Thinking of joining the "club"

[agame2323]

My wife and I are having our first baby in about 3 months. We now think it may be time to look into the DVC as we would like to vacation every year as our family grows.

I have a basic understanding of how things work regarding points but I'm still confused. What should our first step be towards purchasing? Do you put down a lump sum of money or is this something you pay for monthly / annually?

I need just need some help getting started lol. I have no idea what I'm suppose to be looking for.

AND what the heck is a "Home Resort?" To my understanding, you're allowed to stay at any DVC Resort. So why would you have a Home Resort?

 

[Lynne M]

In order to become a DVC member, you purchase a real estate interest in a resort - your 'home' resort is the one that you own a part of. That's the one that your maintenance fees pay for the operating expenses of, that's the one whose property taxes you're paying your share of.

You also get to book your vacations at 11 months out at your home resort, and 7 months out at other resorts. So, you get a 4 month booking advantage at your home resort over members that own at other resorts. This can become very important for certain highly desirable room types, and certain highly desirable times of year.

For example, if you want to stay at BCV from Oct - New Year's, you will want to buy at BCV. It's very, very difficult to get anything at that resort at 7 months out during that time because of the Food and Wine Festival, and the holiday period.

Or, if you plan on using grand villas at BWV, or club level at AKV, you will want to own at those resorts, as there are very small numbers of those room types and they're booked up at 11 months.

Now, as for payment. If you buy direct through Disney, you can pay cash, or they will allow you to finance. Their interest rates are ridiculously high, so I certainly wouldn't recommend it. The interest payments will eat up any potential savings.

If you buy resale, you will pay cash, or provide your own financing (personal loan, home equity loan, etc). Some timeshare brokers will offer financing, but the interest rate probably isn't much better than Disney's.

 

[ELMC]

My wife and I are having our first baby in about 3 months. We now think it may be time to look into the DVC as we would like to vacation every year as our family grows.

I have a basic understanding of how things work regarding points but I'm still confused. What should our first step be towards purchasing? Do you put down a lump sum of money or is this something you pay for monthly / annually?

I need just need some help getting started lol. I have no idea what I'm suppose to be looking for.

AND what the heck is a "Home Resort?" To my understanding, you're allowed to stay at any DVC Resort. So why would you have a Home Resort?

These are very good questions and I think Lynne did a great job of answering them. One thing I'd like to add is that your life is about to change in ways that you can't even imagine. You are also going to have expenses that you couldn't possibly imagine. One thing to think about as you consider purchasing DVC is whether or not you want to take on an annual commitment of thousands of dollars in maintenance fees and vacation costs at this time.

I don't know anything about your personal situation and I'm not meaning to suggest anything, I'm just thinking back to when we had our first child and what our mindset was. Good luck with everything.

 

[agame2323]

In order to become a DVC member, you purchase a real estate interest in a resort - your 'home' resort is the one that you own a part of. That's the one that your maintenance fees pay for the operating expenses of, that's the one whose property taxes you're paying your share of.

You also get to book your vacations at 11 months out at your home resort, and 7 months out at other resorts. So, you get a 4 month booking advantage at your home resort over members that own at other resorts. This can become very important for certain highly desirable room types, and certain highly desirable times of year.

For example, if you want to stay at BCV from Oct - New Year's, you will want to buy at BCV. It's very, very difficult to get anything at that resort at 7 months out during that time because of the Food and Wine Festival, and the holiday period.

Or, if you plan on using grand villas at BWV, or club level at AKV, you will want to own at those resorts, as there are very small numbers of those room types and they're booked up at 11 months.

Now, as for payment. If you buy direct through Disney, you can pay cash, or they will allow you to finance. Their interest rates are ridiculously high, so I certainly wouldn't recommend it. The interest payments will eat up any potential savings.

If you buy resale, you will pay cash, or provide your own financing (personal loan, home equity loan, etc). Some timeshare brokers will offer financing, but the interest rate probably isn't much better than Disney's.

Very helpful information and very well explained. Thank you.

So buying from Disney is not a good move? We should go through a reseller?

 

[MEK]

Very helpful information and very well explained. Thank you.

