Buying, Renting, and Selling Timeshares

Wanting to sell timeshare.

Oct 07, 2018

I have a paid for Southseas Plantation - Plantation Beach Club (Captiva, Florida) timeshare that I just don't use. It was paid for by my family years ago, and It was left with me when my father passed. What is the best way for me to sell the deed so I don't have to continuously pay maintenance fees and rent out the unit yearly? Do Redweek classifieds really work? Thanks,


Steve L.
Oct 08, 2018

stevel688 wrote:
I have a paid for Southseas Plantation - Plantation Beach Club (Captiva, Florida) timeshare that I just don't use. It was paid for by my family years ago, and It was left with me when my father passed. What is the best way for me to sell the deed so I don't have to continuously pay maintenance fees and rent out the unit yearly? Do Redweek classifieds really work? Thanks,

In my personal opinion and first hand experience, RedWeek is probably the best place to advertise a timeshare for sale (or rent). Just make sure that before you place any ad that you are fully prepared to answer potential buyer questions promptly, clearly and accurately. For example, is it a fixed or floating week? If fixed, what week number? If "floating", what is the specific week range that is eligible for owner reservation? Number of bedrooms? Occupancy limit? Reservation procedure? Last maintenance fee amount paid? Next available usage? Who is going to pay the closing costs (and the separate transfer fee)?

I trust that your name is on the current deed. If not, there are going to be some legal complications if you do not actually have the legal standing to be "grantor" to new "grantee(s)".

Be sure to price the week realistically. No one cares at all what your parents may have paid for their week in long ago yesteryear; it's completely irrelevant in the resale marketplace. All that matters now is the open resale market value of the week now, today. Many timeshare weeks are literally worthless (but that's surely not the case for a week on Captiva Island. Look around for "comparables" (eBay, RedWeek, TUG, MyResortNetwork --- and maybe ask the resort itself for a recommended or historical price range for weeks like yours. If you price the week too high, your ad (wherever it's placed) will yield only silence and "crickets".

Last but not least, let a closing company handle new deed preparation, new deed official recording, escrow of purchase funds and resort notification after the new deed is officially recorded. If you have no personal experience in this arena, a "do it yourself" approach to deed work will likely lead to procedural errors, creating ownership transfer delays and unnecessary additional costs to fix any errors. Personally, I have used LTT Transfers in Georgia a number of times, as both a buyer and as a seller. They are a capable, communicative small business --- and yet probably the least expensive around. Resort "transfer fee", if any, is always a separate cost which varies by resort and which is never included in any closing entity's basic fees. Only the resort can tell you what that (gratuitous, but nonetheless mandatory) transfer fee cost, if any, will be.

Good luck.


KC

Last edited by ken1193 on Feb 25, 2025 10:54 AM

Nov 04, 2018

I have decided to sell two timeshares that I own. I have purchased the Full Service option and am currently waiting for the resort to complete the necessary verification forms so the resales can be posted.

What bothers me is that there is no real information on the RedWeek website regarding historical sales and "time to sale". All I've found is a graph that shows sketchy information about asking prices for each week.

Resale posts sit for weeks or many months with no sales reported.

I may have thrown several hundred dollars away.


Paul J.

Last edited by paul974 on Nov 04, 2018 04:34 PM

Jan 08, 2019

I own two weeks at Westin Lagunamar that I want to sell. I'm curious about your experience with RedWeek. Have you had any offers?


Melissa M.
Jan 08, 2019

I have been trying to sell a couple timeshare weeks, and I am skeptical about success. I'm going to post on eBay and craigslist and direct interested parties to my redweek posts. I see people posting resales but I think I've only seen one actual successful transaction.

I'm also going to inquire directly with the timeshare property management about a Deed Back, which is probably not really an option, but after a year of exhausting all attempts, and if I am unsuccessful unloading the properties, I may be forced to just take the hit on my credit rating and simply quit all further payments.


Paul J.

Last edited by paul974 on Jan 08, 2019 01:59 PM

Jan 08, 2019

For whatever it's worth, I have successfully sold several different timeshare weeks on RedWeek in recent years while significantly paring down our timeshare ownerships. If your timeshare listing is for a desirable location and season and your pricing is competitive, I personally don't think that there is a better place to advertise than RedWeek. If you overprice your listing and / or try to sell a off-season studio week in East Timbuktu, you will only hear "crickets" anyhow, no matter where you choose to advertise.

Anyone can always advertise on Craigslist for free, but from that site you may well get inundated with inquiries from the clueless, insincere "tire kickers", bargain hunters / freebie seekers and / or the many outright scammers who consistently frequent that site. Personally, I have absolutely no time and no use for any of that --- time is money too!

