Buying resale but experiencing major FOMO, justified?

[Evita_W]

Hi All, I would love some thoughts on the fear of not buying direct, I am content with the resale contract I got (waiting on ROFR) but concerned that Disney will continue to differentiate between resale and direct buyers, and eventually we will see restrictions on the use of our points, or maybe be treated differently. Any resale only owners out there? What are your thoughts on not owning any direct points?

Typically any new restrictions added only apply to resale purchases after the new restrictions are added. In other words, you would likely be grandfathered in at the restrictions that were in place when you purchased.

 

[CastAStone]

Hi All, I would love some thoughts on the fear of not buying direct, I am content with the resale contract I got (waiting on ROFR) but concerned that Disney will continue to differentiate between resale and direct buyers, and eventually we will see restrictions on the use of our points, or maybe be treated differently. Any resale only owners out there? What are your thoughts on not owning any direct points?

It is also possible that Disney will stop selling new DVC properties and then with no DVC marketing budget will discontinue all direct benefits.

Actually it is basically a lock that this will happen someday. It might me in 2022, it might be in 2060, it might be in 2147. Probably on the later side, but who knows. But it’s a reverse risk of a direct purchase.

 

[CastAStone]

This is actually my biggest fear, and the reason we are buying at BWV, which is one of the worst values but the only resort we would be happy to stay at 100% of the time if it came down to that.

I know there are companies out there that do their own value rankings; I prefer to 1) compare to the cash room cost at a resort and 2) consider what else I’d have done with that money as part of the equation, which inevitably reduces the value of the longer contracts and increases the value of the shorter ones.

I have BWV as a middle of the pack value for resale (one that easily pays out though), and a very poor value direct (you’ll never make your money back in most scenarios)

Hi all,

Someone posted a question about this and I'm nerdy enough to go check. What's the best deal vs Cash Rates? So I looked at the average price for 2021 and compared it to dues+annual share of buy in costs.

Currently Direct, the answer is either Old Key West or Riviera.

Currently Resale, the answer is also either Old Key West or Riviera.

I'm as surprised as you!

The worst "deal" is generally AKV vs cash rates (which makes sense with the recent surge in AKV pricing and how cheap cash rates are for that resort), but vs renting points it is far and away BCV, which the data suggests probably isn't a deal at all if you buy it direct, it may wind up more expensive than just paying cash!

Anyway here's the data. I ran it direct and resale, and ran each 3 ways: Simple math (Buy in divided by years), accounting only for inflation, and accounting for opportunity cost. Surprisingly it didn't really change a whole lot in terms of rankings.

Some other disclaimers: I excluded Spring Break and Christmas since they wreak havoc on the numbers and frankly don't apply to most buyers. I used 6.5% as the TVM rate. I assumed you pay FULL PRICE for the room in cash - but we all know you will probably get a discount of between 20% and 35% most of the time. So if the savings is less than 20% keep in mind you may actually be losing money vs getting cash discounts. Room prices include tax. I used David's 11 month pricing ($20 for all resorts except $19 for SSR/OKW). These are all calculated on standard view studio prices.

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[KAT4DISNEY]

Great points all around, thanks for that perspective, we’re also FL residents and have had silver or gold APs for several years now so that’s not an issue either, I guess I’m just worried they can strip us from access to other resorts or change our booking windows, from the comments above it sounds like that’s not realistic. Argh DVC really plays mind games on you!

That comes from the fear mongering first instigated by DVC timeshare sales people. As mentioned there isn't an allowance in the original 14 POS to differentiate between resale and direct for booking. But lets pretend that there was and consider that DVC has grandfathered in existing owners when they've made changes so if that followed you would have the same rules then as you're buying into now.

The discounted AP still remains as about the only real reason to buy direct at the older resorts but since your a FL resident that doesn't apply. My advice - just enjoy your BWV DVC purchase!

 

[VdoesDisney]

I know there are companies out there that do their own value rankings; I prefer to 1) compare to the cash room cost at a resort and 2) consider what else I’d have done with that money as part of the equation, which inevitably reduces the value of the longer contracts and increases the value of the shorter ones.

