Successful Resales & Rental Feedback Wanted

If you ask someone who is renting out a unit whether they secured it through an exchange, but sure to say something like "Did you get this through an exchange company such as RCI or Interval?" If it is an "internal exchange" within their own resort group, it is no problem. Many of us own in resort groups which use a point system that lets us use our points at any available related resort, regardless of our contracted location.

By the same token, those of us who do not own a set week in a set location every year may have no control over the view. We can ask, but there may not be a guarantee. Some points charts do specify different points values for Ocean View, ocean front, or "other" but most do not. Frankly, ocean front can be over rated. During the day, you will probably not sit around in your unit; in the evening it is just plain DARK out there! If you are renting the small side of a lock-off unit, it probaby will not have the best availabe view but the price should reflect that.

On the RedWeek rental boards you will see many offers without specific dates. This means that they have access to the property listed but do not yet have a confirmed reservation in hand. This is good in that they can tailor a reservation to your specific needs, but availability is always the crucial issue. They can't get you what is no longer in the inventory, so don't wait too long to set your plans. If you are flexible, you might pick up a great deal less that two months ahead of check-in, but if you want something fairly specific, go for it more than 6 months ahead! (And don't be like the lady who demanded an Ocean Front unit in Orlando!) MD

A very good point, but my View specific comments are directed towards resorts such as Kaanapali Beach Club for example where 1BR owners always have a specific view type reservation (There are also 16 2BR units where you might not know your view until checkin and two 2BR Presidentials where the units are ocean front). Granted, a points owner could place an ad for a date range and in their ad say they offer SV, OV, DOV.

So in this example I looked thru the DRI KBC listings and most of the View Varries listings have additional text clarifying they have flexibility in the view type reservation, plus ads from T Scheller are reservations made outside II and RCI but are not owner reservations. One of her ads is R425004 where you see a $99 adder fee to the listing price. I've worked with her before. I don't know how she gets her units, maybe thru CARE. Ad R448653 and R440899 could be owners who don't understand their ownership but given that weeks owners always get their deeded view and points owners always get the view they reserve, these ads are either an owner who doesn't want to admit they are SV or they made the reservation thru exchange. So if I was looking for their specific dates, I would ask them if they are direct owners with a direct reservation and what the view category is, or if they reserved thru exchange.

Granted DRI KBC listings are not where I've had my largest experience with exchange reservations. It is at the Westin Kaanapali (Original and North phases). I didn't use these listings as my example because regardless of the view type owned, when the owner makes a reservation less than 8 months in advance they do not have a guaranteed view. But in my experience I have found a good representative number of listings where the "owner" is offering a unit secured via exchange.

adahiscout makes a very good point about internal exchange. Some owners don't understand the difference between an internal reservation and one thru an exchange compny, especially if they called their resort company to make the reservation and the resort company then secures a unit via exchange. To be sure, the owner was told during the conversation the reservation will be via exchange, but then the owner forgets how the reservation was secured, or it's perhaps not a detail which is important to them.

I'm trying to think of an example of securing an external exchange directly through one's own resort/resort group. Not sure I've encountered that. I think one can get an RCI Nightly Stay exchange via Wyndham or Bluegreen but an exchange fee would be involved which would be fairly memorable. However, some groups, Westgate for example, charge a fee even for an internal Westgate to Westgate exchange if you want a location other than your contracted resort. (Bleh.) As someone earlier noted, when the final confirmation arrives, the renter can clearly tell whether it was from an Exchange Company rather than the resort/resort group itself. MD

Marriott and DRI are timeshare companies (DRI if you are in The Club) where it is possible an owner can call the timeshare company and the CSR at teh timeshare company secures an exchange reservation (thru II in this case).

I would think owners would understand when they make an internal vs external reservation but I've run into a good number of owners who are not clear about what they reserved, how they reserved it, and the fact they paid fees for the external reservation.

Recently rented a timeshare in Oceanside thru Redweek. At my suggestion, the transaction was processed thru First American Title to ensure the tenant receives the week rented and the owner receives the rent.

The process is easy and very efficient. After making payment with a credit card, First American notifies owner payment has been made. Owner then calls the resort assigning the unit to renter for the week rented. I received a letter from Wyndham in less than a week with a confirmation number and called the resort to confirm the unit is oceanfront.

The fee paid to First American ( $75.00) for owner and ($75.00 for tenant is well worth the cost.

Who paid the credit card fee? That was nice of the owner to agree to pay $75. I'd agree this gives confidence to both sides for the safety of the transaction, but $150 "insurance" is pretty expensive.

99% of all my transactions are done without 3rd party so for both renting from and renting to owners I've saved way more money by not paying that amount than any cost I'd incur for a reservation not working out.

If the owner failed to provide the unit, the $75 you just paid only gets your money back. You still wouldn't have a place to stay. So for any reservation made less than 60 days in advance you would be protected thru your credit card company "for free". Worst case, get the owner to use paypal and even if you paid the credit card fee of about 3% your rental would have to be over $2,500 before you spent $75 and over $5,000 before you both spent $150.

It also might be possible to buy travel insurance which would be more comprehensive for about $75. You'd have to read the fine print to ensure an owner's failure to provide the unit was covered.

I will post feedback as soon as I rent mine out.

In the mean time, can you provide any statistics on visitors and traffic to my listing?

