system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5: Timeshares

So, are they scams, or can savvy people actually benefit from them? Who is actually making profit? Also, what are timeshare presentations exactly? 

Basically, what is the deal with those timeshares?
gpt
Imagine you've been to Florida a few times, and you really enjoy it.  Maybe you'd like to own a vacation home there, but you can't afford it, or it does not make sense for you to buy a home/condo if you would only use it a week or two a year.  

Let's say you can find 25 other people who are in a similar position: they'd each like to go to Florida for a week or two every year, but that's  all.  So, you all agree that if you pool your money, you can buy a beach house.   Then, you divvy up the weeks, and everyone gets two weeks per year to have the house.  What you own is the right to use the vacation house for two weeks every year.

Now you can probably see some problems with arranging that, like how to get all 25 people to agree on the property, price, week divisions, etc.  So, to solve that, a company takes control of the property.  The company is now responsible for finding people to buy "shares" of the house.  They are responsible for the upkeep of the house, too (but the "share owners" have to pay them a fee every year).  

Companies that manage the time shares sell off "shares" and sometimes make a profit on the sales, sometimes not.  But they do also charge annual fees for maintaining the property and managing it.  On this, they make a boat load of money.  Share owners might be forced to pay $500-$1000 a year for the fees.  If they sell 25 "shares", thats $12,500 to $25,000 per unit that the company manages. (On average, it might only cost them $2-$5000 a year to maintain the properties).  These fees are where the time share management companies make big bucks.

Time shares are a good value if you intend to use it every year and you know that the fees are not that high.  However, they often hide fees in fine print, or give promotional deals ("No fees for 2 years").  It is also extremely difficult to sell time shares, unless you give it back to the company and pay more fees.