A couple of rumors.

[sanilacjack]

I have gotten to know my guide pretty well.....at least I think. We talk on the phone on a regular basis. I was his first buyer and we keep in touch. We talk about our kids and what we did last weekend.

The other day I was grilling...ahhh....I mean asking him about the future and it kinda turned into a game. I would ask about CR and he would say "I'm not at liberty to say". I would ask about EP....silence. My guide answered true to what the OP said. Maybe it's true??

 

[Daitcher]

Why are they raising the price of points if SSR isn't selling well? I guess I don't understand the thinking on that.

They increase the price per point periodically. They will roll out a good incentive shortly after the increase. They do this so guides can tell potential purchasers that the price per point will increase on such and such date. It is really the only type of "hard sell" tactics that I see DVC using. It also spurs some add on business as people tend to jump before the increase. This tactic doesn't work with me but it does work with others.


DAVE

 

[mickeysbestfriend]

Maybe someone can answer this for me. I play golf with a lot of cast members and during one of my recent trips I played golf with an imagineer. I asked him about the bridge that was begun and never completed on the Eagle Pines course at Bonnet Creek. He told me that it was supposed to be the access road to a DVC resort, but that when they decided to take out the fairway villas, Institute and Treehouse villas and replace them with SSR, it maxed them out on land development based on a some sort of wildlife area percentage agreement Disney made in the past. Since they have plans for a fifth park, that has to be taken into account.

Was this guy shooting straight with me or blowing smoke?

 

[joepoe]

If you went to a builder in 2004 with house plans and got a quote, and then went back to the same builder today with the same plans, you know the quote would be higher, simply due to raising costs. Qouted by Caskbill

Hey Caskbill, Im glad you know this as truth, but most of the folks I build for dont believe it
I hope Dean is right on this and CR becomes a DVC resort. Keeping fingers crossed!

Do you build in Orlando? Home prices went up almost 50% last year. that has to put upward pressure on labor and materials costs as the construction boom continues.

Either way, Disney is expert at charging the very TOP of what the market will bear.

 

[Bichon Barb]

Does anyone know if the Friends and Family(??) incentive started right after a price increase?

 

[DisneyTarheel]

The second was that CR is a go though apparently the decision has not been made whether to tear down the existing structures and start from scratch or not.

What kind of impact do you think the monorail will have on maintenance fees at CR?

 

[vascubaguy]

Does anyone know if the Friends and Family(??) incentive started right after a price increase?

I don't know the exact dates, but I believe it was several months after the last price increase.

 

[DisFlan]

I've wondered if higher mortgage re-fi rates and falling home sales would slow SSR sales. I'd had a feeling a number of buyers were getting equity loans and buying SSR with it. Loans at 3 to 4% were one thing, but now that rates are climbing, not as many mortgages are being re-fied. So not as much extra money is floating around for goodies like DVC.

And how's the timeshare market doing in general? Is it falling off? Has it peaked in other areas? Is it overbuilt?

There's also the question of how enticing SSR is. Before I get jumped on, I KNOW lots of owners love it (it's a lovely resort!), but it may not be "Disney" enough for many prospective buyers. Or it may just be too big, too spread out or not exactly the right theme/architectual ambience to attract enough buyers quickly.

Personally, I've always thought the size and apartment complex feeling (albeit a nice one) of SSR were major mistakes. They're the main reasons we gave it a thumbs down, and I'd surmise that more than a few other prospective buyers feel the same way.


DisFlan

 

[littlestar]

I think Disney could have made Saratoga more attractive by making the rooms bigger. A lot of people like the Marriott Vacation Club resorts in Orlando (me included) and I think they should have at least made Saratoga the same size as Marriott's Cypress Harbour rooms.

Also, a theme different from where I live would have attracted me more. I like palm trees and feeling like I'm in Florida (the only exception is the lodge theme at the Villas at Wildeness lodge which I like on my fall trips). But in the winter and spring, I'm starved for a tropical feel (we live in frozen Indiana) and prefer palm trees on those trips. Eagle Pines would probably attract me (especially if it's tropical feeling). I just want to feel like I've left the midwest when I go on vacation.

