HawthorneVillager.com

In general the contracts are very biased in favour of seller. If you do sign up make sure to triple check all numbers and do not believe any oral promises. Insist what you agree on be put in writing. They will price timeshare based on what you can afford. Seriously. I've seen final offers like 10% of initial offers (as long as you are interested price and perks keep dropping). Act like you want it but something just came up and you will be short next couple years.

My parents had one and enjoyed it and I went to a couple sales pitches out of curiosity (its funny, read a couple books for salespeople then sit back and watch the show).

Be very careful of maintenance. Many great looking tim$e shares have become run down and skyrocketing fees.

Also if interested in a share I'd strongly recommend the resale/used market. Many people trying to get out of timeshares will sell cheap and much less pressure.

It's just my personal taste, but I hate the idea of going to the same place for vacation every year. Kind of cuts into the fun of seeing new places.

Before you buy a time share, i'd recommend you look into Fractional Ownership. I think that is a much better concept.

My grandparents bought a timeshare when they retired and loved it. They weren't limited to going to one location which was nice. Anywhere the company owned condos was fair game for a vacation, and there were locations all over the world.

We've bought their weeks a few times and really enjoyed ourselves. We did get roped into a sales pitch by a competing company and it was one of the worst experiences of my life.

My parents and my husband and I are considering buying it from my grandmother. I think if you can use it regularly it's probably worth it....

I had a pretty bad experience getting the 'hard sell' at Carriage Hills Resort up in Barrie (@Horseshoe). What a joke! I really loved the time when the lady clearly saw I was starting to lose interest and she told me (in front of my wife) why am I trying to deprive her of nice things. LOL!

I love the 'buy now, or all of this bonus stuff will go away, we have lawyers standing by!'

I think they were offering 2 weeks or something like that for 26K. I googled on my blackberry units for sale and someone was trying to offload theirs for 7K. Nice investment!

Wife and I were looking into it a few years ago and decided against it. You can get them on re-sale for 15-20K with a decent property.

My main problem and the reason we decided against it had to do with the fact that you had to pay extra for airfare and food. You can easily go to a 5 Star all inclusive for less. In many cases, the timeshares are in some of the same resorts.

you can get a good deal if you look for a resale of timeshares. Lots of people do it. Not sure if RCI is still around, they worked as a "bank" of timeshares.