buying DVC as a Florida Resident

[Deb & Bill]

okay here is a question in which i find myself confused if i go resale say the contract cost around $85 per point for 100 points and the direct price disney has it for $14k, in resale i would only have to pay $8,500 instead of paying 14k plus its monthly fees and just pay the dues of maintenance for the resale price, i hope i am not confusing anyone else.

You would pay the annual fees the same as someone buying direct if you purchased resale. There is no grandfathering of dues. Everyone pays the same amount per point.

When you purchase resale, any current year annual fees and next year annual fees would be negotiable with the seller, depending on how many points were left in the current year or borrowed from the next year.

 

[JimMIA]

okay here is a question in which i find myself confused if i go resale say the contract cost around $85 per point for 100 points and the direct price disney has it for $14k, in resale i would only have to pay $8,500 instead of paying 14k plus its monthly fees and just pay the dues of maintenance for the resale price, i hope i am not confusing anyone else.

Deb is exactly right. The dues (annual costs, whatever you call them) are exactly the same whether you purchase direct or resale. The difference is the acquisition cost.

I personally think your estimate of $85 per point is a little too high -- as I said above, I think $75-$80 is more realistic, based on the info in the ROFR thread.

 

[PrincessV]

I personally think your estimate of $85 per point is a little too high -- as I said above, I think $75-$80 is more realistic, based on the info in the ROFR thread.

^ I'm selling and have my contract waiting on ROFR right now - that pricing is spot-on.

OP, as a Floridian, DVC worked very well for me in a lot of the ways already mentioned. The one caution I'll give is to consider just how flexible you can be now and going forward. When I bought 7 years ago, my son was younger and I was able to visit WDW at slower times of the year and do mid-week stays - DVC was perfect for us then. Now that he's older and can't miss school, we're competing for reservations at peak times and doing fewer planned trips - more and more we're deciding within days or hours to go to WDW and I started having a much harder time booking on short notice. It's not the only reason I sold, but it's one of them.

That said, I used the heck out of my points and was fortunate enough to sell at only slightly less than I paid - we more than got our money's worth out of the difference between, given that we'd have been at WDW paying for nights, regardless!

 

[DisneyMarv]

going direct do you guys/gals think $2,000 is decent amount for a down payment. Or does Disney ask for more ?

 

[Minniesgal]

going direct do you guys/gals think $2,000 is decent amount for a down payment. Or does Disney ask for more ?

You need to pay a minimum of 10 percent, 20 percent if you want to get the better finance rates which are still very high.

 

[Msmithmd]

Marv, the point of DVC is to save you money in the medium to long term over paying cash for a comparable room. You can save significant money with DVC if you buy resale and pay cash. You still save money buying direct, but it takes much longer to reach the point of realizing savings when you pay that much more per point to buy in. This isn't a "direct versus resale" thread, but the math is hopefully straightforward to understand in that cost difference.

Compounding that direct decision by financing 80-90% of your purchase price will get you to a point where the break-even on DVC versus cash rooms is decades away, if ever. In this scenario you would be much better to simply rent points yearly, if the DVC villas are where you want to stay.

Disney does a good job marketing DVC as a "club." Truth is, there is no club, this is just buying a discount on a hotel room for 30-50 years.

Ask yourself if you would take out a loan at 15% interest to prepay for a hotel room thirty years in the future. If the answer is no, then rent to stay DVC over the next few years and save until you can pay cash for your own points. If the answer is that yes, you do indeed think that sounds like a good idea, then it's your (future) money and your prerogative.

 

[PrincessV]

Marv, the point of DVC is to save you money in the medium to long term over paying cash for a comparable room. You can save significant money with DVC if you buy resale and pay cash. You still save money buying direct, but it takes much longer to reach the point of realizing savings when you pay that much more per point to buy in. This isn't a "direct versus resale" thread, but the math is hopefully straightforward to understand in that cost difference.

Compounding that direct decision by financing 80-90% of your purchase price will get you to a point where the break-even on DVC versus cash rooms is decades away, if ever. In this scenario you would be much better to simply rent points yearly, if the DVC villas are where you want to stay.

