When you financially strip down timeshares, they certainly are not as attractive or as sexy at first blush. If you take away all the trappings like the exotic locales, the seemingly low cost per vacation and the over-friendly salespeople, you potentially take on a growing financial burden that may last your entire life. Even if you are considering a resale timeshare for a low upfront fee, be sure to figure out how much it may cost you in the future.

One of the strongest selling points used by the timeshare sales person is to say that a timeshare enables a family to enjoy the kind of vacation that under normal circumstances they would most likely be unable to afford. The timeshare industry wants timeshares to be seen as the most practical way to vacation. The amount paid upfront and the annual maintenance fees are both sold as nothing more than an “investment” that will inevitably save you money down the line.

There is a downside for this access. You must prepay for your time at the resort without first using the resort. Can you imagine buying a car that way? The average amount needed to be paid upfront was $19,000 in 2007 according to ARDA, the American Resort Development Association. To make a timeshare cost effective, you’ll need to use it a number of times. Use it ten times and the per vacation cost drops to $1,900. In order to reduce the cost to $1,000 per week, you and your family or friends needs to visit 19 times over 19 years.

But will you use it 19 times? If you end up using it once or twice, that $19,000 seems awfully steep for a week or two of decent vacation. What could you have gotten for $19,000 on one vacation? You’d have servants, 24-hour care, a butler, a limo driver, a personal chef…you get the idea.

It’s true that you can bypass buying a timeshare directly from a developer and instead buy on the resale market; here you can find a timeshare for far less than if you were to buy it “new.” Even if there were no cost to start, you would still have to pay maintenance fees which are now averaging $6oo annually. Of course, $600 does not seem overly expensive for a week of resort living.

Although $600 a year might sound like a good deal, what if that amount doubled or tripled? Maintenance fees must be paid annually whether you go to the resort that year or not. So, by missing a few years, the cost per vacation week increases by $600 for every year missed. The $600 could easily be higher as maintenance fees continuously rise. The timeshare bargain before now seems like a long way away.

While some owners may still pay $1,200 to $1,800 for a great vacation with great family & friends every two to three years, adding these totals to the prorated upfront cost ($19,000) would cause any owner significant concern. Yet, there is one final fee that is often overlooked — the special assessment. This fee can be instituted almost at will by the timeshare developers onto unsuspecting timeshare owners.

So, vacationers are looking to renting timeshare units instead of owning with the amount of prepaid and pre-scheduled fees. Developers are happy to oblige. With more and more owners absent each year, the same vacant units provide additional revenue streams to the maintenance & special assessment fees. But is it fair to the owners who receive none of the rental income?

Paying thousands of dollars upfront and having to fork out for maintenance and special assessment fees every year is not a financially-savvy way to vacation. Paying for a timeshare unit can turn out to be a lot like paying for a gym membership; just because you are paying to use a facility doesn’t mean that you are actually going to use it.