The truth about the value of timeshare

Since mid 1999 we have surveyed more than 50,000 timeshare owners and in almost every case those timeshare owners have informed us that the timeshare salesmen assured them that the value of the timeshare would raise in future and this assurance was one of the major considerations that lead to the purchase. The salesmen justified this statement by likening timeshare to property and the fact that property does rise in value. Even taking into account the possibility that the salesmen may have said the price of the timeshare will rise which is of course, a totally different proposition, from the information we received after putting this question to the timeshare owners there was no doubt in their minds what was said to them, they were told it would rise in VALUE!

The majority of timeshares are based upon a guaranteed right of use hence even to liken the modern timeshare to 1/52 of the property value is incorrect

There are many timeshares for sale in the press and on the internet ranging from as low as 10% to 30% of the retail price; this does not necessarily say that they are selling. A great number of the resort developers have also raised the cost of transferring a deed from one client to another from as low as £70 up to as high as £2250! and if they discover that there is a commercial business assisting in the sale they make it even more expensive. This is undoubtedly an unfair restrictive practice they use which the authorities should be made aware of.

The truth is that a timeshare purchased by an educated timeshare owner is worth to them probably between 10% and 30% of the retail price, the problem is that this part of the whole market is probably less than 5% of the total.

In most cases timeshare is sold in a face to face intense presentation, where, on the whole unsuspecting couple are closed into buying it by a salesmen working for a company, so logic shows us that the real value of a timeshare is the wholesale price, which in most cases will be around 10% of the retail price

We welcome intelligent comment on this article from timeshare owners or people in the trade; however we do not publish profanity or derogatory comments