Avoid Astronomical Maintenance Fees in Your Timeshare
June 19th, 2008 Avoid Astronomical Maintenance Fees in Your Timeshare On paper, timeshares look very cheap as property costs are relatively low. But then again, while the initial cost may be inexpensive, you have to look at other fees, especially maintenance costs. These are used to do the little things that make your vacation a more worthwhile experience: they cut the lawn and maintain the interior. Homeowners know that doing these themselves will wreck the vacation and with the corporations aware of this, one cannot avoid it taking money from your pocket. This is important as no one wants to find his/her unit trashed by the previous user, with dirty carpets, broken windows and whatnot. The reason why there are maintenance costs in the first place is to fix these inconveniences and make the client�s vacation as wonderful and smooth as possible. These fees also include property tax and the insurance and electricity bills, so as to take off unnecessary burden on your part. Estimating the Fees For one to estimate the maintenance fees of the corporation (because they don�t give them out), one has to know what amenities will be served by the corporation. Of course, this will vary, ranging from merely hundreds to back-breaking thousands every year. At times, location is a part of this fee depending on the fluctuations of demand. For example, a resort from Acapulco is substantially cheaper than in California. So it�s important that not only should you do your homework on what possible costs you may incur when you�re vacationing, you also have to flat-out ask the company on what extra charges, which come from extra services, that you have to pay to the corporation. So when you are about to sign on those dotted lines, you have to be clear first on what maintenance fees that you may pay when you�re lounging around under the caress of the sun. Do What You Have To Do Another important aspect that you must take into heart is that you should fix your budget before investing in a timeshare property. In doing this, one must have enough market savvy to estimate the extra fees that may come your way. For instance, if you pay around $2000 a month, then you�ll have to pay half of that for maintenance. So to speak, allocate that much money for these types of costs so that you will never have to sweat when you get that bill. If you can�t take the maintenance fees two or three years after you�ve bought the property, you have to option to resell it. There are a lot of companies that try to find people who are willing to find people who are trying to resell their timeshares. You may find them on the World Wide Web. If you�re planning to keep the timeshare property for a few good years, then it�s important that you finance your timeshare. Make sure that you pay in cash as there will be extra tax if you don�t; they also range pretty high when it comes to fees, so keep that in mind. Not only will long-term planning will save you some dough, paying it in cash will strip more unnecessary costs. In a nutshell, if you want to avoid immense maintenance and miscellaneous fees on your tab, make sure that you do your homework on timeshare properties and don�t forget the basics of budgeting: pay it in cash and think of the long haul.