Some longtime, experienced timeshare owners believe their new-from-the-developer purchases have been worth every penny — proving that sometimes you get what you pay for even if the price is a high one. George M., who bought his first timeshare back in 1994, is one of those people. He now owns four weeks of timeshare at three different resorts and has visited more than thirty other resorts through exchanging, but one of the purchases that has made him happiest was of a new unit from a developer at the St. James's Club on the Caribbean island of Antigua.

“We visited the resort on a timeshare trade, and it had top-notch service,” he remembers. “After going on the timeshare tour, we knew we wanted to own there. Now, we had already been timeshare owners for eight years, and we knew we would only buy a resale. However, the resort was offering a very good price on some weeks, so we purchased one but fully intended on getting home and using the rescission period to find a resale and cancel the developer purchase.

“During the rest of our stay, we heard nothing but praise for the management from other owners. We arrived home and searched every resale Web site we could find, called dozens of resellers, and never found one unit on the resale market. Some resellers told us they never had seen one for sale.

“We kept our purchase and, when we visited the next year, we were so impressed again with management that we bought a second week.”

George says he sees many things in his units at the St. James's Club that novice buyers should look for when dealing directly with a timeshare developer. First of all, the resort management is owner-friendly. For example, there are no charges to owners for internal trades (trading for a different unit within the same resort), and owners receive discounted meal plans at the restaurants the resort operates.

Also, George's contract limits annual maintenance-fee increases to 5 percent, per year. His two-bedroom unit's annual maintenance fee is $450 per year, which he says shows, when combined with the limited possible increases, that the resort is well run and is not wasting any of the timeshare owners' money. He cites this as one possible reason for the lack of resale units, as well, and the corresponding high value that his units have retained since he first bought them.

Lastly, the managers offer personal service. George recalls having trouble getting a restaurant reservation and mentioning as much in passing to the timeshare manager on site. “He told me if it ever happens again, to call him,” George says. “That we are owners, and they will make sure we get the reservation whenever we want. I own at other resorts with higher fees that don't even come close to the service of this resort.”

All in all, George agrees that the advice to buy resale is correct about 99 percent of the time — but that his experience tells him that in a handful of cases, buying from the developer will be the only way you can get what you want. And that's not necessarily a bad thing.