I gauged your site against competitors and you are taking the bulk of the traffic according to Google page rank and Alexa, but I would like some raw numbers so I can see how my ad is doing.

I am about to purchase a timeshare advertised through Red Week. How can I be sure that the seller owns the week? How does the Marriett right of first refusal work. What size deposit is reasonable to return with the opurchase agreement? The seller uses Timeshare Closing Associates in Orlando for the closing. Has anyone used them for a closing? How can I be sure that the title will be clear and acceptable to Marriott. I appreciate any guidance anyone can give me. Thank you.

margaretl94 wrote:

I am about to purchase a timeshare advertised through Red Week. How can I be sure that the seller owns the week? How does the Marriett right of first refusal work. What size deposit is reasonable to return with the opurchase agreement? The seller uses Timeshare Closing Associates in Orlando for the closing. Has anyone used them for a closing? How can I be sure that the title will be clear and acceptable to Marriott. I appreciate any guidance anyone can give me. Thank you.

You have to do your due diligence .... contact the resort and make sure the person you are dealing with is the owner, the title is clear and that he/she is up to date on maintenance fees. Marriott hasn't been implementing ROFR in this economy for the vast majority of their properties.

Can't help you on the closing company but you can do a google search to find out more about them.

Due to privacy laws and veils, you will not be able to call the resort on your own to verify the ownership. Ensure your contract provides an agreement from the owner authorizing you to contact the resort to ask detailed quesitons about thier ownership. Once you fax the authorization, they will discuss details with you.

To be certain the seller owns the week, both the authorization so you can speak with the resort, and a simple online search for the seller's deed at the county recorder will support your knowledge they do indeed own. You might be at the efficiency of the closing company in regard to knowing if the seller owes money on the unit or is late paying any fees. Usually you can ask the resort about this, or ask the closing comapny to provide the estoppels they collect from the resort. All in all, based on your question, you will be highly challenged to notice any issues there could be with the ownership and even if you do the steos I list there could still be issues with your ownership. For example, if the deed lists a husband and wife but only the husband deeds to you, you might eventually have difficulty when selling later on.

I think the size of deposit is up to you. If you don't like how large it is and they won't budge, don't buy the unit. ROFR requires a sales agreement. marriott and other resorts take 1-4 weeks to review the sales contracts and decide if they will buy the unit from the owner at the price you agreed to pay or allow you to buy it from the owner. If Marriott exercises ROFR then the closing company is supposed to refund all your deposit to you. Just read the contract to see what steps they take.

This isn't always accurate, but generally if Marriott accepts you as an owner then usually the title transfer was acceptable to them. You could still have an issue if something was missed by the seller, closing company, or Marriott but it's been my experience title gets figured out by one of them.

I've had a few issues where the seller agrees to transfer the current year use and I pay them the current year maintenance but when I become the owner it turns out the seller indicated to the resort they will keep the use, or they banked the unit to exchange. Watch out for that! No sense paying for something you don't get. No one, not the seller, closing company, nor timeshare will bring to your attention the fact the seller agreed to provide use but didn't.

I would love to get information about the broker you used.

Global resort services is anxious to take your money with promises to rent your weeks, however, after a friend sent them the $600.00 rental fee he hasn't received one rental inquiry and has not ever received a call from them since sending them his money. After wanting to schedule a meeting at their office in FL the person he scheduled a meeting with was suddenly not available when he stopped by.

I think RW deletes posts like that, advertising. But if you look at the rentals for Marriott's Maui Ocean Club - Lahaina Villas,and inquire on the 2BR $1,995 Sep 5-12 unit I'll discuss with you!

For the past six months I have attempted to locate a timeshare rental on the east coast, New England region. There is nothing. I switched to late September in Italy,: Nothing. Then tried the Florida east coast for October: still nothing. This website is a complete rip off. Little or nothing is truly available to non-RCI owners. You are better off going directly through RCI for an exchange.

We would like to sell 68,000 or 34,000 of our time share points and know this is probably be impossible. We do have friends who the husband is president of his company and have heard if a "vacation club" is formed inside a company they can use the assessment fees as a tax write off. Does anyone know how this is done by the corporation? We feel he might buy the points if he could write off assessment/maintenance fees. Does anyone know about this?

I agree, we need to know what kind of response is out there or if we are wasting time posting rentals or sales.

Any suggestions on how to successfully resale a timeshare-currently have a timeshare in Cabo San Lucas that we are ready to sell. Open to any and all suggestions.

D.White

http://tugbbs.com/forums/showthread.php?t=44

Look at the following website that's helped a lot to proceed with how to sell and avoid getting scammed.

debbiew212 wrote:

Any suggestions on how to successfully resale a timeshare-currently have a timeshare in Cabo San Lucas that we are ready to sell. Open to any and all suggestions. D.White

Depending on the supply and demand of your week/resort you can post it for sale yourself on internet timeshare listing sites such as Redweek for a nominal fee. If you don't get any inquiries in a few weeks then keep dropping the price .... pricing is the KEY, especially in this weak economy.

I have worked in timeshare for Marriott for years. I always tell my owners to never trust any company that is asking for money upfront!! All I hear from my tours experience is they never get sold and it is a waste of money! Good luck! You will have much more success selling the property on your own on EBAY