I have BWV as a middle of the pack value for resale (one that easily pays out though), and a very poor value direct (you’ll never make your money back in most scenarios)

What are your thoughts on this? This is the basis of my DVC value analysis. I took the current resale average prices from DVC resale market (the data may be a little skewed but helps make a comparative analysis) and computed 2 key numbers for me: cost per point based on life of contract and MF, as well as points value (i.e. how many nights I get if I had to stay only at my home resort with a 150-pt contract).

A couple things to note is that I did not account for inflation in the MFs, it was just a little more work and the comparative analysis is still mostly valid since I would only be able to increase MFs based on inflation (i.e. consistent for all resorts), rather than with specific projections by resort. Also, the points per night column is an average of my projected yearly stays based on the last 10 years of visiting Disney, so this average is really only applicable to my specific travel patterns, meaning someone traveling in September only would see more favorable numbers than I am projecting for my F&W and other weekend trips.

Looking at these data 2 things were important for me about BWV, first it has one of the worst costs per point (because of the contract length), and second, it's middle to top of the pack on points value, only AKV, OKW, and SSR are better in that regard but all of those have the park proximity problem.

Oh and last point, my BWV price shown is $123 because that is consistent with the net value I got with the contract I have in ROFR now ($133 with banked points so I discounted it based on the fact that I cancelled a cash reservation to re-book with those points)

Thoughts?

	Points	Price/pt	Maintenance	Expiration	Maintenance (Ann)	Years left	Cost	Cost per year	Cost per point		Pts/night (Studio, Sat)		Nights on pts
Polynesian	150	$158.00	$7.05	2066	$1,057.50	45	$23,700.00	$1,584.17	$10.56		21.4		7.00
Saratoga	150	$118.00	$7.11	2054	$1,066.50	33	$17,700.00	$1,602.86	$10.69		14.7		10.19
Beach Club	150	$151.00	$7.44	2042	$1,116.00	21	$22,650.00	$2,194.57	$14.63		19.3		7.78
Copper Creek	150	$152.00	$7.59	2068	$1,138.50	47	$22,800.00	$1,623.61	$10.82		16.6		9.05
Bay Lake	150	$160.00	$6.90	2060	$1,035.00	39	$24,000.00	$1,650.38	$11.00		17.7		8.47
Grand Floridian	150	$244.00	$6.81	2064	$1,021.50	43	$36,600.00	$1,872.66	$12.48		20.9		7.19
Animal Kingdom	150	$122.00	$8.07	2057	$1,210.50	36	$18,300.00	$1,718.83	$11.46		14.4		10.40
Riviera	150	$186.00	$8.39	2070	$1,258.50	49	$27,900.00	$1,827.89	$12.19		18.7		8.02
Old Key West	150	$110.00	$8.36	2057	$1,254.00	36	$16,500.00	$1,712.33	$11.42		14.3		10.50
Boardwalk	150	$123.00	$7.81	2042	$1,171.50	21	$18,450.00	$2,050.07	$13.67		16.3		9.21

 

[VdoesDisney]

That comes from the fear mongering first instigated by DVC timeshare sales people.

The discounted AP still remains as about the only real reason to buy direct at the older resorts but since your a FL resident that doesn't apply. My advice - just enjoy your BWV DVC purchase!

Haha Thank you!
And funny story, I actually spoke with a guide several times to quote a couple different options direct, when he quoted me BWV and I told him I honestly couldn't justify it given that I am a FL resident so the perks are not as relevant to me, he actually told me "then you should buy resale"!

 

[KAT4DISNEY]

Haha Thank you!
And funny story, I actually spoke with a guide several times to quote a couple different options direct, when he quoted me BWV and I told him I honestly couldn't justify it given that I am a FL resident so the perks are not as relevant to me, he actually told me "then you should buy resale"!

Good to hear there are still a few honest guides! Mine have been too and they were really not very happy with the other type that has popped up.

 

[Sandisw]

So we actually have gold APs already (were able to renew 2019 to 2020 and 2020 to 2021) and the discounts on dining and merchandise are very similar to blue card discounts, so the only valuable things we’re missing out on are the Epcot lounge and Riviera stays, I’m ok with not having access to either but somehow I still have that nagging feeling that being a resale owner may be a problem down the road... anyway from what others are saying it seems I shouldn’t worry too much, it’s really Disney’s tactics working on me more than tangible losses. Thanks for all the posts, I appreciate the discussion.

