Understanding time-shares
| • | It's a good time to share |
| • | Ensure that time-share is what you really want |
Advertiser Staff and News Services
• Time-sharing, also known as vacation ownership, is the concept of owning a shared portion of a vacation condominium.
• Ownership is often like buying a fee-simple condominium, only the property is typically divided among 52 owners, each one owning a week of use. In other cases, buyers purchase credits for timeshare unit use exhausted over time.
• Intervals can be sold in various forms, including a fixed week every year or floating time that needs to be reserved in advance, sometimes within a particular season.
• Time-share intervals often may be exchanged for stays at other time-share properties or for different vacation needs, such as frequent-flier miles, hotel stays or cruises. Exchanges are typically based on a point system that assigns a value to a time-share unit depending on its location and demand. Exchanges are possible among time-share projects managed by different companies for additional fees.
• Owners pay annual maintenance fees and sometimes form ownership associations that operate boards with elected officers to govern property management.
• Operators say time-share property is not designed to be a real estate investment, but rather as a way to fix cost and availability of a vacation unit that can be rented, exchanged, saved, sold or bequeathed.
• Financial institutions typically offer five- to 10-year loans for time-share purchases.
• The time-share concept was established in the 1960s and today has more than 3 million owners at about 4,100 resorts in 81 countries. Florida has the most time-share resorts (363).
• In 1994, worldwide time-share sales reached a record 560,000 intervals for $4.76 billion.
• More than 2 million time-share owners live in North America, where the industry has become the fastest-growing segment in the U.S. travel and tourism business.
• The average age of a time-share owner is 55.
• Nearly one-third of time-share owners own multiple-week intervals.
• The average time-share visitor in Hawai'i had a household income of $89,000 in 1999, stayed 11.2 days, spent $2,608 per trip and was part of a three-person party.
• Hawai'i time-share visitors made $287 million in direct expenditures in 1999.
• The time-share industry in Hawai'i generated $41 million in 1999 tax revenues, including $2.8 million from the transient accommodation tax.
Sources: American Resort Development Association; KPMG