Disney does a good job marketing DVC as a "club." Truth is, there is no club, this is just buying a discount on a hotel room for 30-50 years.

Ask yourself if you would take out a loan at 15% interest to prepay for a hotel room thirty years in the future. If the answer is no, then rent to stay DVC over the next few years and save until you can pay cash for your own points. If the answer is that yes, you do indeed think that sounds like a good idea, then it's your (future) money and your prerogative.

Well said. DisneyMarv, especially as a FL resident, I can't see any good benefit to financing DVC's inflated direct price. As a Floridian, you have access to benefits as good as, sometimes better, than those of DVC - particularly annual pass and room discounts. I couldn't in good conscience ever recommend a Floridian to finance a direct sale.

In some circumstances, financing a resale isn't a bad idea, but it depends on lots of variables, including interest rate, time to payoff, plans to keep or sell DVC down the road, other debt, etc. For me, using my home equity line with an obscenely low interest rate made sense to pay for a chunk of my DVC contract, but only because I paid a low price for it to start and knew from past history how much I'd likely spend on WDW accommodations each year, with or without DVC. Over 7 years of membership, I wound up spending in interest and payment about what I would have in cash as a non-DVCer, so it was a wash. That wouldn't have been the case with a higher interest rate or higher price per point.

 

[DisneyMarv]

Well said. DisneyMarv, especially as a FL resident, I can't see any good benefit to financing DVC's inflated direct price. As a Floridian, you have access to benefits as good as, sometimes better, than those of DVC - particularly annual pass and room discounts. I couldn't in good conscience ever recommend a Floridian to finance a direct sale.

In some circumstances, financing a resale isn't a bad idea, but it depends on lots of variables, including interest rate, time to payoff, plans to keep or sell DVC down the road, other debt, etc. For me, using my home equity line with an obscenely low interest rate made sense to pay for a chunk of my DVC contract, but only because I paid a low price for it to start and knew from past history how much I'd likely spend on WDW accommodations each year, with or without DVC. Over 7 years of membership, I wound up spending in interest and payment about what I would have in cash as a non-DVCer, so it was a wash. That wouldn't have been the case with a higher interest rate or higher price per point.

i agree with you all i guess i will just continue to save up till i pay without needing to finance, i already have good amount of discounts as a annual passholder/Florida resident. Disney will always be here so i guess i can be patient and not rush into things.

 

[Dean]

i agree with you all i guess i will just continue to save up till i pay without needing to finance, i already have good amount of discounts as a annual passholder/Florida resident. Disney will always be here so i guess i can be patient and not rush into things.

20% of retail is almost 40% of resale. You could make it priority if it's something important. Maybe skip a trip or go less expensive maybe off property once or twice. Your choice of course but I'm sure it's something you could do if you wanted.

 

[samfsu]

My DW and I have been going to WDW together for 10 yrs. We first looked into purchasing in 2005/6. We didnt because we were getting great rates as FL resident/AP for Port Orleans FQ. But in the past years, rates for AP/FL resi have been higher and higher. That coupled with the fact that I like the idea of being able to get a 1 bed or 2 bed (like we are when we take my in laws in feb). I also like having the micro in the studios and kitchen in 1 bed so we can cook breakfast.

I think now is a great time to buy if you can. If you want to buy and can commit to paying off the loan in say 12-18 months, consider applying for a no interest CC and do a balance transfer to yourself and pay that way. That will give you the flexibility to loan yourself the $ interest free for the term but make sure you can pay it off in the time period. This way you get to enjoy coming home sooner rather than later.

Again this is my humble suggestion and not me trying to push you into something you dont want to do. Just another option.

 

[jodifla]

The problem with constantly waiting to buy until you have cash in hand is the direct price keeps going up and up and up and up, and the resales have restrictions put on them, with more likely to come.

While I wouldn't buy at direct prices now, I'm glad I bought direct in '96 and even did the dreaded financing. We had it all paid off in less than 5 years.

