House & Home Articles

Create Your Dream Vacation With a Timeshare

Are you looking for a vacation home? If you're at that point in your life where you've begun to consider purchasing a vacation home or property, you might think about purchasing a timeshare. These vacation properties are convenient, budget-friendly alternatives to renting a hotel every time you travel. With timeshares you can secure prepaid, weeklong accommodations at the resort of your choice. And you can find timeshares for sale for a fraction of the cost of other lodging options when you buy resale.

Consider the cost of owning a second home in the vacation destination of your choice. Not only would you incur the great initial cost of the property purchase, but you'd also be responsible for local property taxes and maintenance costs. Now, with your busy lifestyle you'd probably only be able to spend a week or two at your property; meaning the rest of the year it would sit unused and wasted. Because you own the property, you're still paying for that unused time. Wouldn't it be nice if you could pay only for what you use? With a timeshare, you can.

Timeshares allow you to share the cost of a vacation home among multiple owners. You'll divide annual or biennial usage, ownership and maintenance expenses. With so many owners pitching in, the cost of your unit will be reduced significantly, while at the same time your suite will generally be larger and better equipped than a hotel room of similar pricing.

Additionally, a timeshare will afford you with the flexibility to travel to hundreds of different locales, rather than to the same vacation home over and over again. Contrary to popular understanding, timeshares are actually very flexible, it's estimated that some 70% of timeshare owners have used their property to travel to a destination other than their home resort.

There are institutions in place to ensure that you'll be able to use your timeshare to travel the world. First, you can choose to purchase time with a vacation club like Bluegreen, Hyatt or Marriott. Ownership at one of these resorts generally grants owners access to all of them. However, these resorts tend to be more expensive than other options, and in some cases, restrictions apply. Marriott, for example, will not allow owners to participate in their points program (which allows for travel within the network) if the was purchased resale.

As an alternative to purchasing time with a vacation club, you can choose to buy a property that is affiliated with an exchange company like RCI or Interval International. These companies network with resorts all over the world. Membership with one of them will give owners the opportunity to trade their time at their home resort with time anywhere in the network. Resorts don't sell timeshare with membership, but you can find resale timeshares that include these memberships.