Will a Rental Crackdown Reset DVC Resale Prices?

[eandt]

Some of these ideas would make the whole program too onerous to commit to. Buyers plan to own this thing for decades… they need the flexibility or no one would want to buy and the entire resale market will crash….

“The medicine is worse than the disease”

Without having rented points (in our case 2 times within a year from the same owner) we would have never made the commitment to purchasing points of our own. We are now 3 direct contracts in and Disney has a renter to thank for that …

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

Exactly. If they get rid of spec renters in general then there would be no more walking done by spec renters, allowing owners booking for personal use to keep walking/modifying like they do today, albeit with much less competition for popular dates.

There’s no need to limit modifications if they force out those using their contracts for commercial purposes.

And if all of these commercial rentals are eliminated, there's at least a chance that it affects availability positively enough that walking would no longer be necessary to get some of those desirable dates/rooms.

Obviously, there will still be competition for some, but it sounds like commercial renters are snatching up a lot of them on spec and without them being able to do that, the competition for those rooms eases at least somewhat.

 

[Tatebeck]

Some of these ideas would make the whole program too onerous to commit to. Buyers plan to own this thing for decades… they need the flexibility or no one would want to buy and the entire resale market will crash….

“The medicine is worse than the disease”

I do think that having to call to modify would be a nightmare, there is no way they go that far. You want the medicine that cures the disease, but maybe just has a flavor that's not your favorite lol

 

[TheDailyMoo]

There is no need to do any of that. All DVC needs to do is simply monitor the memberships they feel could be in violation and go from there.

This is actually probably the best course of action...at least to start with.

After Christmas at Costco I see many giant Christmas trees being returned. And huge pieces of furniture. And beautiful expensive decorations. We know this game (and some may recognize this game TOO well) where people take advantage of a store's return policy. People use items and return them. At some point a store, depending on their metrics, will either prohibit an abusing customer from returning items or revoke their membership in the case of Costco. So...why not DVC. They should, or probably already do have a team that keeps an eye out for abuse. If it gets egregious they can target a specific member or entity without having to mess around with general restrictions across the board that takes away the flexibility of the program.

Of course the downside of this is you are at the whim of whatever authority DVC uses to crack down. In my retail example, I shop at Home Depot a lot. I HARDLY return anything and if I do it's with a receipt. The other day I did not have a receipt for an item I wanted to return and they asked for my drivers license to proceed with store credit. It was denied. I'm not sure the last time I ever had to use my driver's license for a return but it's been many years. So there I was, flagged as an abuser I guess when I never abuse the system? So when that happens you have no recourse. No one to appeal to. And I guess that could happen in the case of DVC as well.

 

[CopperCreek28]

I wouldn’t mind not competing with the software systems some of the big rental companies use to book so quickly.

 

[disneydreaming3]

Wyndham has the same problem with mega renters. They tried to fix by limiting number of guest certificates. They tried to say only certain times of year can guests use certain locations-ie specific times/resorts were designated owner only, and now i think 3 resorts are designated owner only all the time. To change days no walking...you have to cancel and rebook. You can add on days without canceling but not take off days. It has helped a bit in getting high demand locations more owner availability but a lot of mega renters are still doing the work around of showing up, checking in and then handing keys to their guests and leaving. So it appears as though the owner is still there...but they are not. Im sure Disney mega renters would do the same...find the work around.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

Wyndham has the same problem with mega renters. They tried to fix by limiting number of guest certificates. They tried to say only certain times of year can guests use certain locations-ie specific times/resorts were designated owner only, and now i think 3 resorts are designated owner only all the time. To change days no walking...you have to cancel and rebook. You can add on days without canceling but not take off days. It has helped a bit in getting high demand locations more owner availability but a lot of mega renters are still doing the work around of showing up, checking in and then handing keys to their guests and leaving. So it appears as though the owner is still there...but they are not. Im sure Disney mega renters would do the same...find the work around.

Perhaps—but technological advances will make it harder and harder to cheat the system—ESPECIALLY at Disney where you have to have all the party linked on MDE to get any of the deluxe resort perks. Disney could also easily flag where the owner is on the reservation but doesn’t actually ever do anything with the other 4 randos in the parks, etc, if it’s happening a lot.

