best resort to purchase with dvc

[disneyman0943]

what is the best to purchase with only around 300 dollars to spend monthly for dues

sorry if i am confusing everyone but i am just as confused with some of the explanations. I was told with the 10% and closing that i would pay 1792 upfront and around 281 per month for blt, and he said that blt was the cheapest dues. i am confused with all the 3.67 per point and all the per points talk, i do better knowing what the cost per month will be, so with that i just want to know what the best thing to do is. I live month to month so i need advice that will help me get what i want with as little cost and hastle as possible, thanks to anyone who can bear with my stupidity and help me.

 

[christa112]

Not sure if I am following.

Are you going to pay cash for DVC and then just pay dues monthly?

Or you do mean put deposit down and finance DVC and your monthly payment be around $300?

We purchased 240 points at AKV with current incentives and $5000 down and our payment are around $275 per month + annual dues.

 

[Crystal_27]

Go to a mortgage calculator (bankrate has one) and just start plugging in numbers. Assume that points will cost $112/point for a minimum of 160 points, that you will be required to put 10% down on the full purchase price ($1,792), that you will get a "credit" of $14/point for the incentives (*if* you have an existing DVC member referral, and anyone on this Board, including myself, would be happy to act as your referral), and that closing costs will be $300. So, the minimum number of points at BLT will cost you approximately $14,188 (less if you buy AKV). Disney's interest rates are 10.75% or 14.25% so you can plug those into the mortgage calculator and find out what your monthly payment would be (you can finance with Disney up to 10 years). Hope that helps!

Edited to add: you also have to take into consideration your annual dues, which can be paid in one lump sum or monthly. You can probably estimate about $4.00/point for annual dues.

 

[5forDiz]

Here's link to thread on Annual Maintenance Fees at DVC resorts posted by LisaS and the amounts that MFs have increased by (or sometimes, rarely, have decreased by) over the years. MFs are calculated based on Home Resort your points are from X number of points you own ( ie BLT as Home Resort X 160 points X $3.67 = $587.20 ); you may pay entirely in January or monthly with automatic bank withdrawal.


http://personalpages.tds.net/~rb/DIS/DVC/DVCDuesHistory.htm

If you're planning to buy into DVC by directly purchasing from Disney, typically it is easier to finance your purchase through them. But you should not rule out shopping on the resale market for a contract which would also give you the option to purchase your DVC membership with a contract with less points then the minimum amount Disney would require you to buy in with and a resale DVC purchase can often be financed through a resale broker recommended source. This board's sponsor is The Timeshare Store (their link is at top of page) and many here, including me, have purchased contracts through them and often at a considerable savings over Disney's direct purchase prices. As other posters here have said, use mortgage calculator to determine what your monthly financed amount would be based upon your down payment, etc.

Best wishes

 

[dianeschlicht]

what is the best to purchase with only around 300 dollars to spend monthly for dues

Your question is confusing. Are you saying that's what you would have to spend monthly buying DVC and financing, or are you saying that is what you are willing to spend monthly for maintenance fees? $300 a month for maintenance fees would be a hefty amount of points at ANY of the DVC resorts.
Here is the history of DVC annual fees at all of the resorts: (price is per point owned)

Year OKW BWV VB VB(sub) HH VWL BCV SSR AKV BLT

2009 4.73 5.21 6.41 4.97 5.36 5.04 5.00 4.34 4.85 3.67
2008 4.56 5.04 6.04 4.71 5.16 4.87 4.80 4.21 4.71
2007 4.40 4.85 5.63 4.39 4.98 4.73 4.63 4.12 4.62
2006 4.24 4.69 5.27 4.12 4.34 4.61 4.48 3.98
2005 3.86 4.41 4.87 3.84 3.86 4.35 4.27 3.83
2004 3.68 4.25 4.67 3.67 3.70 4.22 4.18 3.80
2003 3.49 4.11 4.37 4.37 3.69 4.05 3.97
2002 3.22 3.92 4.17 3.33 3.49 3.80 3.77
2001 3.13 3.83 3.98 2.70 3.32 3.63
2000 3.16 3.94 4.07 2.87 3.25 3.62
1999 3.16 4.02 3.99 2.82 3.18
1998 3.17 3.94 ---- 2.76 3.20
1997 3.14 3.84 ---- 2.90 3.16
1996 2.99 3.70 ---- 2.82 3.16
1995 2.84
1994 2.70
1993 2.63
1992 2.56
1991 2.51

As you can see, they do increase annually, but not in a significant manner. If you are saying you have $300 to spend monthly on financing (including maintenance fees), then that would depend on how many points you purchase, at which resort, and how much your downpayment was. We made our initial purchases and paid for them in full within the first year. That means that for the past 12 years, we have been paying maintenance fees only, and it comes to around $2000 annually, but divided by 12 is in the $166 per month range. We have 449 points total.

