Ep. 076 - Should Christians Buy Timeshares? A Stewardship Perspective

Episode Transcript

Austin
If you've ever been pitched a timeshare by a salesman while on vacation, you might think that this is a good opportunity for a guaranteed annual trip. As stewards, we need to carefully consider if these long term contracts are wise uses of the money that the Lord has entrusted with us.

Spencer
Austin, we're going to start today with a quiz. Association. What do all of these have in common; getting a tattoo, taking marital vows, joining the Mafia and timeshares?

Austin
Oh, that's a good one. You're in it for life.

Spencer
You're in it for life!

Austin
Yes.

Spencer
With that framing. Let's talk timeshares today. And what the implications are as we think about how we steward God's resources with respect to vacations and opportunities like timeshares.

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. And I think really, as we frame this, we have to come back to this idea that as Christians, we need to remember that we are simply pilgrims here on this earth. And I was recently reading Money, Possessions and Eternity; and Randy Alcorn suggests the more holdings we have on Earth, the more likely we are to forget that we're citizens of another world.
Not this one, and that our inheritance lies there, not here. Pilgrims are unattached. And so I think about some of those lifelong vows that we can make. We make our marital vows. It is to a person, an individual that we choose that we are going to spend the rest of our lives with. I think about some of the vows that you take as a missionary or joining a religious order.
You're saying, hey, I am going to vow to serve the Lord for as long as my life shall live. He may call me other places, but I want to make that vow to the Lord that I'm going to serve him and him alone. Timeshares are a contract that you make with a company that is totally dissimilar to those, because it's saying I am contractually obligated in my place to or myself to a specific place and time.
And I think about 1 Peter 2:9-12 here, but you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the [sic] that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people.
Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh which wage war against your soul, and keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evil doers, that they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.
And I think the reality here is, as we look at this, we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for God's possession. We are to show that we are a people for his possession, that we are not, enchained to this world and tied to this world, that as pilgrims we live in unattached life to the stuff that God places in our hands.
We come back over and over and over again that God owns it all. That we are his stewards. We are simply managing his resources on his behalf, as though it would be the best end benefit for him. So I think we come back to that framing when we think about timeshares, because a timeshare, it's a contractual obligation that I am making between myself and a physical place that is for my life.
Most of these contracts are written in such a way that is incredibly difficult to get out of them, and the companies make it very challenging, whether it's to sell the shares back or to get out of it. It's just really challenging. And so I think we come back to this framing of God owns it all. We are stewards and we're pilgrims.
We're simply sojourners on this earth. Because we want to have an unattached lifestyle. We want to keep our hands open to whatever God may say.

Spencer
So as we think about timeshares, you know, one of the things that I think makes them so attractive sometimes is you go to a place first time, you have a great time there. It's a wonderful experience. You've never been there and you think, okay, well, what if I could do this and it could be more inexpensive and I could, I could be consistent in it.
So there is this sense that there are some pulls on us that would be positive towards stewardship. You know, one being potentially it's more economical. We do both value that sense of place. And so, you know, going back to the same place, you know, there's, there's some benefits to that, even relationships that could be developed.
But then there's these trade offs, you know, that we're talking about here in terms of the attachments. So as we think about this, how does this differ from maybe some of the other paths or some of the other benefits that we would say if we just don't attach ourselves here?

Austin
Yeah, absolutely. Well, and I think you bring up a really excellent point. And the idea of place is really important. And I think about our family and where I grew up every year going and visiting my grandparents in Nashville. We lived in Fort Worth. We would drive every year, sometimes 2 or 3 times a year, to come and visit them in Nashville.
And so vacations were often centered around a place where my grandparents were, where my family was from. But I think there's oftentimes other connections that we can have to place, whether it is a beach resort or a mountain that we go to that I think we can look and see being this is a wonderful place. I love spending time here.
I get to go back and see the same things, and my kids get to see the same things, and they get to experience a life where they understand that the world is maybe bigger than themselves, but they still can see, oh, I remember this, and I have fond memories of this, and I think that's a beautiful thing. And I think we can create those memories without having to attach ourselves to one exact location, one exact space and time.
And I think when we take a step back and think about what actually is a timeshare, it is a contractual obligation that you're making between yourself and a vacation property or a group of properties where, in exchange for an initial investment plus ongoing investment, you get access to the property. And so I think it's not necessarily the place anymore that becomes sacred per se.
It's the okay, now it's the vacation that becomes sacred. And I think if we come back and take a step back and say, okay, am I going back because I love the place or because the amenities are nice? I've already paid for it. And so I think that's the difference that we need to start thinking about is how do we actually think about this?
Is it a place where I can go and experience the rest of God and the shalom of God, the restoration of all things? Or am I bound to this one spot on earth where I have to vacation for the next 50 years for me to make it economically viable?

