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Timeshare Maintenance Fees - Know The Maintenance Fees Before Buying A Timeshare
By admin | February 14, 2008
While buying a timeshare can be a benefit in terms of money saved on vacationing, there is more to timeshares than the initial cost. There are maintenance fees. This seems fairly straightforward. After all, as every homeowner knows, there is always grass to cut or windows to insulate or any of those annoying but somehow essential jobs.
The point of having a timeshare is to have fun, not to be fretting about dirty carpets caused by other owners of your timeshare or leaking windows or any other unpleasant maintenance issue. You don’t want to have to worry about getting basic maintenance done. You want peace of mind knowing that the timeshare is well kept, the furnishings and carpets are clean and in good repair, the property taxes (some states do require owners be billed separately for property tax) and insurance are paid, and utilities such as cable television, phone and electricity are up to date.
A maintenance fee can vary depending on essential elements of the timeshare such as location, how big the unit is, and the amenities involved. Maintenance fees can range from a couple of hundred dollars a year to a couple of thousand a year. Location frequently makes a big difference in what you will pay. For example, a timeshare on a Southern California beach will generally have a higher maintenance fee than one on a Cape Cod beach, but it pays to shop around because you may find a deal.
Usually the deal is fairly straightforward and you can see what you are getting for your maintenance fee. For instance, multiple swimming pools, tennis courts and free wi-fi might add more to the fee than merely grass cutting and keeping the place tidy.
What you need to do is watch out for things like “special assessments” that are added to your fees, especially if you are buying a timeshare on the resale market. Owners who can‘t afford a special assessment for severe hurricane damage will often try to resell their timeshare before the fee comes due. That only means you‘ll have to pay it.
Make sure that all elements are clearly understood and that any special additions to the maintenance fees are covered in your contract before you sign on the dotted line. While special assessments are a frequent fact of life over the long-term, you don’t want to end up paying one from the first year you buy a timeshare. There’s plenty of resale opportunities that don’t have one attached and well-managed timeshares may never have one at all, as money should be put aside yearly to provide for large projects and emergencies.
There is something that you also need to think about and think about seriously. That is the incidental costs of buying a timeshare. Consider this. You buy a timeshare for $12,000 and think, great, this will let me vacation for 12 years at $1,000 a year or even less depending on how long you own it for, no problem, because your budget is just enough to handle that.
Then the maintenance fees kick in and suddenly you are paying $500 a year for upkeep on your timeshare. Suddenly your budget for vacation has increased substantially. While this might be a good deal in terms of maintaining your exotic timeshare, you need to know just how well your budget can handle the incidental expenditures of timeshare ownership.
If you decide to finance your timeshare, you also need to consider the added cost of interest which can inflate your timeshare purchase by several thousand dollars if you are financing for 5-10 years. It is better to use cash for buying a timeshare, but if you do need to finance the purchase, try and minimize the cost by only financing for a couple of years.
Most timeshares bought on resale at places like eBay are a significant discount over retail rates from developers, so paying cash is an attainable goal. That $12,000 timeshare you were considering buying from the developer may cost as little as $6,000 on eBay, frequently it will be even less. Timeshares can be discounted as much as 75% on the resale market.
Emma Martin is a proud owner of both Royal Holiday Club and Disney Vacation Club.
For a great deal on timeshares, consider buying a timeshare resale. You can buy an Orlando timeshare for far less than the developer’s price.
Tags: buying a timeshare, timeshares on ebay
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Topics: Travel and Leisure |