Advice for prospective DVC buyers

[PerkyPatty]

thank you you've been very helpfull, i've already email the timeshare store about a listing.

 

[JimC]

Here are links to some threads that will get you started:

Dues history
http://130.94.75.33/showthread.php?t=483351

Home resort pros and cons
http://130.94.75.33/showthread.php?t=428249

 

[drakethib]

Thank you for your post. I think I've read almost everything on the web relating to DVC and resales. I posted somewhere else where I think that if you are buying SSR you might as well go thru Disney. We took the tour about 5 days ago and fell madly in love with the resort. We are a big family of 6 , so we would always need a two bedroom villa to accomodate all of us. I didn't get an opportunity to visit the BCV or the BWV , I would have liked to but we wanted to spend as much time at the parks as possible. I got home and checked the resale pages on the web for DVC and after doing the math - buying 300 points resale would save me about 300 dollars. I guess if you are buying a DVC resort OTHER than SSR it would be worth it?

Anyways your post helped.

Thanks

I guess it depends where you want you home resort.

Personally, I think saving $300 dollars on a 300 point contract is not enough money to go through resale.

Do get me wrong resale is not a bad way to buy a DVC membership, but there is a lot involved and you will proably spend more in time waiting for ROFR then the $300 is worth.

Just fyi, I just did a 50 point addon and there was only a $300 spread between Disney and Resale so I went direct to Disney.

My first purchase fo 150 points I went through resale and saved myself darn near $2000.00

Do be afraid to ask the seller to take a little less.

 

[JimMIA]

Do be afraid to ask the seller to take a little less.

While it is true that everything is negotiable in a resale, be sure that your price is high enough to pass ROFR. Otherwise, it's just an academic exercise.

This thread will give you a couple of ideas to make your contract more likely to pass ROFR without raising your actual costs" http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=794010

 

[drakethib]

While it is true that everything is negotiable in a resale, be sure that your price is high enough to pass ROFR. Otherwise, it's just an academic exercise.

This thread will give you a couple of ideas to make your contract more likely to pass ROFR without raising your actual costs" http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=794010

Point well taken. But sometimes you will luck up with a lowball offer (we did).

This is a great thread Jim.

I sure wish I would have had all of this info in one place before we bought. Would have saved us a bunch of research.

Thanks for putting it together.

 

[PerkyPatty]

I really appreciate all the advise. I'm looking to purchase about 150 points just to get my feet wet and join the DVC. I still have to convince my husband on the 49 contract. He wants this as much as i do but it is a big committment. Do you know which Resort has the lowest maintanence?

 

[ferastu]

I really appreciate all the advise. I'm looking to purchase about 150 points just to get my feet wet and join the DVC. I still have to convince my husband on the 49 contract. He wants this as much as i do but it is a big committment. Do you know which Resort has the lowest maintanence?

* Saratoga Springs - $3.82
* Old Key West - $3.86
* Hilton Head - $4.03
* Beach Club Villas - $4.26
* Wilderness Lodge - $4.35
* Boardwalk Villas - $4.41
* Vero Beach - $4.86

 

[JimMIA]

Point well taken. But sometimes you will luck up with a lowball offer (we did).

This is a great thread Jim.

I sure wish I would have had all of this info in one place before we bought. Would have saved us a bunch of research.

Thanks for putting it together.

Thanks, but I didn't "put it together." I just started it. What makes a thread like this good is not the genius of the originator, but the many contributions from a lot of people with a lot of valuable input which keeps it alive. Starting it is the easy part.

 

[Stitch 626]

I would just like to drop a quick Thank You to everyone who has posted such great information on this and many of the other theads. My wife and I went on the SSR tour last Wednesday and found so many answers to our questions right here on the DIS boards and it generated a lot of thought provoking questions to ask our guide before we made the decision to buy.

Well, today we decided to take the plunge and buy into DVC membership. We purchased 150 SSR points and 50 BWV points through Disney. With your help, we were able to stucture a points package that will best suit our vacationing habits in the years to come.

