considering buying a large contract

[hushupu]

I find myself in the very fortunate position that I should be able to retire at a fairly young age (55) in 5 years time. My Daughter will be graduating College and my DGFs twins will be graduating high school. Prices seem good right now on resales and I was considering buying a large (1000 points or more contract) So that me and my GF could spend a large portion of the winter in WDW once we retire.
My question is are there wholesalers or agents that will rent large numbers of points from you. I dont really think we will be able to use a thousand points a year while we are still both working and even the best case we will probably only use a couple of hundred per year until we retire. I dont really want to hassle with renting that many points out myself every year but would hate to see them go to waste and help with MF would be nice.

 

[disneynutz]

Two words of advice, don't buy a single large contract and buy at several different resorts that are your favorite.

Bill

 

[ToddyLu]

I think Dave's rentals will process that for you. he has an advertisement on these boards. I think he may charge a dollar or more a point but he handles all the headaches from what I have heard. Be sure if you by a large contract direct form Disney you have them break it up into smaller contracts or say 100 points. That way you can leave contracts to children or granchildren. There are peole who stay a month or more on points, I have heard that the max is something like 5,000. But I could be wrong. What about buying half that, say 500. Every other year if you banked you could have 1000 points or even less if you didn't and they would not go to waste or be lost if a trip got cancelled or you forgot to bank them. I mean in the month of Dec 500 points could take you through staying in a studio, say at AKV.

What if you decide you do not like DVC?? That is an awful lot of points to have to sell and smaller contracts are easier to go on the market. It isn't easy to use points for trading outside of DVC resorts.

You may even want to own at several resorts to get the 11 month home resort booking advantage. If you owned 200 at BWV, you would have that booking ahead of folks for F&W in Oct since it is at Epcot. If you wanted THV at SSR you would need about 500 points to stay there one week but they go fast so you would need home resort points at SSR to insure that you get what you want.

I am interested in what others with more experience have to say...

 

[hushupu]

I was thinking of buying several smaller contracts for resale reasons, but all or most at the same resort and most with the same UY. My thought is it would be easier to book 3 or 4 weeks at the 11 month mark then trying to do get that much time at 7 months. We are thinking we would like to spend most of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas at WDW. with some shorter stays in January and March.

 

[Sandisw]

I was thinking of buying several smaller contracts for resale reasons, but all or most at the same resort and most with the same UY. My thought is it would be easier to book 3 or 4 weeks at the 11 month mark then trying to do get that much time at 7 months. We are thinking we would like to spend most of the time between Thanksgiving and Christmas at WDW. with some shorter stays in January and March.

That sounds like a great idea. If I were you, however, I would not invest in 1000 points now, knowing you won't be need them for 5 years or so. Having to depend on rental can be a tricky way to go about it.

What I might do is buy around the number of points you can use know, with a few extra, and try the rental piece to see how easy/hard that is. What you save in upfront costs and MF's for not buying all the points now can be put away.

Then, in a couple years, buy another contract, so that by the time you retire, you end up with what you want. Prices are good right now, but to spend an extra $30,000 or so for something you don't need may not be the best way to go.

And, what happens if you can't rent all those extra points? Remember, commercial renting is not allowed per our contract. While there is no set amount, they do look at accounts that seem to have 20 reservations or so per year in the name of others as most likely a commercial renter.

With so many points, you could find yourself in this situation and then find yourself in some hot water with DVC.

 

[drusba]

Definitely do not buy single contract. Issue is possible resale later. Large contracts are much harder to sell than smaller ones. If 1000 points you might even be looking at 5 or more contracts. No harm in buying at one resort and trying to get same use year if it is resort where you want to stay most. Not sure it is good idea to buy and then mostly rent for next several years unless you are prepared to do the rentals yourself. Broker mentioned above who is also sponsor of site can probably handle it but you are in a situation where you never know how long that broker will be in business.

 

[ToddyLu]

Broker mentioned above who is also sponsor of site can probably handle it but you are in a situation where you never know how long that broker will be in business.

Exactly.

 

[Deb & Bill]

You know 1000 points is about $5-6K a year in annual fees, right? At current prices. Jack those up a bit for the price in five years. You are not going to get rich by renting out DVC points; it won't be a way to ramp up your retirement.

There are a lot cheaper ways to spend the winter in Florida.

