Original Message:
Re: Diamond Resorts raises maintenance fees again! (by Doug P.):
All MF's go up. Typically from 3 to 5% per year. Costs to maintain you home go up as well. Taxes go up, lawn care goes up, utilities go up, cable TV costs go up et......With timeshares employee's also expect a raise each year. So it's no surprise that MF's increase.
The problem for former Sunterra owners is that Sunterra kept MF's artifically low and refused to do routine maintenace in order to sell more timeshare units. They didn't care about owners after they bought. They only cared about making another sale. They felt they needed to keep MF's low to attract new buyers or get former buyers to buy more weeks. That's why Sunterra is bankrupt and why another company now manages those resorts.
Ignore the sales weasels. Keep your deeped weeks if all you want to do is go to your home resort. It doesn't matter if it's DRI, Marriott, DVC, Bluegreen Wyhndam et....ALL timeshares that are in active sales have sales staffs that want you to buy more. We own with DRI, Southwind, Hilton and Marriott. All of them constantly are trying to sell us something "new". We own what we want so we just ignore their attempts.