Thank You All

 

[athenna]

I would just like to drop a quick Thank You to everyone who has posted such great information on this and many of the other theads. My wife and I went on the SSR tour last Wednesday and found so many answers to our questions right here on the DIS boards and it generated a lot of thought provoking questions to ask our guide before we made the decision to buy.

Well, today we decided to take the plunge and buy into DVC membership. We purchased 150 SSR points and 50 BWV points through Disney. With your help, we were able to stucture a points package that will best suit our vacationing habits in the years to come.

Thank You All

Congratulations and Welcome Home, Neighbor!

 

[PerkyPatty]

Just another question, as a new purchaser would you recommend resale or direct buy from Disney? Also do I need a real estate attorney to look at the paperwork on either?

 

[Stitch 626]

For us, buying from Disney direct worked out to be the best plan. The incentives they offered for SSR were really good, and they were able to get us the points we needed at BWV in the amount we needed. We probably paid a bit more per point than on resale but if you factor in Disney paying closing and titleing cost, Disney covering our 2005 SSR Maint fees, prorated Maint fees on the BWV from the day we bought (yesterday), no Maint fees on our 2004 BWV points, and the convience of getting both SSR and BWV points in the same use year we feel as though we are getting a bargain.

We looked into the resale market, but we could not find what we were looking for. With Disney's ROFR, it seems to be getting harder to find a good deal through resale and the wait while Disney was making it ROFR decision probably would have been a little more stress in our lives that I do not need. However, there are certain DVC properties that you can probably only find on the resale market in a reasonable amount of time (BCV come to mind.) If your heart is set on BCV, resale may be the answer for you. The waitlist through Disney is rather long for BCV, so resale would likely allow to puchase in sooner.

While talking with our guide about the availability of other resorts to add points on to our exisiting contracts, he said that Disney is becoming more active in the ROFR market as many DVC members are looking to add points points at the sold out resorts. He made it sound as though Disney originally was not too active in ROFR activity but have become more interested in re-acuiring ROFR contracts to satisfy membership requests.

I was very happy buying through Disney and would highly reccomend buying through them to anyone buying into DVC. There are also some very good resellers out there that may fit your needs better if you know what you want, need less than the minimum 150 point buy in, and do not mind waiting a bit to see if your contract passed Disney's ROFR. The only other issue I had with resale was trying to figure out the value of a contract with all the banking/borrowing/maint fees paid issues when comparing the different contracts available and trying to figure out closing costs so that you could compare to Disney's offering prices.

The Disney process was fairly simple, straighforward, and pressure free. We might have been able to save some $$ through resale, but we felt it was worth the extra $$ for the streamlined process. We did not use a lawyer through Disney and they do have you sit with a QA person to go over all of the paperwork with you before you sign anything. lf you more comfortable with a lawyer I am sure you can bring one but we did not feel as though it was really necessary.

I hope this helps.

 

[PerkyPatty]

For us, buying from Disney direct worked out to be the best plan. The incentives they offered for SSR were really good, and they were able to get us the points we needed at BWV in the amount we needed. We probably paid a bit more per point than on resale but if you factor in Disney paying closing and titleing cost, Disney covering our 2005 SSR Maint fees, prorated Maint fees on the BWV from the day we bought (yesterday), no Maint fees on our 2004 BWV points, and the convience of getting both SSR and BWV points in the same use year we feel as though we are getting a bargain.

We looked into the resale market, but we could not find what we were looking for. With Disney's ROFR, it seems to be getting harder to find a good deal through resale and the wait while Disney was making it ROFR decision probably would have been a little more stress in our lives that I do not need. However, there are certain DVC properties that you can probably only find on the resale market in a reasonable amount of time (BCV come to mind.) If your heart is set on BCV, resale may be the answer for you. The waitlist through Disney is rather long for BCV, so resale would likely allow to puchase in sooner.

