9 Things You Must Know Before Trying To Sell Your Timeshare
#1 This is the golden rule !
Never pay any sort of upfront fees to a timeshare resales agent. Think about it! If you were selling your home, would you pay a real estate agent an upfront fee or only when your property is sold? It is the same with selling your timeshare. Don't do it. EVER.
#2 Don't part with your credit card number.
There are boiler-rooms full of fast-talking salesmen that are highly trained and highly persistent. If you get a call from someone claiming to have a waiting buyer for your timeshare for sale, don't be tempted to give out your credit card details; even if they tell you that no fees will be applied until after your timeshare has been sold.
#3 Deal only with licensed timeshare resales brokers.
In the USA only a licensed real estate broker can represent you in the sale of a timeshare and collect a deposit on your behalf. The rest of the world does not consider timeshare to be classified as real estate and so anyone can set themselves up as a timeshare resales broker with no licenses of any kind. So check credentials, check membership to different (self) regulatory bodies and 'google' the company in question to get a good idea of what they are about and what experiences others have had dealing with them.
#4 Have realistic expectations:
Okay so here is the really bad news - with no sugar coating at all… buying a timeshare is like buying a brand new car. It will work wonders for you if you learn how to use it properly. BUT the moment it becomes yours, it has decreased in value by thousands.
Resorts are too busy selling their remaining inventory as this is where their profits are made - and how they are geared up for the market. They are simply not interested in selling your week for you so even if you can get them to try, you are going to make a BIG loss as they have to cover their marketing costs, which in the timeshare industry are typically around 20% of the sales price (or more).
Expect to get around a third - sometimes less - of what you paid. You need to be aware that the market for buyers is extremely slim, or perhaps anorexic might be a better word! Competition in the timeshare resales market is fierce. So not only are you highly unlikely to recover anywhere near the purchase price, but it could take quite a while to sell too.
Remember when you bought your timeshare? Chances are you bought it after a slick sales presentation and before that, associated the word 'timeshare' with negative connotations. Sure, timeshare works well for millions of people (myself included), it just has a very bad reputation because of the way it is sold and the problems people have selling it when they no longer want it. What this means is that just about the only people in the market for timeshare resales are existing timeshare owners who are just looking for an additional week, usually in a specific location. Oh, and some unscrupulous timeshare sales people may buy your week from you if the price is low enough and sell it on to a hot prospect for close to what you paid for it.
#5 Price your timeshare to sell fast
You can get an idea of the true value of your timeshare in a couple of different ways. One, you can talk to a timeshare resales broker (or two or three) and get an opinion. Make sure it's a licensed real estate agent (USA), or a well established resales company elsewhere with a track record of satisfied customers. Remember golden rule number one above and get some agents selling for you. Appoint two or three agents if you can. Two, look around the internet for timeshares for sale and you will soon get an idea of a realistic sales price. One great tip picked up from a seller in the UK - she agreed a sales price with her resales broker then went on to tell her broker that if he managed to get any more for it, he could keep the difference. A buyer for her timeshare week was found after just 6 days!
#6 Do some basic due diligence
When looking for a timeshare resales broker, their website will tell you a great deal more if you know how to 'read between the lines'. If they have hundreds of listings it tells you two (probable) things; first that they are going to ask for an upfront fee and are not selling much as they are geared up to take fees, not sell timeshares or two: either their marketing sucks, their pricing is wrong or both. What you are looking for is a website that comes in the first three or four pages on an internet search from one of the major search engines (google, bing, yahoo). Then you want to check the 'who-is' information on their website. If you find that the website is registered as 'declined to show owner information', the chances are that this is another fly-by-night company that sooner or later will ask you for a 'fee' to 'help along the sales and marketing costs'.
#7 Be aware of the scams
Just like you paid far too much for your timeshare week (should have bought a resale in the first place, right!), you can lose a great deal of money falling for the scams when trying to sell it. There are so many ways you can get caught out it is scary. Deal only with your own legal representative - don't use the buyers' lawyer or the brokers' lawyer. Yes it will cost more to use a lawyer but think of it as insurance - if anything goes wrong, it will not be YOUR pocket that suffers.
#8 Don't just rely on your broker
Like selling a house, there are advantages to using a broker to sell your timeshare. They know the market, are geared up to get a steady stream of sales enquiries and know how to present your offering to potential buyers. But this doesn't mean that you can't do something too. If you have the time, check out some of the other articles on selling a timeshare. Compile a list of tips and ideas and get to work!
#9 The second golden rule!
This is listed last just to round things off nicely: remember the saying, if it seems too good to be true, then it probably is! Take wild claims for what they are, be realistic in your expectations, do some homework, compare brokers, set a realistic price, use your own lawyer and chances are, you'll have a trouble free experience.
