Quick Answer: The timeshare resale market is saturated with scams promising quick sales but demanding upfront fees, and legitimate sales typically recover only 40-60% of current value. Owners seeking to exit should consider donation options like DonateForACause.org to avoid ongoing maintenance fees.
“Hello again Steve. I have another question.
My husband and I own a timeshare with Shell Vacation Club. It was paid off in January of this year. The monthly maintenance fees are $74. We don’t use the timeshare that much and we are considering selling the timeshare. I’ve heard its very difficult to sell timeshares and that there are a lot of scam companies that promise to sell timeshares but do nothing.
How do you go about selling a timeshare legitimately and is this possible?
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Dear Lisa,
There has been such a flood of people that can’t afford or don’t want their timeshares that the market is saturated.
Timeshare resale scammers took advantage of this situation and promised people they had potential buyers lined up and the deals were ready to close. The catch was the scammers would then say they needed to be paid their commission or some other cost prior to the sale. Then the sales “fell through” and the unit was never sold. The marketers kept the money.
Even if you did find a legitimate buyer who was willing to buy the timeshare, you’d probably have to unload it for 40%-60% of the current value of the timeshare.
And what we are left with is a big conflict between new timeshare sales outfits and a saturated and deflated resale market.
If you did not want to hold on to the timeshare any longer but wanted to get out from underneath it and stop paying maintenance fees, you could think about donating it. One such group is DonateForACause.org, a non-profit group that then disposes of them and provides part of the vase to charities.
Timeshare donation is a consumer relief strategy that allows timeshare owners a legitimate way out of their timeshare ownership. The concept of timeshare donation is less than ten years old, but gains popularity each year as the timeshare resale market continues to falter. In recent years, due to a severely depressed timeshare resale market owners looking to sell their timeshare have little success. Timeshare owners also face a myriad of unscrupulous timeshare listing companies looking for large up-front fees with the promise that their timeshare will soon be out of their name. Typically the listing company cannot sell their timeshare, nor do they have an incentive because they can collect another listing fee after the original listing contract expires. For many timeshare owners, trying to sell their timeshare becomes a vicious cycle of broken promises, high fees, and little to no interest from buyers. According to the Florida Attorney General’s Office, timeshare owners are also especially vulnerable to timeshare resale scams. Ultimately, many owners look to simply give-away, or donate their timeshare to a willing party because their timeshare investment has become a liability. – Source
Just the maintenance fee alone is costing you $888 a year. Only you can decide if you are getting enough benefit out of the timeshare to justify that cost or maybe it’s just time to unload the beast.
Please post your responses and follow-up messages to me on this in the comments section below.
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Great advice Steve. Thank you for sharing.