While talking with our guide about the availability of other resorts to add points on to our exisiting contracts, he said that Disney is becoming more active in the ROFR market as many DVC members are looking to add points points at the sold out resorts. He made it sound as though Disney originally was not too active in ROFR activity but have become more interested in re-acuiring ROFR contracts to satisfy membership requests.

I was very happy buying through Disney and would highly reccomend buying through them to anyone buying into DVC. There are also some very good resellers out there that may fit your needs better if you know what you want, need less than the minimum 150 point buy in, and do not mind waiting a bit to see if your contract passed Disney's ROFR. The only other issue I had with resale was trying to figure out the value of a contract with all the banking/borrowing/maint fees paid issues when comparing the different contracts available and trying to figure out closing costs so that you could compare to Disney's offering prices.

The Disney process was fairly simple, straighforward, and pressure free. We might have been able to save some $$ through resale, but we felt it was worth the extra $$ for the streamlined process. We did not use a lawyer through Disney and they do have you sit with a QA person to go over all of the paperwork with you before you sign anything. lf you more comfortable with a lawyer I am sure you can bring one but we did not feel as though it was really necessary.

I hope this helps.

Yes it does help thank you. We went to the SSR presentation last week sometime and our host told us we had to decide by tuesday, I've been completely honest with her and told her I was looking at the resale market. Now what they offered was to cover closing and cover maintanence till the end of this year. Is that about right? Also is it true that as a DVC member you get 10% discount at all Disney Stores?

 

[Stitch 626]

Now what they offered was to cover closing and cover maintanence till the end of this year. Is that about right? Also is it true that as a DVC member you get 10% discount at all Disney Stores?

That is correct. Disney will cover the 2005 Maint fee, no closing or titleing costs, $8 off the $95/point or 100 development points offer, and no interest charged if you finance through Disney until your building is opened (Aug 2 for us).

As far as the Disney store discounts, I have not gotten through all of the perks information yet and could not tell you for sure as we have not gotten our PIN yet for the members only website. I can tell you that you get a World of Disney discount at DTD if you are an AP holder (great discount on AP's through DVC at this time.)

 

[PerkyPatty]

Forgive my ignorance but what is DTD?

 

[athenna]

Forgive my ignorance but what is DTD?

It's Downtown Disney!
It's comprised of 3 areas:
1) Marketplace- dining, shopping, they have a marina there, too, etc.
2) Pleasure Island-nighttime district for adults-clubs, bars, shopping
3) West Side- also has dining, shopping, bars, etc and Cirque du Soliel, too!
HTH!

 

[PerkyPatty]

Ok i'm still learning but as a DVC member you get discounts to all that stuff? PS what's HTH? (Feeling very ignorant) Also what sort of savings in buying AP as opposed to Park Hoppers? I live in NY so I'm not sure we'd be going more than once a year.

 

[athenna]

Ok i'm still learning but as a DVC member you get discounts to all that stuff? PS what's HTH? (Feeling very ignorant) Also what sort of savings in buying AP as opposed to Park Hoppers? I live in NY so I'm not sure we'd be going more than once a year.

Sorry for using more abbreviations, at some point you'll just used to them I'm still trying to!
HTH means-hope this helps.
You get discounts to a lot of various things, I have the annual pass discount, the dvc members discounts, and the disney dining experience discounts.
My 2 fav discounts are the dining experience card-save 20% off of lots of places to eat including adult beverages. And my other favorite is being able to save 10% at the world of disney,if I bring back stuff for friends back home, it's 1 stop shopping!

 

[PerkyPatty]

Thanks for all the information.

 

[Tramp68]

I think with the increased price of Disney's ROFR I think you are going to find more and more people trying to sell their Timeshare doing an under the table deal where they give a buyer's concession.

If Disney were to continue raising the prices that they ROFR , more and more people are going to want to buy new. So, IF I really wanted to sell I would sell my SSR points to someone for $90 a point on paper and give back $10 to $15 a point to the buyer. If Disney wants to buyback my points at $90 then I will be glad to sell and then rebuy at $87...