Changes to Home Resort Rules and Regulations?

[Brian Noble]

I'd even go one step further. So long as a Member is not "commercially renting" (however Disney chooses to define the term), then that Member is perfectly within their rights to book time for any other allowable purpose, and that includes speculative booking.

Yes, this increases competition for certain times of the year. But, this is just another reason why it is important to be able to book as soon as your 11/7 month windows open. If specific times of year have too much contention, for any reason, then it is incumbent on DVC to rebalance the point charts to increase point requirements so as to reduce demand for those times.

But, Mike's observation is dead on: this is not a change that is in any way designed to help Members. It is aimed squarely at a single person whose rental activity is large enough, and visible enough, to be perceived by Disney as a credible threat to their rental arm.

 

[Brian Noble]

I just took a quick look over at Redweek. And, I was surprised at how *few* spec weeks appear to be available. Less than 10 over President's Week at all WDW resorts. Maybe 15 Summer weeks---mostly at OKW and SSR. Only a handful of Christmas weeks (though presumably many of those have already rented.)

I suspect this is because someone who really wants to be a commercial renter looks at Disney and can't make the payback work vs. other timeshare properties. Most of the serious renters who post over at TUG and Timeshare Forums look for a payback of captial in 2-3 years tops. And, that's not unreasonable---I get 30-40% returns on my resale Wyndham deed when I rent points, and I'm a rank amateur. As noted earlier in this thread, even in favorable circumstances, DVC's captial payback window is closer to 10 years, and probably longer for most situations. Someone who is truly a "commercial renter" would find DVC to be a rather poor investment.

 

[Chuck S]

I just took a quick look over at Redweek. And, I was surprised at how *few* spec weeks appear to be available. Less than 10 over President's Week at all WDW resorts. Maybe 15 Summer weeks---mostly at OKW and SSR. Only a handful of Christmas weeks (though persumably many of those have already rented.)

I suspect this is because someone who really wants to be a commercial renter looks at Disney and can't make the payback work vs. other timeshare properties. Most of the serious renters who post over at TUG and Timeshare Forums look for a payback of captial in 2-3 years tops. And, that's not unreasonable---I get 30-40% returns on my resale Wyndham deed when I rent points, and I'm a rank amateur. As noted earlier in this thread, even in favorable circumstances, DVC's captial payback window is closer to 10 years, and probably longer for most situations. Someone who is truly a "commercial renter" would find DVC to be a rather poor investment.

Perhaps, but we had a lot of folks trying to post reservations earlier than 30 days on the R/T Board this year, in violation of our rules. Many were so persistent they were obviously spec bookings.

 

[Brian Noble]

Where else would they advertise? Ebay? I can only find maybe a dozen or so distinct listings there there (two of those are the same person, listing several weeks each. Obviously a big-time renter with several weeks booked at once.) I may not be searching properly, though.

TUG has only five or six (at least one is obviously an RCI rental, because they quote the $95 fee, and one or two others are not spec, just a straight price per points deal).

Maybe they are all on craigslist (I can't bear to look there ).

 

[Chuck S]

Where else would they advertise? Ebay? I can only find maybe a dozen or so distinct listings there there (two of those are the same person, listing several weeks each. Obviously a big-time renter with several weeks booked at once.) I may not be searching properly, though.

TUG has only five or six (at least one is obviously an RCI rental, because they quote the $95 fee, and one or two others are not spec, just a straight price per points deal).

Maybe they are all on craigslist (I can't bear to look there ).

But remember, most of the spec rentals would be for the Holiday season, and are already rented, so of course you won't find them looking now, 2 to 3 weeks before arrival.

 

[Brian Noble]

Perhaps, but not necessarily. First, Redweek keeps recently rented ads in their database (listed as "rented") as a teaser to get other people to list with them. Ebay allows you to search completed listings. Over the past 15 days, there were only six or seven at OKW (only two completed neither spec), and four at SSR (none completed---even at what I consider to be ridiculously cheap prices). Zero at BCV or BWV.