To each their own, of course.


KC

Last edited by ken1193 on Jan 08, 2019 02:34 PM

Jan 09, 2019

FREE is the price I've been offering my two timeshare weeks at Vacation Village at Parkway, and I haven't even had a SINGLE inquiry.

I'm also very curious about the posts that make glowing claims about timeshare sales, because my experiences and a multitude of evidence about the lack of a market for timeshare resales demand careful scrutiny of the claims.

@Ken c.: Can you please give the dates, weeks, and prices of your successful timeshare resales?


Paul J.

Last edited by paul974 on Jan 09, 2019 07:30 AM

Jan 09, 2019

paul974 wrote:
@Ken c.: Can you please give the dates, weeks, and prices of your successful timeshare resales?

With all due respect, those details are none of your business. I will say that None of the (8 or so) resales yielded any "profit", but I never sought to "profit" from timeshares anyhow; we have owned (and still own a few) timeshare weeks to use them and enjoy them --- not to "flip" them. Timeshares are never good “financial investments”; their value really lies only in their use and enjoyment, The weeks were sold for just about what I had previously paid (all of the weeks were purchased only in the resale market, never directly from any developer). I usually "broke even" but sometimes lost a few hundred dollars when selling. In any event, all of the weeks sold with relative ease, since all were desirable weeks in locations and seasons of consistent demand.


KC

Last edited by ken1193 on Feb 25, 2025 05:25 AM

Jan 09, 2019

paul974 wrote:
....my experiences and a multitude of evidence about the lack of a market for timeshare resales demand careful scrutiny of the claims.

In my own 35+ years of timeshare ownership and experience, I have observed that there is always a market for high demand weeks in desirable locations during times of year where and when demand consistently exceeds supply. For low demand weeks and / or overbuilt locations however, all bets are off.

In overbuilt places like Orlando, FL or Branson, MO, there is a glut of timeshare properties and weeks and supply always far exceeds demand. Likewise for weeks on Cape Cod in the dead of New England winter.

I don't claim to know anything about Vacation Village at Parkway, or even where it's located, nor have you identified the specific week(s) you own there. Demand ultimately rules over all else. Also, fewer and fewer people "buy to trade" anymore, since RCI has become both increasingly expensive and woefully lacking in enough truly desirable inventory into which to "exchange". "Buying to trade" has essentially now become just a futile fool's errand, at least in my personal opinion.


KC

Last edited by ken1193 on Jan 09, 2019 03:26 PM

Jan 09, 2019

Vacation Village at Parkway is in Orlando. The MF are close to $1000 for a 2 BR lockout (2 one bd room units). They probably are the single largest depositor of Orlando timeshares in RCI and you can often get extra vacations for less than the cost of MF's ($700 or less per 2 BR unit sometimes as low as $300-$400). It's not a bad resort, it might even be a little nicer than average but property tax on Florida's timeshares are quite high driving up the MF's and there is such an oversupply of Orlando timeshares at least 70% of the year it's just hard.

Orlando is a really tough market for anything other than DVC and maybe some platinum HIlton and Marriott weeks.

If you have points and get 92,5000 or particularly good fixed weeks, it may be possible to find someone willing to accept an give away. Unfortunately there are many weeks where you would have to prepay a year or two's worth of MF;s plus pay the transfer if you want to find a new owner.


Tracey S.
Jan 09, 2019

Timeshares sold on eBay for $1 and probably there for the following reason: An owner has paid thousands of dollars to a company to take the timeshare off their hands, and the buyer pockets the money and then immediately posts the resale on eBay at the $1 price, thus pocketing a bundle with no real work.

Both eBay and craigslist can serve as additional advertising visibility, with ads on both sites referring potential customers to RedWeek where a broker does all the work to conduct the transaction.

Based on the low and practically non-existent resale activity on RedWeek, I have to assume that these additional advertising attempts are necessary to hook a buyer.


Paul J.

Last edited by paul974 on Jan 09, 2019 03:16 PM

Jan 09, 2019

paul974 wrote:
Both eBay and craigslist can serve as additional advertising visibility, with ads on both sites referring potential customers to RedWeek where a broker does all the work to conduct the transaction.

Based on the low and practically non-existent resale activity on RedWeek, I have to assume that these additional advertising attempts are necessary to hook a buyer.

I respectfully but strongly disagree. Fwiw, I have never used the broker services offered on RedWeek, nor have I ever advertised on either craigslist or eBay (and I frankly would never even consider doing so). I have no idea on what basis you conclude that there is "low and practically non-existent resale activity on RedWeek". With all due respect, it depends on what it is that you are trying to sell, as plainly addressed in the few preceding posts --- and it appears that you are seeking to part company with something of low demand in one of the "dime a dozen" areas of excessive timeshare property construction. Out of the 8 or so weeks I parted with, all but one was sold as a result of advertising on RedWeek --- and nowhere else. The other one was sold with no advertising at all, to a fellow owner at that particular resort.

