When people are interested in purchasing a new home, one of the first things they think of is getting financed. This is great for buying a home if you don’t have the money up front, but timeshare financing is generally a bad idea to consider. The reason this is not such a good idea is the fact that the interest rates that the timeshare companies and developers offer are way too high. They are much higher than you would pay for a real mortgage and act more like unsecured loans. For the most part, timeshare loans will put your interest in the double digits. This is way too much for something that you are only going to be using a week or two each year.

Timeshares are really a luxury item; therefore, if you don’t have the cash on hand to purchase one, you should probably wait until you do. One reason is that the resale of a timeshare is almost always much lower than what you paid for it. In fact, in the resale market, many timeshares depreciate between 50-90%! So instead of financing your purchase while sitting at that timeshare presentation, you would be better off and save a lot more money by simply waiting and purchasing that resort on the resale market – where paying for it in cash makes a lot more sense.

Once you consider all the fees that you have to pay to maintain your timeshare and the fees that are involved with financing said timeshare, timeshare financing turns out to be one of the worst possible ways of spending your money. If you really want to get a timeshare, you should look into buying one that is up for resale and pay for it with the cash you have set aside for this purpose. About the only time I would consider financing was if I found a package of Worldmark points for sale that came with an assumable loan. But even in that case, you will want to consider it carefully. You can buy Worldmark credits for about a 25% discount if you pay cash for them in the resale market, so check the balance of any loan you are considering taking over to see if that discount is built into the pricing.

There are many companies out there that offer timeshare financing. These companies tout how easy it is to get financed through them and how great the rates are. While some of these companies’ rates do seem to be a bit attractive to first time buyers, you have to realize all the fees that you pay when you actually have purchased your timeshare. When you add in the finance payments and the interest rates that they say are so good, you would never be able to sell that timeshare for a decent price in order to make your money back on it.

If you don’t mind throwing all of your hard earned money away, then you can go ahead and get timeshare financing if you so desire. But if you have that kind of money to toss around, why not save a bit of it and just buy a resale timeshare instead of getting financed. While timeshares can be a great source of pleasure for individuals or families, there are enough fees that need to be paid regularly without adding a finance payment into the mix.