How Much is my Timeshare Worth?

Unfortunately, the sad reality for many timeshare owners is that their timeshare is worth significantly less than what they originally paid.  Timeshares simply do not hold their value or generally do not appreciate in value.  Despite many timeshares being a real property interest, they are vastly different than owning a house or vacation property.

The fact that most if not all timeshares decrease in value scares away a lot of potential purchasers.  My argument is that timeshares can be tremendously valuable for traveling even if the owner never recoups their initial investment. 

In other posts, I argue that the purchase price for any timeshare should be looked at as an initiation fee for ownership.  Like country club memberships, the initiation fee generally cannot be recouped.  Despite this pitfall, timeshares are great for traveling and can easily make financial sense if you know how to maximize their value. 

While timeshares may not be worth anything close to what you paid, the next logical question is finding out how much it is worth. Timeshare values can vary widely and there is not a good secondary market to access any value.

However, one of the most efficient marketplaces to access value of all sorts of things is actually Ebay.  Ebay is one of the largest marketplaces that links buyers to sellers and the prices paid for items gives a fairly good indication of the fair market value.  Prices can vary on ebay due to the quality of the listing, keywords, ratings of the sellers and so on but generally, this should give you a good indication of the current market value of your timeshare.

You should note that you should not just do a regular search on ebay for your timeshare.  You can do so but just because someone is trying to sell their timeshare for $25,000 does not mean that it is actually worth $25,000.  In order to access the current fair market value, you will need to do a search for “sold listings”.  Here is a step by step process for you to review with associated pictures. 

1. ​Sign in to your ebay account
2. Click on the “advanced” tab as shown below. 
​3. Enter the keyword – generally the name of your resort or name of the timeshare system (i.e. Hyatt, Marriott, Wyndham, etc. or Hyatt Wild Oak or Marriott Lakeshore Reserve)
4.  Enter the category “Real Estate”
5.  Click the “Sold Listings” box as shown above.
6. Click Search
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​As shown below, you can see what various resorts sold for.  The amount can vary widely so just because one listing sold for a lot or a little does not mean that it is actually the fair market value. 

I have done a search for "Hyatt" and "Marriott" just to give you an idea on how the results look. 

I think that Ebay is a great way to access the fair market value of your timeshare but it is not the only way to get a good indication of the value of your timeshare on the secondary market.  There are plenty of timeshare brokers or real estate agencies that may be able to give you a better indication on price. 

However, be warned that many of these companies will give you a high value and try to entice you to pay an upfront fee for a listing.  This is almost never a good idea. 

In other posts, we can go through various methods to potentially sell your timeshare but I think Ebay is good starting point to get a better handle on your timeshares worth.

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