BLT question

[rico974]

I was recently at Disney and went to DVC and checked out BLT. I spoke with my guide who was helpful and spent the last several days on this board reading virtuallly everything which was extremly helpful.

I looked at resale vs BLT. I want to buy a resale but I also like the BLT. I understand the pro's and con's of both but still this is the hardest decision.

With the incentive out there, it's basically 96 a point for the BLT which seems to be a good deal. Does anyabody think or with the experience that incentives will go down in price or go up.

I suppose to make my decision in the morning with my guide. Should I wait a month or two or will it cost me more or save me more. All opinions are welcomed.

 

[DVC Mike]

Buy where you want to stay. Who knows if the incentives will get better or not?

If you really love BLT, buy there. If there's another resort available via resale that you really love, buy there.

To me, it's always been a matter of buying where I would really love to stay, and never a dollar and cents issue.

See the Choosing Your Home Resort - What to Consider? thread.

 

[Sandisw]

No one knows exactly what will happen with the incentives, but I agree that BLT is a good deal right now.

I am biased, however, because BLT is the only resort I want to own. I started out resale (small contract) and then added on at BLT. It allowed me to get in with less points, and I was able to add on only at BLT with 130 points vs. 160 (since I was a member) and still pay the $96.00 per point.

Of course, I am now selling that first contract with the plan to add on more at BLT because I realized that I just want to be able to book my entire vacation at BLT and trade out at 7 months to try other resorts for a few nights. But if I can't, then its okay because I will be at my favorite place.

If you are still unsure about BLT, I would contact your guide and ask to have more time. I personally think that its unfair for DVC to potentially take away incentives from people who tour but not ready to make up their minds in 72 hours when the same time frame is not given to people over the phone.

BLT does have lower MF's and the contract is going to be anywhere from 13 - 18 years longer. Some of your upfront cost will be made back this way.
While the points needed at BLT is higher in many cases, there are some benefits. A 1 bedroom at BLT sleeps 5 and has two bathrooms. At some of the other resorts, you must go to a 2 bedroom to get this--point cost becomes less of an issue if you consider this.

But, the bottom line becomes whether or not you would be happy staying elsewhere, if you can't trade out of your home resort. Even though I could have gotten SSR for less, I knew I wouldn't be happy so the extra money was well worth it.

 

[Crystal_27]

As the PPs have said, buy where you want to stay. DH and I debated buying resale for many months before realizing that we would not be happy unless we were on the monorail. Yeah, BLT costs a bit more than resale, but its maintenance fees are lower and the contracts are the furthest out. Also, buying through Disney is a snap and your points are immediately available to you (versus having to wait 30-60 days to get into the system when you buy resale).

DVC is a huge investment and you are definitely being very wise in taking your time to really think about this situation. Do keep in mind, though, that Disney (and therefore your Guide) can only sell you certain properties and will therefore try and steer you toward buying through Disney instead of resale. Just remember that the Guides are salesmen whose job it is to sell DVC through Disney, not resale. One other thing to keep in mind is that incentives can change at any time. This month, the incentives became much more attractive than they were previously, so just make sure to keep an eye out for rumors of changing incentives (the rumors started surfacing about 20 days before the incentive changed, although people didn't know what the new incentives were, just that they were going to change). And, also keep in mind that you should be able to defer your downpayment for 2 months, if coming up with the 10% down payment is an issue.

Either way, best of luck to you, and please feel free to ask any questions that you may have.

 

[CMOORE185]

Frankly buying where you want to stay is fine if the price difference is small, But IMO when there is such a huge difference in cost between buying from Disney and buying resale it is tough in my mind to justfy the idea of buying where you want to stay. I utilize all the resorts during busy times and have rarely not gotten what I am looking for at the 7 month booking window. I will be using BLT in the future, even though I do not own their, and have every bit of confidence I will be able to get what I want their.

 

[ssawka]

• What's your favorite park, or where do you plan to spend most of your time? Once you answer this, consider transportation time.
• What is the expiration date of the resale?
• Resale value. If you want to sell the contract, what resort will be more popular? Also, hand in hand with the expiration date, will it be worthwhiled for a person to buy the resale when/if you want to sell? Let's say you want to sell in about 20 years, a contract that expires in 2042 will only have 13 years left, whereas BLT will have 31 years left.
• What are your future plans? Depending on your age, you may not want to pay MF well into your retirement. Do you have kids that will take over the contract, or are you planning on selling?

