General advice is to buy where you plan to stay the most. Reason: it is easy to get what you want at home resort with the 11 month reservation window; it can sometimes be difficult to do so at a non-home resort with the 7 month reservation window.
Whether you purchase resale or from
DVC, you will be treated exactly the same once you are an owner. The resale process is really fairly painless if you deal through a broker that specializes in DVC like the Timeshare Store that sponsors this site. In resale, the price is a negotiable item. Also, there are issues you have in the resale market that you need to be aware of and be prepared to deal with:
1. Financing: Disney makes the acquisition of financing easy by using its own financing company. In the resale market, you will have to get financing if you cannot pay cash. If you can do a home equity loan on existing home that would be one of the best ways to go because the rate will be lower than Disney's. If you have to go through the timeshare financing market, what you will find is rates that are higher than Disney's.
2. Closing Costs: Disney's price includes closing costs. For resale, the buyer is presumed to pay them unless negoitated otherwise. Those can run anywhere from $300 to $500 depending on the closing company the broker usually uses and have to be paid at closing.
3. Combination of Above: The key to evaluating the true price of your resale is factoring in the above two items. If you are paying closing costs and you are getting financing at a higher than Disney rate, then you need to do the calculations to determine whether your actual price (sales price plus closing costs plus impact of higher financing rate) is really less than what you would pay through Disney, i.e., that sale price that is 15% less than Disney's may not actually be much of a bargain once you factor in closing costs and financing rates.
4. Points Available: This can be another factor that affects price and future use. When considering a resale look closely to actual points currently available. If the seller has used all current use year points and borrowed and used all next use year's points, you have an issue that you may not even be able to use the contract for almost two years (of course, that contract should cost less than others with their full complement of current points).
5. Dues. Disney begins charging you dues from date of contract sale. If you buy in June, you will pay about 6 months worth of dues, in January about 12 months, because dues are always calculated on a calendar year basis not a use year basis. In resale they usually pro-rate dues also from the time of closing but the difference is you need to pay for the entire rest of the calendar year at time of closing whereas, with a Disney contract, you can pay it monthly through the rest of the year. Also, who pays what percentage of dues are negotiable in resale and this is another area to make sure you raise the issue and negotiate if you have to -- for example you shouldn't have to pay any dues for the year in which the sale occurrs if the seller doesn't have any points to use during that year.
6. Right of First Refusal. On all resales Disney has a ROFR and can purchase the property at the price and terms offered by the buyer. In most case, Disney waives that right after it sees the contract, but it has, in many instances, exercised that right when it believes the contract price is too low--in other words that super-bargain sale price you might see that is significantly lower than usual resale market price may not be something that will get through ROFR.
