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Comment by _yb2s | Hacker News Reader

They’re certainly scammy and overpriced, but probably still a better deal than owning a full vacation home that sits empty most of the year….

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In a “Vacation club” you own a bag of “points” that you can use to book a unit at a resort. You are not guaranteed that units will be available, nor are you guaranteed a price (i.e. how many points you’ll have to use). You will have to pay for points every year no matter what.

True “shared ownership of a single unit at a resort” is far less common these days.

> but probably still a better deal than owning a full vacation home that sits empty most of the year

If you can walk away: then 100% yes. I've considered a timeshare at a ski resort during the popular school vacation week.

The problem is that often you can't walk away. IE, with a vacation home, you can sell it; or otherwise default on the mortgage / taxes. With a timeshare, that's harder.

Personally, I just stay in hotels. So much easier, and the hotel bill is cheaper than whatever monthly payment the timeshare / vacation home is.

Also that sort of specific time is an issue for this type of arrangement. Because large share of participants would want the same time. Which unless they share the places during stay...

In the end just buying it piece meal is most likely best option.

That one week is super popular, all the other weeks are dirt cheap

> but probably still a better deal than owning a full vacation home that sits empty most of the year

Timeshares give up a lot of the advantages of just owning a vacation home, without many advantages other than price.

You have even less control of the property than a coop/condo, you don't get the financial incentive of possible real estate appreciation, there is no real liquid open market for resale.. etc.

Time shares are like a casino where the house always wins. They control the costs/fees the same way a casino controls the odds/payouts. They are probably less regulated than a casino too.

The other advantage to a proper vacation home is.. if its a beach / ski / whatever place whatever, you leave all your gear there, changes of clothes, etc.. not hauling stuff.

I doubt it. You have the loan interest, annual service fees, and fact that you don’t have a sellable asset, at least for anything like what you paid for it. An empty vacation home is still an appreciating asset. Not a good investment in my circumstances but still better than a timeshare.

What is most amazing is that there is an entire industry of getting people out of timeshares. It's not cheap either. People are willing to pay large sums and take big losses for millstone removal. Timeshare companies pay a lot for every single successful sign up, so they are not willing to let them go without a fight.

Some timeshare companies have their own buyback / abandonment programs in response to the scammy exit companies:

HGVC: https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/hgvcs-deed-back-process.35...

Hyatt: https://tugbbs.com/forums/threads/hyatt-now-has-a-buy-back-p...

Of course, these are not well advertised. And it contradicts the sales pitch of the timeshare maintaining / increasing in value if you are simply giving it back for free.

Yes but when most won’t let your heirs get out of the contract even that’s the problem. In principle they make sense, Disneys for example has got to be the least scammy of them.

Checked a little bit Disney. Picking a flexible option for a large family:

From $350 to $1,200 per month for a 10-year loan with a 10% down payment = $144,117

+ the annual fees.

Oh well...

"Ability to finance through our in house financing with no credit check" errrrm.

"A groundbreaking non-credit check model for financing DVC loans. No credit check, no debt-to-income ratios, simply financed based on the value of your purchase."

Though if you purchase from the secondary market ( = people reselling it), it gets cheap enough that it becomes interesting.

Resell is the real value, but you need to make sure you understand the limitations to benefits as only people that have bought enough points directly get access to certain benefits such as lounges.

And really the whole thing only makes sense if you pay upfront without a loan.

I've priced it out a few times and for me it doesn't make sense despite staying at WDW ~ 4+ weeks a year.

But when compared to other timeshares, it's not a total lock in and Disney has apparently started buying back contracts if you wanted out.

Thank you!

Also I've never noticed the high pressure sales tactics from DVC. It's usually "if you want to hear about DVC go talk to that guy with the blazer".

Not quite. You can sell the vacation home, you can (usually) rent it out.

It’s your property; within zoning restrictions, you can do whatever you want with it.

Not true with a timeshare.

Yes, you can but people that can afford vacation homes often let them sit empty and lose a lot of money because they don’t want anyone messing with it- it is expensive, and loses a ton of money but they can afford it.

> you can (usually) rent it out.

Only if you're lucky enough to own it in a place that hasn't outlawed AirBNB rentals yet.

You didn't hear it from me but the scheme is: an individual or group of investors will buy several properties to AirBNB in a moderately-popular vacation spot. Typically someplace fairly rural and off the beaten path. But desirable enough for photos that might trend briefly on pinterest. Then they (rather covertly) drum up local support for banning AirBNBs, while being careful to make sure their existing rentals are grandfathered in. Now their investments have a moat and they can charge whatever they want for them, especially if there are no hotels or resorts anywhere nearby.

That seems like a risky ploy. Guaranteeing that the existing AirBNBs get grandfathered in is far from certain. Then again, I've seen plenty of AirBNBs that just ignore the law so maybe it would be fine anyway. I once stayed in one that had explicit instructions on how to respond if someone asked you what you were doing at the house, which fake names to use and everything. Felt incredibly sketchy, but it was also about a third of the price of the cheapest hotel room in the area and didn't have cleaning fees or extensive checkout cleaning bullshit so that wasn't unexpected. Was a great location too.

You can rent out timeshares on Redweek. I've never used the service but it's often recommended to timeshare owners who are unable to stay in their timeshare properties.

Not really. They are cheaper in nominal dollar terms (capital, annual costs, etc) but you are typically paying multiples of that intrinsic value of the property (e.g. 2 weeks $100K up front, $5k year, but for a property that might be $1m not $2.4m and definitely doesn’t cost $120k a year to maintain) plus you get no appreciation upside, no tax benefits etc…

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