Are you the owner of a timeshare? If so, the next time you are negotiating for needed services, or possibly some home repairs, here’s a good question to ask, “Would you be interested in staying at ABC timeshare-resort in return for a portion or all of your bill?”

Your timeshare offer “providing vacation accommodations” makes for an excellent barter tool. One recent trade we learned about was an owner who exchanged a two-week booking in Hawaii for $5,400 of needed dental work. Both parties were happy with the trade.

Out-of-pocket costs for the owner’s two weeks included the maintenance fee’s of $800 ($400 each week), the RCI exchange fees of $149 per week, and a $49 charge for the RCI guest certificate’s…a total of $1,147.

Timeshares can be acquired for cash or barter very inexpensively on the resale market. Hence, the annual cash outlay for this trading tool is basically the cost of maintenance fees and taxes.

Many examples of barter leverage is available in the BarterNews FastStart Program: Leverage

This entry was posted on Saturday, February 16th, 2008 at 6:12 am and is filed under Entrepreneurs & Small Business, Real Estate. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.