 

[hushupu]

I am fortunate in that I will be paying cash for my points and have planned for a fairly comfortable retirement so I'm not that worried about MF costs. I would not be renting points as some sort of a money making scheme just a way to keep them from going to waste.

 

[hushupu]

There are a lot cheaper ways to spend the winter in Florida.

It isn't just about being in Florida it's about being at Disney.

 

[Husurdady]

I find myself in the very fortunate position that I should be able to retire at a fairly young age (55) in 5 years time. My Daughter will be graduating College and my DGFs twins will be graduating high school. Prices seem good right now on resales and I was considering buying a large (1000 points or more contract) So that me and my GF could spend a large portion of the winter in WDW once we retire.
My question is are there wholesalers or agents that will rent large numbers of points from you. I dont really think we will be able to use a thousand points a year while we are still both working and even the best case we will probably only use a couple of hundred per year until we retire. I dont really want to hassle with renting that many points out myself every year but would hate to see them go to waste and help with MF would be nice.

Hushupu , sounds like me ,I retired at age 50, put four kids through Purdue U. but buying one large contract......don't do it. you say you have 5 years before you retire, work at it buy many small contract, case-in-pt. I got 5 contracts,[w/same u/y] 150,100, & 3-50 pointers , If I went to sell them today I would net more than let say I had 1 contract of 400 points. At the timeshare store there was one 1000 pt. contract that finally sold last week, it was up for sale for almost a year, I think last year they where wanting 70K for it, it sold for 50K.It had the extra 15 yrs add on also.

 

[Sandisw]

I am fortunate in that I will be paying cash for my points and have planned for a fairly comfortable retirement so I'm not that worried about MF costs. I would not be renting points as some sort of a money making scheme just a way to keep them from going to waste.

Regardless of why you are renting out so many reservations, having a lot of them on your account with so many different names will most likely raise a red flag with Disney as an account operating in commercial renting.

Buying a huge number of points with the intention of renting out a great deal of those points is a big risk, IMO. Just be aware that it is a plan that may not work out as well as you think.

Good luck!

 

[cvjw]

We have the same idea as you about spending lots of time at Disney when we retire. This past year, we bought 545 points at 3 different resorts, paying cash. We really want more points, but are going to hold off for a while and see realistically how it is to use 545 points per year. I will say that in between last summer/fall when we bought our points, the prices have come down. Who knows what the prices will look like next year!

 

[Ln42]

Hi Hush,
First of all, congrats for being in the position you are in and able to consider doing this.

I'm curious though, if you are going resale, why would you look to purchase more points than you need now? Is is soley because you feel the prices are at their low? Would the amount of MF over the course of 5 yrs be more expensive than the cost to buy in the future?

Since you have the luxury of time, I would buy smaller contracts that have the exact UY you are looking for at your price. As they add up you will have the opportunity to see how you want to manage them.

Good luck on your purchases!

 

[lilpooh108]

Maybe others can chime in---but how much have resale prices gone up and down in the past few years?

Wouldn't resale prices generally float around a certain average or even decrease as time goes on? Although you are buying into Disney real estate, the contracts themselves expire. This means that the value of the contract decreases as each year approaches contract expiration (look at the OKW 2042's). If you're not really planning on using all 1000 pts in the next 5 years, you might save more if you buy pts as needed. I think it would only be worth it to buy pts if you were going to vacation with cash and stay at WDW anyway. Just my 2 cents.

 

[hushupu]

I would like to thank everyone for there input. Judging by the number of posts and time on this board you are some very experianced DISers and DVCers.
We are still debating if this is the right way for us to go and we are going to take our time before we decide. We have just started planning a 9 day trip this fall and will try to stay at 3 different DVC properties. Right now we are leaning towards BWV, SSR and AKL. We are going without the kids and will spend some time touring the other resorts.
Our goal is some extended visits during the winter and fall at Disney once we retire. We do not want to live full time in Florida or spend the entire winter there. We are dyed in the wool New Englander's and enjoy the winter season. We own a second home in New Hampshire that is close to skiing and an extensive snowmobiling trail system and our family loves to spend time there in the winter. Once we become empty nesters we will probably make this our primary home.
DVC is the option I favor my GF is leaning more towards a Class A motor home as a more flexible alternative that could also work for us. All things considered I think these are good problems to have and we will have fun figuring out what works best for us.