 

[Crystal_27]

Frankly buying where you want to stay is fine if the price difference is small, But IMO when there is such a huge difference in cost between buying from Disney and buying resale it is tough in my mind to justfy the idea of buying where you want to stay.

I see your point as well, but for us it also came down to how much hassle we wanted to put in making sure we could get BLT for every trip. For us (and we may be the exception, not the rule), it was worth the extra money to know that we get BLT at the 11-month window versus the 7-month window. And, after just having taken my first non-monorail vacation in March, I realized how much transportation affected our vacation, and also realized how important it really was for us to be on the monorail. But, this is why DVC is so great - - it offers choices for everyone.

 

[CMOORE185]

I see your point as well, but for us it also came down to how much hassle we wanted to put in making sure we could get BLT for every trip. For us (and we may be the exception, not the rule), it was worth the extra money to know that we get BLT at the 11-month window versus the 7-month window. And, after just having taken my first non-monorail vacation in March, I realized how much transportation affected our vacation, and also realized how important it really was for us to be on the monorail. But, this is why DVC is so great - - it offers choices for everyone.

I definitely understand where you are coming from and for these reasons BLT is the right choice for you. I love all the resorts and if I didn't get my 1st choice I would just move on to the next and be happy. But not everyone is like me.

 

[Crystal_27]

I definitely understand where you are coming from and for these reasons BLT is the right choice for you. I love all the resorts and if I didn't get my 1st choice I would just move on to the next and be happy. But not everyone is like me.

I definitely hope to be able to stay at all of the resorts one day. I bet that each offers its own charm and personality. At least I'll have 50 years to attempt to do it.

 

[Disnead]

BLT does have lower MF's and the contract is going to be anywhere from 13 - 18 years longer. Some of your upfront cost will be made back this way.
While the points needed at BLT is higher in many cases, there are some benefits.

This is a good point. We were torn between buying a resale at AKV and buying new at BLT. I did some number crunching and ended up figuring out that BLT seemed to be a much better investment due to maintenance fees at the moment. I liked BLT and AKV about the same, but I also wanted to make a good investment. Here is how I came to that conclusion (Math warning!!):

We compared 160 points at BLT at $98/pt and a resale at AKV that is currently on the Timeshare store at $85/pt as an example.

BLT - 160 points x $98 = $15680
AKV - 160 points x $85 = $13600

Difference is you save $2080.00 before closing costs by buying resale AKV(which I'll leave out of this comparison for simplicity's sake)

Then I took a look at the maintenance fees:
BLT - 160 points x $3.67 pp = $587.20 per year
AKV - 160 points x $4.86 pp = $777.60 per year

Difference is you save $190.40 per year in maintenance fees by staying at BLT (not including inflation...again which I will leave out of this to give a simple view)

Assuming that the difference between the two stays the same as the years go (big assumption, but I imagine they will both inflate at about the same rate), I would make the difference in the initial investment back on the 12th year of ownership!

$190.40 (you save by having BLT maint fees) x 12 years = you pay $2284.80 less than if you had AKV. (Remember above we had a difference of $2080.00 on the contract price.)

So now we are ahead of the investment we made at AKV. And we have another 36 years of comparison between the two of them. If you keep calculating that out you get a difference of $6868.80 at the 48 year mark in favor of BLT. To me a much smarter investment if you are flexible on where you want your home to be.

Keep in mind again this does not include inflation, closing costs, financing, etc. The difference between the AKV and BLT maintenance fees will fluctuate up and down throughout the years, but I think this gave us a general idea of what the better investment was for us at this time.
This just helped me to look at it this way, and we ended up going with BLT yesterday!!

Hopefully someone finds this helpful.

 

[Sandisw]

This is a good point. We were torn between buying a resale at AKV and buying new at BLT. I did some number crunching and ended up figuring out that BLT seemed to be a much better investment due to maintenance fees at the moment. I liked BLT and AKV about the same, but I also wanted to make a good investment. Here is how I came to that conclusion (Math warning!!):

We compared 160 points at BLT at $98/pt and a resale at AKV that is currently on the Timeshare store at $85/pt as an example.

BLT - 160 points x $98 = $15680
AKV - 160 points x $85 = $13600

Difference is you save $2080.00 before closing costs by buying resale AKV(which I'll leave out of this comparison for simplicity's sake)

Then I took a look at the maintenance fees:
BLT - 160 points x $3.67 pp = $587.20 per year
AKV - 160 points x $4.86 pp = $777.60 per year

Difference is you save $190.40 per year in maintenance fees by staying at BLT (not including inflation...again which I will leave out of this to give a simple view)

Assuming that the difference between the two stays the same as the years go (big assumption, but I imagine they will both inflate at about the same rate), I would make the difference in the initial investment back on the 12th year of ownership!