 

[Alexander]

The F & F incentive was 15% off of $98/point. This brought the point cost to $83.30. We purchased our first SSR contract a year earlier when points were $95/point and the incentive was $10 off per point. Thus, we paid $85/point one year before the F & F incentive. So the point cost went up, but so did the incentive.

This stands inline with the fact that SSR is not selling as well as they had hoped. It is rare that the selling price of something goes down over the course of a year.

The current incentive is $8 off $98/point with 2005 points coming to you with no MF.

 

[shantay1008]

I've wondered if higher mortgage re-fi rates and falling home sales would slow SSR sales. I'd had a feeling a number of buyers were getting equity loans and buying SSR with it. Loans at 3 to 4% were one thing, but now that rates are climbing, not as many mortgages are being re-fied. So not as much extra money is floating around for goodies like DVC.

And how's the timeshare market doing in general? Is it falling off? Has it peaked in other areas? Is it overbuilt?

There's also the question of how enticing SSR is. Before I get jumped on, I KNOW lots of owners love it (it's a lovely resort!), but it may not be "Disney" enough for many prospective buyers. Or it may just be too big, too spread out or not exactly the right theme/architectual ambience to attract enough buyers quickly.

Personally, I've always thought the size and apartment complex feeling (albeit a nice one) of SSR were major mistakes. They're the main reasons we gave it a thumbs down, and I'd surmise that more than a few other prospective buyers feel the same way.


DisFlan

I was wondering the same thing you are about why people aren't buying. Is it because they don't like SSR or is it because they just aren't buying anything? Have sales remained steady on resales at the sold-out resorts?

I agree with the poster who said that it might have been nice if DVC had made SSR smaller to start with and got it more "prettied up" before adding more buildings. But maybe it would have been a lot more expensive to divide the project up like that...cheaper to get everything delivered at once, the labor's already in place, etc. I'll have to ask my dad the builder what he thinks.

 

[Dean]

Why are they raising the price of points if SSR isn't selling well? I guess I don't understand the thinking on that.

Disney has a history of raising prices and offering deals. Recently it's been discounted points if you buy 120 or more, free AP, free dues and the like. It's much like any other company raising the price and putting it on sale. If sales were truly going well they would never discount them. Also remember that any percent of sold quote will almost always be reflecting the number of points in the sales pool, not the number total. It will ignore any undeclared inventory. I also agree with BECA that they have to look at the overall process of all points for sale now and in the near future, not just SSR. And I agree with others that say it gives a sense of urgency for those contemplating to jump in.

Q- Any hints about Hawaii? I would love to see another off site DVC.

I asked my friend that question. She said they were batting around all the issues and information and HI didn't come up. My friend felt that if it had been something being seriously considered it would have come up and felt the lack of info suggested it was not happening. But we shall see.

What kind of impact do you think the monorail will have on maintenance fees at CR?

Very little I'd guess. I'm sure DVC will try to keep similar resorts within a range no matter what it takes. They want SSR, OKW & HH to be lower I believe. I'm sure they'd love for VB to be lower as well but the costs are just so high that they can't swing it. Remember all the infrastructure is in place already, costs will be shared on a prorated basis with the rest of CR and the other monorail resorts and CR will be a smaller resort. I think the issues that are more likely to affect yearly fees are related to design and building materials as well as how they allocate personnel and resources within the existing framework.

While the Friends and Family was later, there were other price reductions and benefits in place much earlier than that.

 

[DisneyPhD]

Just to add another rumor from another wdw fan site, Imagineering is taking over the old airstrip near TTC (until 2009) as a staging area for a building project in the area (possibly CR).

 

[Horace Horsecollar]

1) I think a DVC DL is going to happen. DL acquired the "strawberry fields" late last year. I know execs were out at DL last month going over the possibility of a 3rd DL park where the fields are now. I heard DVC people were out there as well, looking at designing a DVC attached to the 3rd park. I think if a 3rd park actually happens, a DVC resort will happen there as well.

