Timeshares are one of the newest and trendiest ways to buy real estate. First it was a condo, now it's a just the right to live there for a few weeks or months out of the year. If you're not quite sure how timeshares work or why you would want to buy one, you could be missing out on a great opportunity to save money on your vacations. Let us tell you all about timeshares so you can figure out if it's something you would like to consider.

Normally when you buy a home, you buy it outright and it's yours all year round. But what if you know you're only going to want to stay there through July and August? Buying a whole condo just for a few months isn't a sound financial proposition and most people can't afford it, and thus timeshares came to be. A timeshare is part ownership of the condo - essentially the right to live there during a set period of time, perhaps a few weeks or months of the year.

Timeshares benefit both the buyer and the seller. For the buyer, it means they don't have to shell out steep nightly rates for hotels when they're on their vacation and they don't have to pay the hundreds of thousands of dollars that outright condo ownership would cost. In essence, it's a happy medium. Staying in a condo is preferable for many families over hotels because they're able to cook their own meals and have more space to spread out into.

For sellers, dividing the property into timeshares allows them to make more money and to get a cut of the market previously dominated by vacation rentals. By selling portions of the property to many different people, they maximize the condo's value. Sometimes, for condos that aren't selling on a permanent basis because the town is so heavily weighted toward tourism, timeshares can be a way of getting rid of a property without having to offer it for sale below market value.

There are some drawbacks to time shares for both sides, however. For buyers, being locked into visiting the same city at the same time of year every year can get boring. It can also be a problem if they're unable to get time off work at the right time to make the trip, as there's no guarantee you will be able to swap weeks for another timeshare owner. For sellers, you'll won't be totally free of the condo. You'll have to turn it over to a management company who can organize all your timeshare owners and conflict between owners or one destructive owner can ruin things for everyone.

Continue on with learning about timeshares from the article Buying A Timeshare: The Pros and Cons.