The good news is that if you ever decide you want either is you can add on points!

While you would need 125 to access the lounge, once you are an owner, you could on points for occasionally stays at RIV. They let you buy as little as 50! Lol

 

[sethschroeder]

They let you buy as little as 50! Lol

sniffs

only 50 more

sniffs

scratches neck

I mean ya makes total sense lets do it

haha

 

[Grumpy by Birth]

We don't have any FOMO per se with regards to discounts, events, or other perks. But we are interested in staying at Riviera from time to time.

We've already been thinking about adding more points... between 100-200 more and then we will finally have "enough"... (he said naively). So we might go with 125 direct in order to have some points that we could use at Riviera (enough for a 1BR every other year).

We have plenty of points to use at the original 14 resorts, so we wouldn't be counting on combining these points at 7 months for our home resort or others (although it's good to know that we could).

That would give us the coveted blue card status (which would just be an added fringe benefit of having points we can use at Riviera). If we add on any more than that, we would go back to resale at our home resort (maybe one last 100-pointer) because we don't expect to need more than 250 points every other year for Riviera (he insisted futilely).

 

[808blessing]

We don't have any FOMO per se with regards to discounts, events, or other perks. But we are interested in staying at Riviera from time to time.

We've already been thinking about adding more points... between 100-200 more and then we will finally have "enough"... (he said naively). So we might go with 125 direct in order to have some points that we could use at Riviera (enough for a 1BR every other year).

We have plenty of points to use at the original 14 resorts, so we wouldn't be counting on combining these points at 7 months for our home resort or others (although it's good to know that we could).

That would give us the coveted blue card status (which would just be an added fringe benefit of having points we can use at Riviera). If we add on any more than that, we would go back to resale at our home resort (maybe one last 100-pointer) because we don't expect to need more than 250 points every other year for Riviera (he insisted futilely).

Yeah, I wanted “a few” points for new ones like Riviera et.al. so I keep reminding myself why I bought those 25 AUL direct points -bank and borrow =shiny and new, baby and roll the dice. Haha!

 

[VdoesDisney]

We don't have any FOMO per se with regards to discounts, events, or other perks. But we are interested in staying at Riviera from time to time.

We've already been thinking about adding more points... between 100-200 more and then we will finally have "enough"... (he said naively). So we might go with 125 direct in order to have some points that we could use at Riviera (enough for a 1BR every other year).

We have plenty of points to use at the original 14 resorts, so we wouldn't be counting on combining these points at 7 months for our home resort or others (although it's good to know that we could).

That would give us the coveted blue card status (which would just be an added fringe benefit of having points we can use at Riviera). If we add on any more than that, we would go back to resale at our home resort (maybe one last 100-pointer) because we don't expect to need more than 250 points every other year for Riviera (he insisted futilely).

Yeah, I've been thinking about this, I don't love Riviera enough to make it my home resort but I would like to have the option to stay there from time to time (or anything else built in the future), right now I am thinking I'll give it a year of DVC ownership and then decide how to add , direct or resale.

 

[Stargazer65]

Hi All, I would love some thoughts on the fear of not buying direct, I am content with the resale contract I got (waiting on ROFR) but concerned that Disney will continue to differentiate between resale and direct buyers, and eventually we will see restrictions on the use of our points, or maybe be treated differently.

I would focus on the benefits of what you get when you buy resale, rather than what you might be missing out on. But if you still feel Direct membership FOMO...
As a direct member let me share some more things you might be missing out on to consider:

People focus on the advertised perks, and with the decline in the value of those perks, along with the higher bar of 125 pts for entry…most people believe it’s just not worth the extra thousands of dollars. However, it can be shortsighted to only look at the tangible benefits. If you don’t buy direct you miss out on a lot of unadvertised perks. Whenever something good happens, we can imagine it is due to having a blue card.
For example:
Your bus arrives just after you get to the stop? - Blue card
Unexpectedly quick service in the food line? - Blue card
Toilet cleaned just before you used it? - Blue card
If you use this benefit often, you find that this can add some pretty significant value to a direct membership.