 

[OKW Lover]

We are shortly (a couple of months) going to be moving to central FL. In fact we will be just a couple of miles from the castle. We're going to keep our points though.

First, we want to stay on property for events like Food & Wine so we can enjoy some adult beverages without having to worry about driving home. Second, we will be using some of our points for stays at Aulani, DLR or perhaps HH. If we find that we have "leftover" points we will consider renting them.

 

[DisneyMarv]

We are shortly (a couple of months) going to be moving to central FL. In fact we will be just a couple of miles from the castle. We're going to keep our points though.

First, we want to stay on property for events like Food & Wine so we can enjoy some adult beverages without having to worry about driving home. Second, we will be using some of our points for stays at Aulani, DLR or perhaps HH. If we find that we have "leftover" points we will consider renting them.

hope to find you in the renting thread in the near future i am probably going to decide and just rent points for now. DVC seems so nice but the long term contract does scare me off a little.

 

[mikron]

We have owned DVC since 2004 and live 80 miles North of Disney. I am self employed and we can call MS and take any reservation open to fit our plans. We love the resorts and all that the parks offer. No plane reservations or car rentales to pay for. We still feel as if we were traveling 100's of miles and had not been for years when we get to Disney in and hour and a half.

 

[DarkSideRunner]

Great to hear perspective from Florida residents. I just moved to Florida and was excited to become an annual passholder - figured it meant I could save a lot of money on overnight stays, but still can't shake that itch to be a DVC member. I love the resorts.

 

[girli565]

We are FL residents (Miami) and we just bought into DVC through a resale contract. We are waiting to close.

We bought 120 points and even when we bought it we knew that wasn't enough for all the times we go in a year. We typically go during March Spring Break for 2 nights, Summer for 5 nights, Food & Wine (Fall) for 2 nights, and just before Xmas to see the decorations for 1-2 nights.

We'd like to add another 50-80 points in a year or two once this contact is completely paid off so we can fit in all our trips and maybe take a longer summer trip. We have friends who own DVC and live in Orlando. They invited us a year ago to stay with them at SSR in a 2-bedroom and we were sold! The pool, resort, and room were amazing. We typically stay in value resorts but we knew we needed DVC accommodations once we stayed there.

 

[jmassey1samchi]

I use about half of my points for planned vacations during my favorite time of year at the world, which is early December. I keep the other half of my points for short term trips when the itch arises. This works well for my family, and always gives us something to look forward to in our planned trips, and nice surprise trips as well.
being less than two hours away, and being flexible as to when we can go makes this work for us.

 

[freediverdude]

As a Florida resident who purchased direct this year and is financing, I still say that I am saving money. Now granted I'm not saving nearly as much as someone who could pay cash, or pay cash for a resale, but I'm still saving, especially after about 15 years I'll definitely be saving a lot. Have you seen what the rack rates are for next year? Go take a look, I'll wait, lol. Some of them went up quite a bit, like the minimum to get into Poly went from $429 to $500 for next year. $500/night for just 4 nights is $2000 for one stay, not even including tax. Even with financing around 60 points for around $16k, in 8 stays I would break even to that. Now granted a cash purchase would only be 4 stays, but still 8 is not unreasonable when you're talking long term like DVC.

Now of course, you'll say but I'm a Florida resident so I wouldn't be paying $500 per night. So ok, IF the Poly was available on that year's discount (which I don't think it was this year), and IF they offered the full 30% on that particular resort (that varies, depending on the resort and room, some are only about 15%), then I would still have to pay $350 per night plus tax, still almost $400/night for the Poly even with a Florida resident discount for 2016. So ok we're down to $1600 for one stay instead of $2000+. So $16K including financing cost / $1600 per stay = 10 stays to break even instead of 8. Still very worth it in my opinion. If you're planning on going to Disney forever, buy now. It's really a no brainer. I wish I had done it about 10 years ago. Would have turned a lot of mediocre stays at Pop Century and All-Star Sports into fantastic stays at BWV and BCV at the time.

Hmm, maybe I should become a guide, lol.