Looking forward to discussing Timeshares, especially WLR&S

Watching with great hopes that there will be lots of conversation here.

Nancy

I have the choice between the Westgate lakes and the Westgate Palace and I have nener been to either one. Could you please give me your recommendation. Tks.

I prefer the Lakes. Palace is nice but only one pool overlooking a built up area.

nancyf77 wrote:

Watching with great hopes that there will be lots of conversation here.

Nancy

We bought a 4- bedroom unit 7 years ago and sometimes we do not use all weeks and would like to rent but unfortunately the resort doesn't have the facility to do so via the Resort management. What do you think about it? I have learned through friends and this forum that there are other resorts that provide these facilities. We do not like to go to the same resort every year and our experience at the Westgate Town Center in Orlando was not a nice one last year, there were lots of people and it did not look like a 5-star resort at all.

As you probably read from the forum, the feeling is that prices keep going up either from the resort or the exchange company, no wonder we sometimes feel like walking away from timeshares too!!! Your views are welcome.

Nancy We bought a 4- bedroom unit 7 years ago and sometimes we do not use all weeks and would like to rent but unfortunately the resort doesn't have the facility to do so via the Resort management. What do you think about it?

As long as they are selling new units they will never have a rental program. Their objective is to sell timeshare units, not rent rooms like a hotel. Lots more money in sales than rentals.

Even if they did, most companies that rent take 40-60% of the rent money.

Redweek is a good site to place units for rent but you must be realistic on price. Forget what the timeshare salesman told you. You are not going to get big bucks.

Unfortunetly Redweek can only show you what people are asking for their units, not what they actually went for or if they were rented at all.

A good way to check pricing is to search completed auctions on Ebay. You will find the auctions that ended in a sale were for lots less money than the auctions that never sold. Two bedroom units usually rent for less than $800 and lockoffs for about $200. People asking $1000 or more for a two bedroom never even get a bid.

If you have a lockoff you arent going to use, my suggestion to you is to deposit it with Interval and use it in the Flexchange program. This is the program where you search for units 1-59 days out. All rules about like type units (size, time of year, location, week color) are removed. Right now I have an efficiency that is pulling 3 and 4 bedroom units, units in the Carrabiean and Belize and all over the world for that matter. April and May is a slow excahnge time and it is within 59 days so I am seeing the most availability I think I have ever seen before. Obviously high demand times like summer vacation, spring break and Holidays will have less availability 59 days or less out but you never know.

Don't be too disapointed with your unit. These are really great units but you have to really know how the system works to really use them to your advantage. If all anyone knew is what the salesman told us... well we wouldn't know everything we should about using our timeshares.

Enjoy!

I own a 2br/2ba at the Lakes for week 13. I don't actually go there anymore - my kids are now heading to college and we have other interests. I use it instead for it's excellent trading power thru Interval International. Otherwise I have rented it in the past thru redweek and myresortnetwork, where I more than covered my yearly maintenance fees. Sometimes though I think of selling it because I don't find the places I want in Interval International. My family ends up going on vacations to less travelled locations, such as Haifa Israel and Addis Ababa Ethiopia.

My week 44 3br lock off doesn't seem to have much trading power through II - when searching availability I often have to request against the 2br portion to see availability for a studio that doesn't even appear when I put in my own studio.

miriamj2 wrote:

nancyf77 wrote:

Watching with great hopes that there will be lots of conversation here.

Nancy

We bought a 4- bedroom unit 7 years ago and sometimes we do not use all weeks and would like to rent but unfortunately the resort doesn't have the facility to do so via the Resort management. What do you think about it? I have learned through friends and this forum that there are other resorts that provide these facilities. We do not like to go to the same resort every year and our experience at the Westgate Town Center in Orlando was not a nice one last year, there were lots of people and it did not look like a 5-star resort at all.

As you probably read from the forum, the feeling is that prices keep going up either from the resort or the exchange company, no wonder we sometimes feel like walking away from timeshares too!!! Your views are welcome.

You get nothing for your money at the Lakes-I will sell my 3 bedroom lockoff for a loss just to go from there.

Westgate is getting greedy in my opinion.You have to pay a premium to switch your week ($600.00) I will sell my 3 bedroom week #4 for a loss just to leave this resort.

If you look in the interval book, week 44 is pretty low in terms of trading.

If you want to trade a lower value week for a higher value week you probably wont get much. If you are looking for lower value weeks you should get plenty.

I have searched and found that within 59 days during low season, a studio will even pull 3 and 4 bedroom units.

Very few resorts have 3 or 4 bedroom units. That's another reason you shouldn't expect much when searching with a 3 bedroom unit. There just aren't many others to change into.

I can usually only go on holiday in November, poss October or December. The Interval website will not allow you to search with a 3 br lock off, you have to select either the studio or the 2 br. Even in these months there doesn't seem to be much available, especially for the studio. I have occasionally been lucky enough to exchange my studio for a Marriotts Ocean Pointe (Palm Beach Shores, FL) but only within the last few weeks. The choice is either to exchange the 2br for the OP studio, or risk it and wait to see if a studio is still available at the last minute and they will then accept a Westgate studio for it. When we bought our week 44 we were taken in by the salesman who told us that ALL weeks at Westgate were 'red' weeks and therefore equal - until they devalued them last year that is. I am also trying to sell my Westgate at a loss. The resort itself is ok but I am rather fed up with the whole timeshare hassle. There must be an awful lot of Westgate owners out there - as it is a dedicated forum this would be the perfect place to discuss issues and I am surprised there seem to be so few people here.