$190.40 (you save by having BLT maint fees) x 12 years = you pay $2284.80 less than if you had AKV. (Remember above we had a difference of $2080.00 on the contract price.)

So now we are ahead of the investment we made at AKV. And we have another 36 years of comparison between the two of them. If you keep calculating that out you get a difference of $6868.80 at the 48 year mark in favor of BLT. To me a much smarter investment if you are flexible on where you want your home to be.

Keep in mind again this does not include inflation, closing costs, financing, etc. The difference between the AKV and BLT maintenance fees will fluctuate up and down throughout the years, but I think this gave us a general idea of what the better investment was for us at this time.
This just helped me to look at it this way, and we ended up going with BLT yesterday!!

Hopefully someone finds this helpful.

Congratulations!!! I am a BLT fan so welcome home neighbor!!!! I did calculations a lot like yours when I was deciding. But, when it came down to it, I really wanted to be at BLT so the extra money I was spending upfront was worth it to me. And, as you said, some of the difference will be made up in MF's over the years.

 

[CarolMN]

Your calculations assume that 160 points will "buy" you the name number of nights at BLT as they would at AKV. I'm not so sure that is true.

IMO, a point is a point is a point only if you always plan to book 7 months or less from arrival and don't care where you stay. In other words, home resort doesn't matter to you. If that's the case, why not buy where you get the best deal?

 

[Disnead]

Your calculations assume that 160 points will "buy" you the name number of nights at BLT as they would at AKV. I'm not so sure that is true.

IMO, a point is a point is a point only if you always plan to book 7 months or less from arrival and don't care where you stay. In other words, home resort doesn't matter to you. If that's the case, why not buy where you get the best deal?

You are right on this, and that is something that I should have stated. When I was doing these calculations I did notice that that "cost" in terms of a night's stay differs by quite a bit for these resorts (AKV was lower than BLT).

But I did do this with the mindset of "a point is a point" since I do plan on booking at different resorts quite a bit. Thank you for clarifying for me.

 

[islandtimect]

It's taking me forever to decide between an addon at BLT or AKV. The lower MFs of BLT is more than eaten up by the higher pts needed. It "costs" us 15-22% more pts for a BLT vacation vs AKV. So for us, 7 nights at AKV=6 nights at BLT. But I still haven't decided which one to addon, cause I really really want to be able to stay at a monorail DVC! BTW, I'm an accountant/CPA/MBA, and this is one decision I can't make solely based on sound financial analysis. So I'm driving myself crazy and over-thinking this decision!!

 

[TIGGERmetoo]

It's a hard decision between BLT and AKV. We debated back and forth before we bought BLT. We finally decided that it would probably be easier to book AKV at 7 months than BLT. Hope I'm right.

 

[islandtimect]

It's a hard decision between BLT and AKV. We debated back and forth before we bought BLT. We finally decided that it would probably be easier to book AKV at 7 months than BLT. Hope I'm right.

That's a BIG reason why we're leaning toward BLT for our addon. We absolutely love AKV, but think it'll be easier to book at 7 mths than BLT.

 

[CarolMN]

If you think you'd want to stay in a MK view or a standard view at BLT, you'll almost surely need to own BLT.

If you think you'd want to stay concierge or in a value category at AKV, then you'll need to won AKV.

I believe the more common views at both resorts (Lake view at BLT and Savanna and Standard view at AKV) will have reasonable availability at 7 months.

Not helping, am I?

 

[disdad09]

I am a member at BLT and for me it was easy to deside because we love the location of BLT and loved the thought of being that close to our favorite park MK.

 

[FuzzyMelton]

Book where you want to stay! Its that simple. Money doesn't buy happiness! We looked at both and fell in love with AKV. The decor fit us better and yes it is a longer ride on the bus than any other resort except for Hilton Head and Vero Beach, but we didn't really like BLT. So magically we bought at the place we liked best. We are happy and looking forward to our first visit at our new home in Nov.

What is $6000 in savings over 50 years if you are unhappy with your location?

 

[RayJay]

What is $6000 in savings over 50 years if you are unhappy with your location?

$120 per year

What a great way of looking at it, I'm with you.

RayJay