and get solid gold bars in "exchange" (...no matter what a lying developer sales weasel might falsely claim).