 

[AstroBlasters]

Wyndham has the same problem with mega renters. They tried to fix by limiting number of guest certificates. They tried to say only certain times of year can guests use certain locations-ie specific times/resorts were designated owner only, and now i think 3 resorts are designated owner only all the time. To change days no walking...you have to cancel and rebook. You can add on days without canceling but not take off days. It has helped a bit in getting high demand locations more owner availability but a lot of mega renters are still doing the work around of showing up, checking in and then handing keys to their guests and leaving. So it appears as though the owner is still there...but they are not. Im sure Disney mega renters would do the same...find the work around.

What is the ROI on that? It seems like so much work….

 

[DonMacGregor]

If it wasn’t clear from my post, they are renting (stripping) tens of thousands of points between the buying and selling…and yes, they cannot close until rentals are completed but presumably they are borrowing the points to current UY, using webscraping tools and bots to snatch rooms in the near future, and then selling the contracts 7-12 months after acquiring them.

And if they time it correctly, based on UY, they can probably afford to hold on to the contract until the next UY and not sell it as stripped.

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

And if they time it correctly, based on UY, they can probably afford to hold on to the contract until the next UY and not sell it as stripped.

I assume they are stripping it out as far as they can because they can get $20-30/pt for those future year points but in general most buyers will only penalize $5-15 for stripped contracts.

 

[Bearval]

The "Theory" is that there are some big companies out there that own a lot of DVC points and rent them out, thus if they get shut down they will have to sell those points on the resale market causing a flood of new resale contract on the market driving prices down. Many of the same companies also are brokers for resale contracts.

Disney can easily figure out who is renting points they are just by looking at the names of the people on the reservations of the contracts. If year after year or booking after booking the names are never the same for the contracts you know it is being rented and not being used by the owner.

 

[Bearval]

But back to the subject, I think I agree with @mort1331 here. I think there’s going to be a short period where things go a little wonky, maybe drop for a bit (hopefully we get some great contracts pop up!) but it should stabilize after a while.

I also think that because the rental market did a great job in bringing a ton of awareness to DVC, showed non-members who might not have ever considered DVC the tangible savings that comes from it (seeing the numbers and data is one thing, experiencing it is another), that if the rental option is no longer readily available, many families might strongly consider buying DVC when they might not have ever before. And I assume those people will want the best savings so they’ll go to resale, and so more buyers, more likely the prices go back to normal. At least until there’s more restricted options on the market then not, but that’s a whole different conversation.

But the rental option is available. Except you have to rent thru Disney and pay the sky high prices, then they can asked how was the room and tell you how much you will save if you bought into a DVC membership.

 

[Bearval]

This is the theory— there are thousands (maybe over a hundred thousand?) points being used for commercial rentals, and if they can no longer rent for profit, the only option is to sell them (causing a big spike in supply and a decrease in demand)— unless Disney offers/agrees to buy the points directly at some negotiated price.

The flood to the market would be short lived ( less than a year). If the commercial renters can no longer rent they will dump the contracts before the next years maintenance fees come due. They will not hold on to these contracts hoping to get "top dollar".

 

[Bearval]

That still takes away flexibility and adds an extra time premium for members. Member services opens an hour after online reservations do so I I have 7 days booked and want to add an 8th I have to wait an hour. Additionally I have to take time out of my work day to call, be placed on hold for an indefinite amount of time, and member services has to pay a cast member to help me do something that I could have done online by myself.

It seems in all the recent threads complaining about walking and 11 month availability, someone suggests limiting or disallowing any modifications to reservations which significantly limits the flexibility for members and which potentially increases the time/hassle for member services to help those members on the phone.

I suspect the fix for walking would be a lot more problematic and limiting for members. All I’m saying is we need to be careful what we wish for.

As a side note, we have never rented our points and don’t intend to. I have also walked exactly 1 reservation in our 15 years of ownership. We though routinely tweak a reservation to add a day here or there.