First, try calling the II rep and not just using the web site. Believe it or not that some times works better.

There should be a way you can search with your three bedroom. When I had a three bedroom here I know I was able to. In fact others must be doing it as that is how three bedroom units show up in the sysytem.

Timeshareing is as much an art as anything. There are definetly tricks to using it.

As for the red week thing. All weeks are still red. It's just that some are worth more than others. Nothing has changed in the Interval system. You are searching and exchanging same quality as before.

True, Westgate now enforces the value of their seasons when it comes to internal exchanges and this makes internal exchanges more difficult, but that shouldn't affect an II search. And yes, many owners like yourself are not happy about the new rules. Ont he other hand, owners of more expensive weeks feel vindicated that the units they paid more for get better weeks in the system. Still, when you make a change in how they were doing it, that creates a problem.

If you truly want to sell and be done with it, regardless of the price, the place to sell is Ebay. You will get less than what you are probably asking to sell on Redweek or any other site, but if your choices are sell and be done with it, or hold and hold and hold and hold..... until maybe someone who hasn't seen ebay finds your unit for sale and has to have it, which would you choose.

There are many many timeshare owners like you out there. Some love timeshares, some loathe. Same with Westgate, some love them, some hate them. Everyone is different.

If you have not yet found TUG you may want to check that site as well. www.tug2.net. Their bulleting board has your story repeated many times over.

Good luck and let me know if you have any other thoughts.

I used to be able to search with the 3br but it was changed at the time that II also required a reservation number in order to search.

We paid the same amount for our week as anyone else. We originally bought a June week. The price came down as we hummed and ha'd about it and the sales rep said we could have it cheaper as the current owners were looking for someone to just 'take over their mortgage'. As Westgate do not offer a renting or sales service we later realised that the rep was not telling the truth in this matter. Nevertheless we paid a total of $19,000 for a deeded annual week. We later changed it to a November week purely because we usually travel at that time of year and because we had already been assured that all weeks were equal. If we had realised that we were devaluing our week we would never have changed it.

Lastly, I already know about the TUG forums, which are a great place for discussion. I just thought that these dedicated resort forums would attract more owners to discuss their actual resort problems, gripes and maybe even the good things about their own resort.

I should add that I bought the timeshare in 2000

I have had ours listed here for 2500. for quite a while now. Hubby doesn't want me to spend any more listing it. Our yr membership is coming to an end, and no bites! Aargh. We are unable to use our week this year, so I am forced to bank w/ WG. When we are ready to use it, we will have the pleasure of paying them 130. extra!

I don't know what else to do. We already paid our maintenance fee this year, and will have a week banked. That makes me feel ill to put on ebay and sell for nothing to give it away. I am just stumped as to what to do.

nancyf77 wrote:

I have had ours listed here for 2500. for quite a while now. Hubby doesn't want me to spend any more listing it. Our yr membership is coming to an end, and no bites! Aargh. We are unable to use our week this year, so I am forced to bank w/ WG. When we are ready to use it, we will have the pleasure of paying them 130. extra!

I don't know what else to do. We already paid our maintenance fee this year, and will have a week banked. That makes me feel ill to put on ebay and sell for nothing to give it away. I am just stumped as to what to do.

Hi Nancy,

Our records show that you have received two inquiries for your posting. If you missed these emails please check your Messages here on the RedWeek.com website.

Your timeshare is priced well but there are so many timeshares available in the Orlando area that it makes it tough to be competitive. While your RedWeek membership will expire in June your posting won't expire until Dec 12, 2007 but you would need to renew your membership for the posting to stay active. You might try just renewing with a 6 month membership for $9.99 then that will give your posting the last 6 months.

Hope this helps.

Marty

Hi Nancy

Good luck with selling your unit. If you don't mind I would be interested to hear if you do sell it and what you sold it for (you could private email me). I have the same problem with my other half in that he hates t/s ownership - it doesn't suit us and our holidays have become a lot more expensive overall. I have had my unit listed for $5000 on Timeshares Only (paid a fee for that!) for a year and a half, and also on TUG. I have had a few enquiries but mostly from people who want to know what the rock bottom price is. As you say, which is the lesser of two evils - giving it away or making the most of it?!

nancyf77 wrote:

I have had ours listed here for 2500. for quite a while now. Hubby doesn't want me to spend any more listing it. Our yr membership is coming to an end, and no bites! Aargh. We are unable to use our week this year, so I am forced to bank w/ WG. When we are ready to use it, we will have the pleasure of paying them 130. extra!

I don't know what else to do. We already paid our maintenance fee this year, and will have a week banked. That makes me feel ill to put on ebay and sell for nothing to give it away. I am just stumped as to what to do.

What do you mean by "I am forced to bank w/ WG."? if we do not use our weeks, we usually deposit them with II, I have put an advertisement locally in the hope to rent, this is the first time I am doing something like this, I have not received any emails from noone after posting in the redweek. If nothing comes up, we will do as we always do, deposit our weeks with II in order not to loose them.

It's a shame I never saw your post first as I have just purchased another resale and can't afford the inital cost of another. Good luck for the future. Martin