Nonetheless, I wish you luck. You may well have to consider throwing in payment of the next maintenance fee bill and paying all closing costs and transfer fees yourself in order to entice someone to take over ownership of your timeshare in overbuilt Orlando --- even if otherwise FREE. It's all about demand.


KC

Last edited by ken1193 on Feb 25, 2025 05:43 AM

Jan 09, 2019

RedWeek notifies when resales occur, just as it does when new resales are posted.

Unfortunately, they don't report transaction history. There's a useless graph of going prices on a weekly basis, but no public information about time-on-market or time-to-sale.

ken1193 wrote:
paul974 wrote:
Both eBay and craigslist can serve as additional advertising visibility, with ads on both sites referring potential customers to RedWeek where a broker does all the work to conduct the transaction.

Based on the low and practically non-existent resale activity on RedWeek, I have to assume that these additional advertising attempts are necessary to hook a buyer.

I respectfully but strongly disagree. Fwiw, I have never used the broker services offered on RedWeek, nor have I ever advertised on either craigslist or eBay (and I frankly would not even consider doing so). I have no idea on what basis you conclude (erroneously, in my opinion and personal experience) that there is "low and practically non-existent resale activity on RedWeek". With all due respect, it depends on what it is that you are trying to sell, as plainly addressed in the few preceding posts --- and it appears that you are seeking to part company with something in one of the "dime a dozen" areas of excessive timeshare property construction. Out of the 10 specific weeks I individually identified above, all but one was sold as a result of advertising on RedWeek --- and nowhere else. The other one was sold with no advertising at all, to another owner at that resort.

Nonetheless, I wish you luck. You may well have to consider throwing in payment of the next maintenance fee bill and paying all closing costs and transfer fees yourself in order to entice someone to take over ownership of your timeshare in overbuilt Orlando --- even if otherwise FREE. It's all about demand.


Paul J.
Jan 10, 2019

paul974 wrote:
RedWeek notifies when resales occur, just as it does when new resales are posted.

Unfortunately, they don't report transaction history. There's a useless graph of going prices on a weekly basis, but no public information about time-on-market or time-to-sale.

With all due respect (and with 8 or so successful resales under my belt in recent years), I don't think you can blame RedWeek for the difficulty you are encountering trying to part company with a timeshare for which there is basically little (or no) resale market value or demand in the first place.

RedWeek doesn't actually know final resale transaction details, except for those resale transactions conducted "in house" by RedWeek-affiliated brokers as "full service" listings. Also bear in mind that a listing (or "asking") price is generally negotiable and usually not necessarily the final selling price. In my own successful resale transactions, there was actually no RedWeek involvement of any sort beyond RedWeek simply being the site on which I chose (and paid) to advertise my weeks.

In any event, good luck.


KC

Last edited by ken1193 on Feb 25, 2025 11:09 AM

Oct 20, 2021

Interested in knowing if anyone has any success in selling week 02 for a 2 bedroom lookoff and a 1 bedroom premiums in the Harborside at the Atlantis. If so, at what was your asking and sold price. How long did it take to sell?


Ed K.
Feb 17, 2025

Did you sell these by a chance? I’m looking there


Erika U.
Feb 24, 2025

I would like information on selling my timeshare

Grandview Las Vegas RCI All paid off All fees up to date


Cordilia E.
Feb 24, 2025

cordiliae wrote:
I would like information on selling my timeshare....All paid off....All fees up to date

That's definitely a good start as you would not even be able to give away a unit if there is a loan or maintenance fees owing. The next thing is to know what your unit is realistically worth on the resale market. For over 90% of them, the resale value is about zero dollars or less. So make sure what you can realistically expect to get.

The number one rule for selling or giving away a unit is to never, ever pay any one or party a large, upfront fee to sell, rent out, or "cancel" your timeshare. These companies that charge you for this are scams.

You can advertise your unit for sale here on RedWeek but you have to pay the membership fee (which is refundable depending on various circumstances) plus an advertising fee. Timeshare Users Group (aka "TUG") is also a good website to advertise that you want to sell or give your unit away.

Another option, if you come to the painful realization that your unit is worth about zero dollars, is to ask the resort's Homeowners' Association if they will take your unit back. They might charge a fee for this to cover closing costs and maybe the next maintenance fee but at least you know it will be a clean and final transfer.


Lance C.

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