They could easily fix walking if they really wanted. Just by only allowing modifications to the original booking after the 11 month window has past for any "new" dates you wanted to add to your reservation. This would stop people who add and drop days for weeks if not months " blocking dates " until they finally "walk" to get the days they really wanted all along. You could still make as many modifications you wanted but it would have to be inside of the 11 month window. If you needed to modify outside of that window you would have to cancel and rebook.

 

[Bearval]

IMO, this is the biggest issue. I hope "rank & file" owners don't get caught up in any crackdown, but I think ending the blatant commercial renting would improve availability for the rest of us.

Also, as others have pointed out, those companies would likely end up having to sell a bunch of contracts, which might provide some of us with some good deals (assuming DVC doesn't snatch them all up via ROFR).

This was DVD's double top secret master plan for ROFR, create an environment where there is a mass dumping of contracts at fire sale pricing they can scoop up in ROFR for rock bottom prices..........................

 

[eandt]

They could easily fix walking if they really wanted. Just by only allowing modifications to the original booking after the 11 month window has past for any "new" dates you wanted to add to your reservation. This would stop people who add and drop days for weeks if not months " blocking dates " until they finally "walk" to get the days they really wanted all along. You could still make as many modifications you wanted but it would have to be inside of the 11 month window. If you needed to modify outside of that window you would have to cancel and rebook.

So if the big LLC are somehow using tech to beat us to the days we want how would that not also apply at the stroke of 11 months out? ‘Fixes’ almost invariably make things worse. Navigating DVC is trying enough I don’t want any more rules … as someone mentioned before those intent on beating the system will always find a work around ….be careful what you wish for …

 

[Bearval]

So if the big LLC are somehow using tech to beat us to the days we want how would that not also apply at the stroke of 11 months out? ‘Fixes’ almost invariably make things worse. Navigating DVC is trying enough I don’t want any more rules … as someone mentioned before those intent on beating the system will always find a work around ….be careful what you wish for …

By forcing them having to waiting for the "11 month window" to modify the dates they now need to continue to walk are open to everyone means their walk could be broken. To ensure the walk could be broken they could have a "24 hour" cooling off period where you had to wait a full 24 hours for all of your dates to be available inside of the 11 month window before you could modify. Once you are inside of the 11 month window you can modify as often as you like. This would be in the "spirit" of how reservations were to be made by making your reservation at 11 months out from when you wanted it for and not working the system by walking weeks if not months out. The only people who would be opposed to this would be people who walk.

 

[eandt]

By forcing them having to waiting for the "11 month window" to modify the dates they now need to continue to walk are open to everyone means their walk could be broken. To ensure the walk could be broken they could have a "24 hour" cooling off period where you had to wait a full 24 hours for all of your dates to be available inside of the 11 month window before you could modify. Once you are inside of the 11 month window you can modify as often as you like. This would be in the "spirit" of how reservations were to be made by making your reservation at 11 months out from when you wanted it for and not working the system by walking weeks if not months out. The only people who would be opposed to this would be people who walk.

Those intent on beating the system will beat it … meanwhile things get more convoluted for me

 

[Matty B13]

Ending the online modification would be a costly one for DVc because it means more CMs and less profit because what we pay them is a fixed rate.

There is no way they will go backwards like that because it costs them a lot of money.

I think the new language is enough to put some on notice and that alone might be enough to slow things down.

DVC has a responsibility to do things in the best interests of the owners and making it harder to change reservations is not going to be seen by many as a good move.

It wouldn't cost DVC anything, it would come out of our dues. And I'm guessing they would not add any CM's to their staff to accommodate the increase in calls. People would just have to wait. I like the ability to do most changes
on-line, but I think people use it way to much because it is so easy. People on disboards talk about making daily modifications to plans all the time, but would they do this if they had to call in or wait till all their plans were settled. If you eliminate the large rental companies, I think there probably plenty of availability to make these modifications when needed. Seems like a lot of people hold a lot of rooms just in case of a certain event or person might show up, causing the limited availability.

 

[lowlight]

Who says Disney wants to ‘fix walking’? I don’t believe they mind it at all in fact the process was explained to us during our onboarding call with member services when we bought our initial contract.

Personally, I hope everyone who owns DVC starts walking every reservation whether they need to or not. It will be a most enjoyable experience for everyone involved.