Spencer
Well, that's an interesting thing because our lives change over that time. We don't know what the next 50 years might hold. Of course, we don't know what the next year might hold. But particularly you talking about that, if you have a family, you go through different seasons, and sometimes if you have a young family, it will be a perfect place, you know, for you where you go, you'll have this amazing experience.
But as kids get older, they may not have that same perspective, or their activities may preclude them from being able to go at that same time of year or with those same people or whatever it might be. And so we really, I think, have to be careful whether it is with a timeshare or a vacation club or, you know, any kind of really agreement that we just don't know what the future might hold.
Maybe for the next 3 or 4 years, we have a better sense that this would be a good direction. But beyond that, you know, there's so many different things that could come up that could, you know, mean that we can't go a particular time of year or that it's just not the right spot anymore.

Austin
Well, I think the, the big difference between maybe buying a vacation home and having a timeshare is that with a timeshare, it's purely a contractual agreement. You have no ownership say, on the property. You still have the maintenance and the HOA fees and property taxes that you have to pay a portion of every year. You still get access to the property one week a year or two weeks a year, but you have no ownership stake.
You are limited in what you can do. You are limited in the times that you can go. Whereas if I were to purchase a vacation home, I'm still tied to the place. But there's a little bit more flexibility. If in 3 to 5 years I realize, oh, this was not for me. I can sell the place. Whereas with a timeshare it's not the same.
There's not as much of an entry exit. And so even I would say as we think about stewardship, as we think about, okay, how am I taking vacations? Am I resting with the Lord as I'm doing those, as we've talked about before? Does a timeshare make sense? Does it make sense to buy a vacation home, or does it just make sense to every year on year, say, okay, where do we want to spend this summer?
Where do we want to spend this week as a family? And I think whether it's a timeshare or vacation home, you really have to consider the stewardship implications of either of those, because you're storing up a significant amount of capital in either of those places where maybe an annual vacation isn't as expensive.

Spencer
Right. And really, I think ownership of a home or a condo or whatever it might be, you're steward of that. So there are implications for even how we utilize that. So, if you own a piece of property and it's only utilized, you know, a small fraction of the year, the stewardship element there, those questions really have to be raised there, too, because we've seen people that own multiple homes and they make them available for ministry in some amazing ways throughout the entirety of the year.
But there is a cost to that. There is a financial cost, but there is also a time cost that is tremendous for a lot of these folks so that you really can't get away from. So I think we are drawn in this direction because we have this amazing experience. Maybe we even have it over multiple years and we think, okay, how can I not miss out on this amazing experience?
Well, I can choose my own destiny, maybe, you know, and be able to purchase a property or purchase a timeshare, but that is really illusory to what we're going for, which is this experience of rest, because oftentimes what that will actually do is increase the amount of work that we have to do relative to the rest that we desire.
We fear missing out. And so we try to create that level of certainty. And at the end of the day, the time, the expense, it, the trade off is a poor trade off so often.

Austin
You know, and I think the reality here is these timeshare presentations, they often come when you're really enjoying the space. They either front load it where you haven't experienced the pain of a week at the location, or it's maybe a couple weeks after where the vacation was great and you still kind of have this memory of me, and that was a wonderful thing.
And now I'm being pitched this opportunity to go back, and I think we need to look back on human history and even look back to the Exodus story. And when Israel left Egypt, they remembered how poorly it was. They remembered how bad it was. But then a couple of years go by and then they look back and they were like, Egypt was so much better.
And I think we have a propensity to always look back on times before and say, man, wasn't it so much better when we were at the timeshare, at the vacation house, at this, that or the other? And so we elevate those places in our minds. And so like you're saying, if they have this beautiful idyllic picture,
then we're not really thinking about the trade offs there. And I think that's what we really need to come back to is as I think about this, if God owns it all and we are his managers, would God want me to tie up his money in a lifetime contract that is incredibly difficult to exit? If I think about it in that way, probably doesn't. And if I pull it back even a step further.
And I think that as stewards, we have to think every dollar spent in one way is a dollar that cannot be spent in another. So it's essentially the essential economic opportunity cost. So if I think about the uses of money; live, give, owe debt, owe taxes and grow, well, if I take $25,000 to spend on the down payment of a timeshare contract,
which is kind of maybe on the lower side of things. Well, that $25,000, I can't utilize it to save. I can't utilize it to give. If I have debts to pay off, I can't utilize it to pay off my debt. If I don't have the $25,000. Then I could take out a loan to get the $25,000. But then it puts me more in debt.