How many points are you thinking of owning?

 

[xJersey_Guy]

Go to a mortgage calculator (bankrate has one) and just start plugging in numbers. Assume that points will cost $112/point for a minimum of 160 points, that you will be required to put 10% down on the full purchase price ($1,792), that you will get a "credit" of $14/point for the incentives (*if* you have an existing DVC member referral, and anyone on this Board, including myself, would be happy to act as your referral), and that closing costs will be $300. So, the minimum number of points at BLT will cost you approximately $14,188 (less if you buy AKV). Disney's interest rates are 10.75% or 14.25% so you can plug those into the mortgage calculator and find out what your monthly payment would be (you can finance with Disney up to 10 years). Hope that helps!

Edited to add: you also have to take into consideration your annual dues, which can be paid in one lump sum or monthly. You can probably estimate about $4.00/point for annual dues.

Although my DW claims that I never have to prove my nerd cred, here goes: If you want to perform the mortgage calculation in an Excel spreadsheet the formula is pretty straightforward. It would look like this for the example above

=PMT(10.75%/12,120,14188)

Where 10.75% is the interest rate, 120 is the length of the loan in months, and 14188 is the principle. You can cut and paste the example formula above as is into a cell in an Excel spreadsheet

The real power comes in where the contents of cells are substituted for coding the values in the calculation. This will allow the values in the cells to be changed to so that you can play "what-if" games

Given the three cell spreadsheet below:
__ A
1 | 10.75%
2 | 120
3 | 14188

The formula would be =PMT(A1/12,A2,A3)

Please note that for the calculation to work the value in cell A1, interest rate, must contain the % sign.

Also you may notice that the results will be displayed as a negative number representing a payment. If you wish to display the result as a positive number you can use the ABS function to display the Absolute value.

Our calculations would look like this:

=ABS(PMT(10.75%/12,120,14188))
=ABS(PMT(A1/12,A2,A3))

 

[Lynne M]

what is the best to purchase with only around 300 dollars to spend monthly for dues

sorry if i am confusing everyone but i am just as confused with some of the explanations. I was told with the 10% and closing that i would pay 1792 upfront and around 281 per month for blt, and he said that blt was the cheapest dues. i am confused with all the 3.67 per point and all the per points talk, i do better knowing what the cost per month will be, so with that i just want to know what the best thing to do is. I live month to month so i need advice that will help me get what i want with as little cost and hastle as possible, thanks to anyone who can bear with my stupidity and help me.

OK, let's take a step back and look at this another way. Although it seems confusing, it's critical that you understand how DVC works before you go any farther, or you're going to be spending way more money that you need to. And none of us can afford to throw away money.

First thing you need to do is figure out where you WANT to stay. Unless you have absolutely no resort preference, or you can't book more than 7 months out from your trip, your choice of home resort is very important, because that's where you get your 4-month booking advantage. Depending on the resort and season you're traveling, that can mean the difference between getting a villa at a resort you like, or at a resort you don't really care for. And what's the point of spending all that money if you can't stay where you want to?

Once you've settled on some possible home resorts, figure out when you're likely to travel, and what size villa you'll usually need. Check out the point charts at the top of the page and see how many points you'll need per year. Remember that you can bank and borrow points, so if you're going to go every other year, you might only need to buy half as many points, potentially saving yourself thousands of dollars.

OK, now that you know the resorts you might want, and how many points you might need, then you can start looking at other things, like maintenance fees. It's true that BLT has the cheapest fees.....now. That's because it's a new resort, and DVC is subsidizing the dues. When they stop the subsidy, dues will go up.

I know you want to make it simple, but DVC isn't something you can buy off the shelf like a TV set. You really have to understand what you need, what you're getting, and not just buy what Disney offers because it's there.

Also consider the resale market....you can save a great deal of money, and if you find you won't need 160 points, you can get smaller contracts.

It sounds like cost is important to you...if that's the case, then slow down, and take the time to do the research so you don't end up blowing more money than you need to, or buying something that's not really right for you.

 

[Crystal_27]

Although my DW claims that I never have to prove my nerd cred, here goes:

Nerd?!? PSHAW!! Thank you for taking the time to post that!!

 

[Misty89]

I *think* you mean that you can pay a total of $300 a month ? ( that # includes payment and dues combined)
that is the same magic number for us. so mabye i can help you out - if not just ignore me

we plan on buying 160 pts at BLT later this year, we are going to put a min. of $2,500k down, if the same incentives are still around, that would give us a estimated payment of $200.mth, ( finance for 10 years, but pay more than "set" payment to get it down faster ) and then we put the "monthly" MF amount ( like $50) into savings......so walla, total payment of $250 a month. you can adjust uor #'s to get to $300 . Our amount is what we can do each month if there is no overtime/extra hours at our jobs. obvisously when we have more $$, we will pay more each month.
we do not quite live month to month, but in the winter we do get close
(construction) so thats when it's important to have a manageable payment.

