Selling Timeshares

In some instances we have to accept facts and situations in life that we truly do not want to hear or face, and this is certainly one of those particulars.  Selling a timeshare is extremely difficult and best achieved when the seller is able to reach the massive world-wide timeshare market.  Since you are here and reading this, you are most likely in the market to sell a timeshare…read on…there is a silver lining!  The main reason selling your timeshare is so difficult is supply and demand.  The supply of timeshare resales greatly exceeds the demand for resales.  This has always been the case in the timeshare industry due to the fact that so few people even realize you can buy a timeshare forsalebyowner!  Majority of owners discover or even begin thinking about selling a timeshare when they are ready to sell, and as an example, it is common knowledge that you can buy a used car, but for some reason people fail to discover that you can do the exact same thing with timeshares!  In fact, timeshare re-sales are typically better deals than buying direct from the resort as there is no such thing as a “new” timeshare, unless you are the absolute very first person to stay in that room at that resort, someone has been there before you.  Re-sale unawareness is one of the major contributing factors to why selling your timeshare is so difficult, and another reason, and probably the one that pains the most, is that resorts seldom have re-sale programs of their own; their main focus is selling new or left-over inventory from an expansion or new development.   

Some Key Facts that Work Against you When Trying to Sell:

1. Many resorts DO NOT have a re-sale program; they’re top-down strategy is to sell their own inventory from expansion or capacity
2. Donating: If you are having a hard time finding a buyer, what is a charity going to do different?  Who is going to use it if the charity can’t sell it?  It’s a charity, why would the organization have any inclination to incur monthly expenses for something that is not being used
3. Local or free advertising: timeshare is a worldwide market; likely buyers are to be those who have experienced a similar resort or vacation area and have a thorough understanding of the timeshare market; there is a reason why most of us use Google, Yahoo or Bing to find information that is of interest to our daily lives
4. Realtor or Broker: In most cases realtors are not allowed on the resort premise to show a living space or villa etc.  What is the target audience of a realtor…why would a realtor spend valuable time trying to make a commission on a small sell price?  With regards to a broker; still not allowed on the resort premise to show the timeshare, but they do have mobility in their business model to target timeshare buyers, but a broker still has to gain a presence through advertising (advertising costs $) and fees can be excessive, therefore you may incur an advertising fee, registration fee or listing fee in addition to the guaranteed broker percentage of sale.