Spencer
Right. Well, and then you've also got the ongoing expenses, which you're really committing, let's just say if it's $5,000, you're committing $5,000 to go back to this place for a week every year for the rest of your life. Inflation adjusted because they will increase the cost, you know, on that annually. Unless you have an incredibly unusual contract.
So we have all of those pieces and then we've got really language that if we dive in, we're not going to understand as much as we'd probably like to. And there are so many different gotchas. You know, for instance, one one quick example. My wife's family would go to Atlantic Beach, North Carolina every year, and her grandparents had access to a timeshare there.
They had bought in. Well, that timeshare was fantastic for a number of years. But as the years went on and they aged, they weren't as interested in going and couldn't always find someone to use the timeshare. Well, then fast forward a few more years, and the location itself went through a period where there are a number of different storms and about three fourths of the units in the original place were destroyed.
So now there was no real availability there, and it wasn't connected well enough within the legal contract to other timeshares to give them much access. So you're strapped to this facility that has very limited availability that you don't really want to go to, and you end up paying an attorney to help you get out of it. So it's just, we've never seen a situation or we've very, very rarely seen, I should say, a situation where this works beyond, say, the first ten years.

Austin
And I think that's what you really need to consider, if you have a short time horizon and you really like this place, let's, let's really dial in and say, let's consider the trade offs. These are long contracts. Are you willing to both bear the initial upfront risk and the long tail risk? If you love this thing, then okay, let's have a conversation.
But let's really, really think about this with stewardship. I think about our life over the last 10 or 15 years and that we've moved from Denver back to Knoxville. Our children started off as very young children, and now they're in their middle years. They are in middle grades and late elementary. What they liked to do when they were two is not the same thing that they like to do now that they're 10, 12.
And so, you know, I think about this, is life changes a lot. If the Lord were to call us to go somewhere else and I'm bound to this contract, I really have to think, was this a wise decision as a steward?

Spencer
Well, and you think about all the different interests that your kids or that you could get into, you know, in five years and ten years, there are so many things that I'm doing now, including CrossFit, you know, that I wasn't doing, you know, five years ago, that life changes and we don't know what, what things might be ahead, but I'm just even thinking, you know, ten years ago, Emily and I had not thought about all of the trips that we wanted to take to the national parks that we, decided to take the kids to, and trying to kind of hit a big national park every year.
Well, if we locked in ten years ago to a timeshare, then, you know, 3 or 4 years thereafter when we start to have this idea and we're like, hey, let's get to, you know, Zion, then let's get to, you know, Acadia and let's get to the Grand Canyon and all these different places. Wonderful. But there's not one, facility at least, or one time share, to my knowledge, that would allow you to go all these different places because each one of these national parks, they have their own, different set up, and they have, they're governed in different ways.
And they have, you know, different options of where you could stay around them and such. It's not an easy path, if things might change and you might say, oh, actually, well, we were going to go to Yellowstone this year, but now we're going to pause this year and we're going to go somewhere else, you know, like what we're doing the summer.
So, it's, it's really there are so many different factors to it.

Austin
Absolutely. Well Spencer as I come back and I think about where do we go with timeshares, I think the, the dual tension that we face is we are pilgrims on this earth. And every decision we need to make, we have to consider the eternal impact. Where does this fall into this idea of that, that God owns at all? That we are his stewards?
Am I treating this place like it is my forever home, or am I treating this place like I am unattached to this place? And so at the end of the day, we really need to hold those two things in tension. Am I a pilgrim? And am I a pilgrim who is a steward of the Lord's gifts? Or am I trying to make my short time on this earth all about me and myself and what I'm going to want the most?
And I think as we wrestle with that, we come back to, does a timeshare make sense? In most situations, we would say no. In others we say, hey, let's really consider the trade offs before we enter into this. Clients, if you want to talk to us about what does it look like to vacation well, to steward that time that God gives you to rest,
we would love to talk with you about it. And until next time, we'll see you again. If you found this episode valuable, share it with a friend and subscribe on your favorite podcast platform so that you don't miss the next episode.

Disclosure
This content was provided by Second Half Stewardship. We are in Knoxville, Tennessee and you can visit our website at www.secondhalfstewardship.com. The information in this recording is intended for general, educational and informational purposes only, and should not be construed as investment advisory, financial planning, legal, tax, or other professional advice based on your specific situation. Please consult your professional advisor before taking any action based on its contents.