So buying from Disney is not a good move? We should go through a reseller?

The one thing I remember people saying when I was getting ready to purchase was - it's a prepaid vacation plan. If you can afford to pay cash for your contract it makes the most sense. Financing is automatically a loss of vacation dollars. Naturally, you will still have yearly maintenance fees that are determined by the number of points you purchase and the resort you purchase at.

I bought my contracts through resale when they were still subject to the same benefits as if I had bought them through Disney. There are multiple people who are more knowledgable then me on this - but now-a -days the resale contracts have restrictions on them as far as trading with other time shares and with concierge collections and such. Make sure you know the difference between resale and Disney.

If you know you are only ever going to use your contract at Disney then resale makes sense.

Also - have an idea where you want to purchase if you go the time share route. It's helpful to go to a resellers website and look at available contracts and prices to get a sense of things.

I love DVC. No regrets. Wish I had bought it sooner.

 

[BrerNashville]

I think the resounding answer from most people on these boards will be a "Yes." (to the question "Should I go through a reseller?)

It was even that way two years ago when I bought; nonetheless, I decided to buy direct from disney, BUT, I bought BLT @ $114 ppt and the resales were $100 to $105 per point. The ability to make an immediate reservation (we wanted one for a popular time when the 11 month window was getting ready to open) and preserve the ability to use some benefits that we may want in the future (e.g. book Disney cruise/Adventures by Disney) justified the additional expense. Now, however, for BLT, the additional expense is not $14 per point, but $75 per point, so there is no way that I would consider buying those points directly from disney.

Animal Kingdom, you can get for $125 per point, after discounts (less $1000 additional discount) for buying 160+ points, but that is still $60 per point more than what things seem to be going for on the resale market.

With that differential, it becomes REALLY hard to justify direct from disney.

 

[geraghty]

1) First thing I would recomend is see what your needs will be after your child is born. My last child was completely healthy up until the scheduled birth. Unfortunately, he was born with pnemonia, which led to several other complications and was in the NICU for 11 days. Our cost was over ten thousand dollars out of pocket and we have 90/10 insurance.

2) Research - Since it will be three months until your first child is born, use this time to read everything you can. DVC is very confusing and initally can be very costly. Financing is rediculously expensive. Once you decide where and when you want to stay, and how often you plan on going to wdw, research historical data so you make sure you buy enough points. Of course, it is easier to buy more points than to sell or rent out points you don't need.

3) Your use year matters - Get a use year that falls right before you plan on vacationing, not right after. This will be of importance if you need to cancel or bank points.

4) Resale vs Direct - Do you plan on vacationing only at Disney or do you want to vacation all over the world and have the ability to use your points to take cruises? These privileges come at a very real cost.

5) Resort matters - Buy where you want to stay unless you don't care. If you want to stay at an Epcot resort you may need to own there. If you want a certain accomodation at a certain resort, the eleven month window is very important. If you just want a nice bed in a nice room, than buy the cheapest resort possible.

6) Remember, the wonderful person you talk to is a salesperson, they really don't care what's best for you.

 

[Deb & Bill]

There wasn't really much of a difference between direct from DVC and resale until the price per point hit $100 a point. Until that time, you could get resale for about the same price as direct. But direct was faster, so it made direct purchase the choice.

Now, there is a big difference between direct and resale. So much so that DVC decided to implement changes on how points purchased resale could be used (that happened March 20, 2010 if I recall correctly). But even at that point, buying DVC for anything but DVC really didn't make a lot of sense.

There are lots of other timeshares you can buy that cost a lot less that you can trade out if you want to trade out to other timeshares. DVC also puts penalties on DVC points used for non-DVC reservations. If you cancel they cannot be used for a DVC stay, they have become reservation points. The trade value isn't all that good unless you have points to burn. Plus you have to pay an extra fee of $95 to trade outside of DVC.

Take the next months to read up on DVC (these boards are great for telling people not very familiar with DVC how it works). Consider how your life is going to change once your baby is born. And the expense a baby brings.

DVC is just a real estate purchase that you won't own any more when it expires.

It will still be here when you figure it out. Good luck!