 

[Dean]

I would be concerned about someone buying such a luxury purchase if things were tight. However, if one were going to buy anyway, I'd try to figure out a way to buy resale at SSR. About 60% the price of BLT and allows you to buy what you can currently afford which may be less than the DVC minimum to purchase, say 50-100 points. The dues may currently be a little higher per point but that's unlikely to be the case long term plus the overall dues will be less if you buy less points. It has been possible in the past to finance at around Disney's rates which are very high, I don't know what that option is like at present. You could also rent points and save the extra for a couple of years and buy in later.

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

To start with...

1. Figure out what turns you on.
go to the DVC website and take the 360 tours of each resort. Then go over to allearsnet.com and view the slideshows of each of the resorts. Then come back to the DISboards and go to the top sticky thread on DVC Mousecellaneous that says something like DVC pictures. Repeat as many times as necessary.

2. Figure out what your needs are for now and long term.
Do you like the longer contract dates? Do you want to stay close to epcot? Does a super pool turn you on? Do you like huge rooms? How about the best bang for your buck?

After doing this...you should have a good idea about WHICH resort you like.

3. Look at the points charts and the maintenance fees.
This sometimes helps you choose between two different resorts. It gets your head out of the clouds. Decide what you want to start out with and add 20%. We go to Disney much more than we used to go.

At this point, you should know how many points you want and where. It is totally ok to get a small contract to get your feet wet.

4. Look at the resale boards, and or talk to your Disney DVC Guide.
Go TSS (sponsor of this board), DVCbyResale.com and Grandma Jaki's sites. There are others, but that is a good start.

5. Use the finance calculators to add your payment and your maintenance fees.

6. Read the DIS to find out about ROFR, renting points, title searches, housekeeping issues, changes in the program, perks, etc. (Find out about the good, the bad, and the ugly.)

7. Think about what can happen in 30-40-50 years. Worry. Come to terms with it.

8. FInd the right contract.

9. Make the purchase at the resort of your choice OR rent points, OR wait, OR back out.

10. Rest easy that you made the right decision. Expect to get the bug again in a purchase or the dreaded add-on-itis.

 

[margitmouse]

I agree with Lynne.
DVC is not like other timeshare and you need to understand how it works before you can look at buy-in costs and maintenance fees. This site has helped me immensely, as well as the DVC brochure available from the Time Share Store- see top of the page. When you order it from them, you can also sign up for notification as resales become available. DVC also has a video that is helpful people say, but I haven't seen it.
I'm a soon to be buyer myself, and am looking at resale simply because I just can't do the 160 buy in through Disney... I really liked the suggestion above to figure what you need and add 20%.....as I suspect that once in..addon-itis will set in!!!!!
I just got back from OKW, on points rented through this site.. it was a GREAT way to be introduced to DVC, it was a wonderful experience and a beautiful resort. That whole process helped me to understand DVC and has given me a goal to work towards ...my Own little piece of Home Away From Home!
Good luck,
and welcome home!

 

[Sandisw]

You may want to consider a resale purchase, unless you have your heart set on buying at BLT, VGC, or AKV--and, even AKV, might be better resale.

If you have no specific DVC resort that you are interested in staying at all the time, then resale will be the much cheaper option.

Once you figure out how many points you need for your typical trips, you can then look for a contract that has enough points to meet your needs.

Getting a monthly payment in your $300 range will be easier and you will end up with more points.

To buy BLT (Bay Lake Tower) through Disney, you are looking at a monthly payment (with MF's) around $240.00 if you qualify for the preferred 10.75% interest rate and $280.00 if you qualify for the standard 14.25% interest rate.

This assumes 10% down ($1792) and buying 160 points (the minimum amount for new members).

Those 160 points could get you 5 nights, Sun - Thurs in a standard view 1 bedroom every year during Magic Season (one of the higher seasons). Of course, that is the beauty of points--you can get more nights if you go in a studio or if you travel at different times.

Your points would also go farther if you traded out at 7 months to other DVC resorts.

Now, if you bought resale at SSR, you could end up getting closer to 225 points for about the same price.

Good luck!!!

 

[Mickey'sApprentice]

Those 225 Saratoga points would allow you to stay a full week in a 1 bedroom most of the time, or 2 full weeks in a studio during magic season. Of course MFs will be higher on 225 points.

You also need to look into banking and borrowing. (You can essentially use 3 years worth of point at one time if you like.)

 

[ammo]

If you are truly focused on the monthly cost, don't forget that DVC only covers the cost of lodging. Tickets are not included. I just bought annual passes for the coming year and they came to $1,877 for a family of five. That's an extra $150 per month if you're budgeting.