Actually, The Walt Disney Company acquired the 56-acre Fujishige strawberry farm in Anaheim right after Hiroshi Fujishige died in September 1998. When combined with a smaller Disney-owned parcel, also southeast of the corner of Katella and Harbor, there is an 80+ acre undeveloped site for a third Disney park — either a water park or a full-fledged, though compact, theme park.

The plans for the a third park were put on hold because of the failure of Disney's California Adventure. Now, according to a October 2005 article by David Koenig at MousePlanet, the city of Anaheim has proposed building a road right through the middle of site.

Disney owns all sorts of smaller parcels around Disneyland, most of which are currently used as surface parking lots.

If Disney wanted to build a DVC resort at the Disneyland Resort, they could choose from several sites, and they wouldn't even have to disturb the former Fujishige strawberry farm.

In years past, an oft-repeated story on this board was that Disney decided not to develop a Disney Vacation Club in California because state real estate laws do not allow timeshares that expire, as the other DVC resorts do. I never knew whether to believe that story, or if it was just a supposition that had taken on a life of its own on the Internet as a "fact."

 

[Dean]

In years past, an oft-repeated story on this board was that Disney decided not to develop a Disney Vacation Club in California because state real estate laws do not allow timeshares that expire, as the other DVC resorts do. I never knew whether to believe that story, or if it was just a supposition that had taken on a life of its own on the Internet as a "fact."

I always believed this to be untrue. It stemmed from the sale of Newport Coast and I believe many used this to rationalize why DVC wasn't proceeding.

 

[Beca]

Actually, The Walt Disney Company acquired the 56-acre Fujishige strawberry farm in Anaheim right after Hiroshi Fujishige died in September 1998. When combined with a smaller Disney-owned parcel, also southeast of the corner of Katella and Harbor, there is an 80+ acre undeveloped site for a third Disney park — either a water park or a full-fledged, though compact, theme park.

The plans for the a third park were put on hold because of the failure of Disney's California Adventure. Now, according to a October 2005 article by David Koenig at MousePlanet, the city of Anaheim has proposed building a road right through the middle of site.

Disney owns all sorts of smaller parcels around Disneyland, most of which are currently used as surface parking lots.

If Disney wanted to build a DVC resort at the Disneyland Resort, they could choose from several sites, and they wouldn't even have to disturb the former Fujishige strawberry farm.

In years past, an oft-repeated story on this board was that Disney decided not to develop a Disney Vacation Club in California because state real estate laws do not allow timeshares that expire, as the other DVC resorts do. I never knew whether to believe that story, or if it was just a supposition that had taken on a life of its own on the Internet as a "fact."

I spoke to a friend of mine who is a CM at WDW. She confirmed for me that DVC reps were in DL last month with other DL park execs "going over" the plans for the strawberry field. She said (from what she had heard) they were still considering a 3rd theme park, and that DVC sales in CA were going great, but people want a DVC there. She said they are considering the viability of a DVC attached to a new park.



Beca

 

[sajetto]

just subscribing...this stuff is getting interesting...hmmm

 

[rinkwide]

...DVC sales in CA were going great...

I wonder if that's true. Whenever I ask one of the DVC "face characters" at WDW how sales are they invariably say things are going gangbusters.

 

[boatboatboat]

My guide I met in Florida has moved to calf. and is a guide there.

I would assume she moved there, to "do better"?

 

[DisFlan]

I was wondering the same thing you are about why people aren't buying. Is it because they don't like SSR or is it because they just aren't buying anything? Have sales remained steady on resales at the sold-out resorts?

Maybe DVC has built one big resort too many at WDW. SSR may simply be the wrong size in the wrong place at the wrong time. They probably should have concentrated on 1) a more discrete sized CRV on a par with BWV or BCV, and 2) a California resort. The demand would likely be higher for either of these.


DisFlan