The unfortunate truth is that this is never the case. You’ll find Wyndham timeshare units on Ebay for pennies. Owners often would rather give their timeshare away, than continuing to make payments and pay maintenance fees.

A buyback is when the resort/developer buys back your timeshare unit. Sales reps often offer you a buyback in order to make you think the unit is worth more than it really is. When making any purchase, you like to feel that you got a great deal, right? This is yet another tool in the arsenal of commissioned sales reps. The sales reps will sometimes tell you that the developer will buy back your unit for the same, or even higher price. This is rarely true.

Many timeshare representatives will tell you to purchase now at extremely high rates, then to refinance later with your bank at a lower rate. This is simply a sales tactic, and is generally not possible.

Unfortunately, banks generally do not consider a timeshare unit as collateral. Timeshares do not hold much, if any, real value. There is nothing of real value for the bank to foreclose on, if in fact you stop paying on the loan.

Creating a false sense of urgency is the timeshare sales person’s favorite tactic. They tell you the deal is only good for a short period of time. Were you ever told that the deal offered to you was good for today only?

They may even offer you a military discount, or even a police officer discount. This discount is presented to you as a way to thank you for your service. The bottom line is that this is not a discount at all. They know full well the lowest price they will sell you a unit for today.

False sense of urgency is used in the upgrade process as well. “Upgrade your timeshare today in order to lower your maintenance fees,” they might say. “Upgrade your timeshare to get a better pick of weeks,” or “upgrade to get a better choice of locations.” It’s almost always surrounded by pressure to do this today.