05/06/2026
I never expected this to happen…
Even though I was a short-term rental expert, renting rooms in my own house, doing rental arbitrage on other peoples’ properties, and managing vacation rentals for busy landlords, all using Airbnb…I had no idea it would be so hard to help my friend rent his timeshare.
He told me that he’d purchased his timeshare over 20 years ago.
And in that time, he had never used it…not even once.
And now his wife was upset that they had been paying maintenance fees every year for something they weren’t even using, and she’d just given him an ultimatum: “Do something about it!”
So he came to me and said, “You know how to rent regular houses on Airbnb, do you think this will work on a timeshare too?”
To which I responded, “Sure! How hard can it be?!” So he added me to his deed and off I went.
But 2 years later, all I had learned was what NOT to do:
> Every time I tried to make a reservation, the timeshare told me the dates weren’t available.
> Even though I added the name of the guest to the reservation, the timeshare didn’t pass that information on to the resort. So I had to make a mad dash over to the resort and show my ID at the front desk, just so they would let my guest check-in.
> I advertised the timeshare on multiple websites at the same time. But I forgot to sync the calendars. Which led to getting a double booking, and I had to cancel one of them; ruining the guest’s trip, and my reputation as a reliable host. Ugh!
I must have made every mistake in the book, short of getting my Airbnb account shut down (luckily).
I eventually figured out how to navigate the timeshare’s rules and translate them into Airbnb, so I had a semi-decent system going.
But my other mistake was that I had promised to send my friend the rental proceeds from every booking, and just keep $100 for my efforts.
Because one day I suddenly got bombarded…
My Airbnb was blowing up with requests for one particular weekend. Demand was off the chart! And I discovered that there was an industry-insider event going on at a popular venue nearby.
Which kicked my entrepreneurial brain into gear and I decided to raise the nightly rate to see just how badly folks wanted to book those nights.
It turned out that I was able to charge 3 times what I normally charged for a regular night.
And when I sent my friend his check that month, his eyes popped! He said, “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it!”
Not only that, my husband (the skeptic) saw the size of the check I sent my friend and he told me, “I think we need to buy a timeshare!”
Talk about a “SHOW ME THE MONEY!” moment!
My friend’s wife was happy that their timeshare was paying for itself and producing a profit.
My friend was out of the dog house with his wife and had actually become her hero.
And that’s when I started thinking, “I wonder if any other timeshare owners would like to know how to rent their timeshare, but without the painful 2-year struggle of trial and error that I went through?”
And after teaching my timeshare rental strategies to hundreds of timeshare owners over the last 10 years, I’m proud of the fact that we have the industry-leading timeshare rental training center called the Timeshare Rental Academy--where we educate, equip and empower timeshare owners to rent their timeshare safely and profitably, so they can make money with their timeshare for as long as they own it, and even pass it on as an income-generating asset.
So if you (or anyone you know) struggles with staying ahead of paying your timeshare’s rising maintenance fees, I'm offering 5 people a free Timeshare Rental Strategy Session to start moving forward.
LMK below if I can be of service to you or someone you care about.
Hello!Please pick a time to schedule our live Zoom session that's convenient for you.Be sure to join from a laptop (not a phone) and bring note-taking material so I can give you my best advice on how to reach your timeshare income goals, based on your unique situation.Talk soon!Sue Hoyuela
