If you want to put your own timeshare up for rent, the internet makes this much easier than it used to be. Once upon a time, if you couldn’t find a friend, family member or co-worker to use your week, then you would probably just have to settle for depositing your timeshare with one of the exchange companies like RCI and Interval International.
Now though, it is fairly easy to list your week on various timeshare rental sites and for some folks, they would much rather do this than ever bother with ever doing an exchange. If you own a valuable week in a popular destination, you can often recoup not only your maintenance costs, but you may even turn a profit.
When I decide to rent my timeshare, usually I would first turn to some of my favorite message boards. For my Disney timeshare, I can usually find another owner who wants to rent my DVC point on the DVC forum at the Disboards. They have a Rent/Trade board that you can use for free.
There’s also the TUG forum, which is the Timeshare Owners Group. If you are a member with TUG, you can take advantage of their Rent/Trade classifieds section to list your week there. It’s free with your membership and yearly membership is pretty cheap.
If you are a member of a particular timeshare program, such as Wyndham or Worldmark, then it pays to look for owners forums. You will often find that the easiest person to rent your points, credits or week to is another timeshare owner who owns within the same program or at another resort. So let Google be your friend here and try and find an owners forum for any of the timeshares that you own.
Failing that, other useful places to post timeshares available for rental are Ebay, Craigslist and sites like RedWeek, which is specifically set up for owners to offer their resorts for rent. Many owners have great success with Ebay and Redweek because both systems allow for user feedback. Craigslist, in my opinion, is a bit more iffy, but if you have local timeshare (within a few hours drive of home), then I think it is often worth using Craiglist to find another local resident who prefers to vacation within a day’s drive.
What do to when you have someone who wants to Rent your Timeshare
Once you find a party interested in renting your timeshare, you’ll want to make sure that the transaction proceeds smoothly.
I would strongly recommend getting 100% of the payment for the week upfront. But failing that, I would at least get a 50% deposit. If you are securing the rental far in advance of the vacation dates, you can always ask for 50% deposit and then completion of payment within 30 days of the rental date.
You also want to get a signed rental agreement and a copy of the primary renter’s driver’s license. This is basically the same information that any hotel requires before you can check-in, so no one should balk at this and if they do, don’t rent to them.
Rental agreements can be picked up at most stationary stores, or you can probably find one to download online if you want something specific to timeshare rentals.
Once you have paperwork and money in hand, it is a good idea to confirm things with the resort. You don’t want any problems when your guest arrives to check-in. I would also call them a few days before arrival to make sure things have not changed.
And finally, this is up to you, but I strongly recommend a security deposit. Ultimately you are responsible for anything that happens to your timeshare, whether you are there or not. A security deposit helps insure that your guests don’t trash the place or decide to make off with some of the kitchen cutlery. Even $100-200 security deposit can be a nice deterrent and it gives you some peace of mind as well. You can arrange to reimburse it within a few weeks of the check-out date.