Deals worth Rs 23 lakh facilitated by this blog

April 20th Update: Looks like many of my readers didn’t quite get the sense of how we facilitated business worth 23 lakhs-About six people whom I met last weekend in Bangalore asked me to explain on it. Here’s a brief: Timeshare membership is a kind of investment/purchase where people buy holiday memberships, which entitles them for a predefined type/duration (Say a 2 bedroom cottage, for one week per year during non-peak season) of vacation every year for a specified duration of years (say 25 years) from timeshare companies. Members pay in advance hoping that it will protect them from future price increases. Sometimes due to various reasons those who’ve paid few lakhs to buy a timeshare membership wish to sell it off (just the way you may wish to sell your car) but there weren’t any ideal platforms where one could put their timeshare membership for sale. This is where we stepped in to provide a simple platform for such people and rest of the post is about how some people successfully used this blog to close a deal.-Hope this makes things a bit more clear.

------Original Post-------------

Just scratching my own back again-bear with me.

Happy to announce that this blog has facilitated a business amounting to more than 23 lakhs during past one year (Yes, 42000 US$)

Because there were no dedicated portals(or sections in classified sites) to buy/sell used timeshare membership and because this blog was drawing lots of traffic related to Club Mahindra we (I and Bhupesh, a CM member) thought of providing a platform for users to buy/sell timeshare memberships (Club Mahindra, Zest, Sterlings, Country Club etc). A blogpost that was created for Buying and selling used timeshare memberships last April has proved to be a phenomenal success and this post is to share the same with you.

The post was created on 10th April 2008 with an embedded Google spreadsheet wherein users could add their timeshare details for buying or selling. First entry was received on 18th April 2008 and since then, there’ve been about 244 entries till date (excluding some entries which appeared to be redundant or spam that were deleted). That’s about 2 entries every 3 days.

Of the 244 entries, about 12 users were able to successfully sell their membership (or buy, as the case may be), which translates into a success rate of 5%.

The total approximate value of these 12 deals which were successfully closed, through their entry in the said post amounts to about 23 lakhs.

Recently dropped a mail to all users who’d submitted their membership details-Was happy to note that all those who responded appreciated the efforts, though many were yet to find a buyer for their sale. Few said they used the post to understand the cost of membership and then bought new membership directly from Club Mahindra, instead of buying a used one.

Note:
1. We don’t verify the info entered by users. This post is based on the assumption that the details entered by users are accurate. Readers may use their discretion.
2. We won’t know unless a user tells us that he/she has closed the deal and we can strike off the entry. The estimated sales value is derived based on those who updated us via mail or comment that they could indeed sell/buy their timeshare membership. There could be more closed deals which we may not be aware of.
3. Total value is derived by summing the amount at which members had put up their membership for sale. This amount might be slightly inaccurate in case of negotiations
4. This remains a totally free service. No money was charged to anyone for this. (if we’d charged Rs 50 per entry or say 1% commission we would have earned 2 to 20 thousand rupees… Anyway that was not my objective in creating this post)

5. We only facilitated the deal by bringing buyers and sellers together. We're not involved in any financial transactions, legal formalities or in any other way whatsoever.

Some of the few feedbacks received from users

Hi Shri,
I would be honest in my opinion. This site has been really useful for me and my family. I had been able to buy four memberships for me and my cousins. The comments also has helped us understand the workings of club mahindra in depth. I am genuinely thankful to you and your team for creating a very practical, excellent, wonderful, realistic site. It has indeed helped us save a good amount and also has helped the person who wanted to sell their membership. Would be grateful to you forever.
Hope you come out with more such sites in different areas and would be ready to help you in whichever way I can. Prashant Shah - Chennai

I find most of the entries in buyers' list fake. When I call those who have expressed interest to buy membership, no one picks up the phone. My deals are still pending.- Mohamed Hanif Syyed

In my case I received around 12 leads and will be finalising the deal in a couple of days possitively.I thank every one involved in this great job.-L S Shekhar

Well i did not buy from the web site but it did help me about the price and all i took it direct from club mahindra- Manish Kothari

I did get many inquires and calls regarding my post to sell my CM membership but unfortunately none of them materialized as everyone thought that this was some kind of distress sale which it wasn't and tried to get membership at ridiculous low prices. I would also like to add here that CM advts giving free LCD TV's etc are quite successful as everyone harped on the same while bargaining forgeting that actually its him buying the LCD TV from his own money.

Anyway I must thank you for the useful blog you have created and giving us a platform to buy/sell our CM memberships.- Rajesh Bahuguna

Bhupesh Gupta, a CM member has been very instrumental in helping me in this, so I take this opportunity to thank him as well.

Just for your quick reference embedding the spreadsheet below. Closed deals are moved to the end of the table.

If you wish to make an entry, to buy/sell a used timeshare membership, click here

Other observations:
1. Seems there're few individuals/agencies dealing with used timeshare memberships- We have got several entries by such parties, stating "We deal with all types of timeshare memberships, come to us".

2. Though the post was meant for all timeshare companies, most of the entries are pertaining to Club Mahindra, which is understandably because my blog rates high on Club Mahindra related queries and someone searching for "sell Sterlings membership" is unlikely to land at my blog.

3. Sell entries outnumber buy entries, but good to see lots of business still happening.

4. Good to see so many people buying timeshare memberships-old and new ones.

Happy Holidays everyone.

More: Club Mahindra official site * Official Blog * Yahoo group *

Resort review: CM Kodagu Valley * Binsar Valley *

Zest breaks membership review * CM timeshare membership review * Bajaj Pulsar sold through this blog *

April 21st Update: With one more user confirming sale, total value is 27 lakhs+ now