Tax sale coming up and there are a whole mess of timeshares being auctioned (I’m near a popular resort area). Most of the starting bids are around $1200-1400.
I’ve never considered a timeshare anything more than a sucking sound but if I can get one far below what they’re selling them for maybe I should think about it. Does anyone have experience dealing with them or strategies for making money by owing them?
Everything that I have read says that they are a waste of money when it comes to investment.
You are not buying a property. You are buying the right to use a property.
I used to work for a timeshare company, and know people who do make money renting out timeshares. You would either need to own a very desirable week ( Xmas, spring break in Florida, the 4th of July in South Carolina, Thanksgiving week) or a “floating week” that you can schedule depending on your needs. If you buy a set week somewhere in Febuary, most likely you would not be able to rent it out for profit. Before you buy it, check the maintanance fees that you need to pay the timeshare company for upkeeping the property. Say, you get to buy a Xmas week in Hawaii ( very desirable), you would need to pay $600 a year for maintanance, see how much this resort is rented for in Xmas. If the average rate per night is $300, you obviously would be able to make money. The same resort in somewhere in Michigan in March would be rented for $70/night, if you would be able to rent it out at all. A lot of people lose money in timeshare simply because they don’t do any research before buying one.
Good luck,
Lana.
Thanks for the response. I went to the tax sale even though all the interesting properties were redeemed the week before. There were probably 75 timeshares for sale. They went thru them and probably 7 or 8 were bid on and sold, so they went thru them again cutting the price more than 50% and a few more sold. A woman sitting next to me bought one so I asked her why. She said once you’re in you can then rent in the same resort any time of the year for a discount, and she hopes to be able to trade for other good places. These timeshares are in S. Lake Tahoe so they’re pretty desirable. I wouldnt buy one for an investment but I guess if you can get it for $700 it could be a decent deal if you’re into them.