Hotels vs. Timeshares, Which is Best
If you are considering buying or even selling timeshare you need to take a hard look at some facts and crunch some numbers before you make any commitments. Lets take a hard look at the actual differences between staying in a hotel or staying in a timeshare.
First, the largest expense on many holidays is the room and board. The average cost of a hotel room is above $100 and this is a national average, not taking into account highly desirable areas that people go on vacation. It is also not taking into account that on a vacation you often need more space than just one or two beds. This $100 fee will almost most certainly not get you any type of special amenities, a W/D, in room kitchen, or multiple televisions.
Many booking fees for vacation club timeshares stand at about $100 for the entire stay. When you contrast that with the $300-400 you will pay at a desirable vacation destination per night you are not even in the same ball park. Seven nights at a mid level resort will easily cost you $3000, plus taxes, flights, and activities on your vacation.
If you consider that you will take 2 weeks of vacation per year you are looking at $6000 easy in hotel bills. You would have to pay almost $40,000 for a timeshare to have a bill in the neighborhood of $6000 per year. That is considering a 10% interest rate and a 10 year payment term. Both of which you can reduce.
That said. The $6000 a year you spend on hotel bills is money that is gone. You will never see it again and you will certainly not be able to go back to the same resort for $100 the next year. Compare this to a timeshare that is paid off by your $6000 per year in ten years. At which point you can pay your booking fee and your yearly maintenance fee and take a vacation that is much cheaper than $3000 for 7 nights.
I am not going to try to tell you that a timeshare is a good investment because there are much better avenues to wealth but it is a much better alternative than throwing your money at hotels. So, if you are considering buying a timeshare, buy right and if you are considering selling timeshare, think about the numbers before you sell.
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