Timeshares Resales Booming

While many areas of the economy are taking a beating, timeshare sales and timeshare resales are strong. In a study released last week by the American Resort Development Association (ARDA), research prepared by Ernst & Young, LLP, shows that sales of new timeshares increased by 6 percent in 2007 over the previous year, totaling $10.6 billion in the US alone. Although gains were less than in previous years, the sale of new timeshare from 2003 to 2007 has increased by an amazing 66 percent.

Howard Nusbaum, ARDA president and CEO, says, "The continued growth of the timeshare industry in today's economy is a direct indication of strong consumer satisfaction and demand. Vacation ownership, with its flexibility and spacious accommodations, continues to be a preferred travel choice for American families."

Jason Tremblay, CEO of SellMyTimeshareNOW.com, a company that averages more than $1 million per day in offers received for timeshare resales and rentals, explains, "As good as the numbers sound for the sale of new timeshares, the report doesn't mention the huge segment of the timeshare industry that deals with timeshare resales, and that side of the business is really booming."

Information on the numbers of people buying resale timeshare is limited because the secondary market includes individual timeshare owner transactions as well as sales consummated by traditional industry specialists. In 2005, 7.2 percent of buyers bought timeshare from an existing owner, according to an ARDA profile of vacation owners. While this indicates a resale industry in the hundreds of millions of dollars, these figures are very conservative, as the survey did not include alternative sales methods such as the Internet.

Tremblay's company has built a mammoth business providing online advertising and marketing services for timeshare owners who wish to sell or rent their timeshares or vacation club memberships. SellMyTimeshareNOW.com saw offers to buy or rent resale timeshare increase in number by 135 percent year over year from May 2007. This translates to $37,979,158 received in May 2008 in in-bound offers to buy resale timeshares or rent timeshare from the current owner.

"SellMyTimeshareNOW.com now averages 2 million visitors per month to our website; that's a 22 percent increase over last year at this time. In 2007, we presented $274 million dollars in offers to timeshare owners for the purchase or rental of their timeshares, which tells you that people not only enjoy timeshares, but they especially enjoy buying them at the resale price," says Tremblay.

As of January 2008, 4.7 million people in the US owned 6.5 million timeshare weekly intervals or the equivalent in points. There were 180,158 timeshare units in the US, as of January 2008, with an additional 8,000 units under construction during this year.