Even ignoring that, unless you keep your spec booking entirely in Choice season, the points add up quickly---I haven't done the math, but especially the week between Christmas and New Years seems as though it might not maximize profit. Easter is even worse, because the entire period is covered by Holiday season---no way to sneak a few lower-point days in there.

If I were spec booking in DVC, I'd probably try for President's Week first, and the period from Mid-June through the end of CRO's Regular season in July. I'd also try for F&W at BCV and BWV. It will be interesting to see if the P-Week listings pick up after the first of the year.

 

[DVC Mike]

I do think that there is a distinction between commercial OWNERSHIP of points for the purposes of renting vs. operating a commercial venture which accommodates the point rental process.

Daddio's service is designed to put together members who have points available and non-members seeking points--in return for a fee, of course. I don't mean to point any fingers but in many ways I don't see how this is different than the DIS rental boards. No there isn't a fee specifically tied to the transaction but the DIS itself is a commercial venture which earns revenue from advertising and sponsorships.

So in a very real way the DIS is profiting from DVC point rentals. So are PayPal, Western Union, eBay and many other entities. And personally I'm fine with that.

I agree.

I'm sure DVC was within its rights to change this rule but IMO it will be the little guy who is most hurt. The individual with 20 extra points to get rid of may have to work harder or slash prices to get rid of such a small number. Big commercial renters (people who own thousands of points solely for the purposes of renting) aren't paying Daddio to rent their points--they handle all of the work themselves to earn a maximum profit.

Again, I agree.

 

[Plutofan]

There is a big difference between Daddio and the Disboards from the stand point that I believe that Daddio collects rental fee which I think puts the obligation of collecting any necessary taxes on Daddio versus the Disboards who just allows people to post. If Disney is feeling any pressure from any taxing authority this may play a factor. Daddio probably does way more reservations than most DVC members so they are only directly effecting one member and indirectly others. I belive that the Disbaords have to much of a direct following that Disney would seriously consider the negative public relations before making a change here.

 

[odaddy!]

Rules changes almost always benefit the developer, not the owner. The small points left in peoples accounts will go unused. It was very convenient to get a fair price for points aqnd not have to do the work. Anything that restricts my membership more is a bad thing.

 

[waltfan1957]

If specific times of year have too much contention, for any reason, then it is incumbent on DVC to rebalance the point charts to increase point requirements so as to reduce demand for those times.[/QUOTE]

you can change the points requirerd for high demand times , but xmas will still be xmas and if thats when people want to go a points change wont make any difference

 

[Brian Noble]

Nonsense. Double the points requirements, and fewer people will go then---they'll go the week before, or the week after. This is micro-econ 101.

 

[Dean]

you can change the points requirerd for high demand times , but xmas will still be xmas and if thats when people want to go a points change wont make any difference

To a degree but if the changes are drastic enough, it will affect people's usage significantly even for the higher demand times. DVCMC's fiduciary responsibility is to even out usage, period. There is no hidden agenda as some would like to think. They would like to do so without making day to day or even every year changes, thus they will accept a certain amount of variation plus it'll take 2-3 years to really see how such changes actually affect usage patterns (hence the reason it's taken this long. Lastly, I'm sure there's quite a bit of time, work and expense in such a rebalancing which they'd also like to avoid if possible. However, many of the recent changes were at the maximum level they could have been for one year, makes you wonder if there might be another change coming fairly quickly vs waiting and seeing exactly where it ends up.

 

[DVCGeek]

However, many of the recent changes were at the maximum level they could have been for one year

Really? I didn't think anything was that close to a maximum change. Max is what, 20% change from previous year?

 

[Dean]

Really? I didn't think anything was that close to a maximum change. Max is what, 20% change from previous year?

Yes, many of the changes were at or near the max of 20%.

 

[Chuck S]

As this thread has strayed from the subject of the new associate rules and into the area of point reallocation, I'm going to close it and refer everyone to the 2010 reallocation thread.