If someone is out there commanding $13/point, it's good for us owners.
I'm in favor of what he's doing. I guess you could argue a service like this is competing with the rest of us who want to rent our points, but not at $13/point it's not. I'd much rather have him out there doing this than having a bunch of people on the rent/trade board having firesales at $7 per point and such, depressing the market.
Amen to that!
David is doing us (members) all a huge favor by stabilizing and actually holding up the price of our asset in this hard economy.
Renters gladly pay $13/point because it's a flippin bargain over what they would be paying direct through Disney. Have you checked how much our villas go for lately on Disney's website?!
My point being, whether they pay $10 or they pay $13, I think renters are so excited to be getting such an enormous discount of (in many cases) a few thousand dollars off Disney prices, that they're not sweating the extra few hundred bucks.
David is also exposing a whole new group of people, who have never met a "member" or even stumbled onto this board, to the plus side of renting. David advertises in other ways and in other areas and it draws people in. By selling to them the first time, they just might look on the boards the second time for that $11 or $12 bargain. Even better, is if this new group buys in through resale, thereby increasing the demand and eventually the value of our current contracts.
Another reason to thank David is because he takes a process that we take for granted because we know it so well and makes it easy for the average person to understand. For anyone who has never been exposed to DVC, trying to understand the concept alone, much less trying to figure out how the rental board works is daunting to say the least.
His website is the best I've ever seen in terms of how he actually explains what "renting points" is in a very easy to understand method.
Have any of you ever tried to explain to somebody who's never heard of DVC what "renting points" actually is?! It's practically impossible! Unless you have a well written speech with a teleprompter, you typically leave the person so confused, they think you're trying to sell them Amway or something.
David has taken our very valuable commodity that's difficult to explain and even more difficult to sell and made it as easy to understand to the average person as booking a normal trip.
By exposing new people to us and making it easier and less risky, this creates demand. Demand creates higher rental prices, and hopefully higher resale value.
If you've ever tried renting points, it is definitely no easy task. There is definitely tricks of the trade that make it much easier and unless you've done it enough times or just plain don't want to mess with it, David gives us a very easy alternative and pays an extremely respectable price.
Is he making money on it? Yes. But now ask yourself, if you were selling the points yourself, would you have asked $13/point or would you have asked closer to $10/point. The point is, if you are the type of person asking closer to $13 then David is doing you a great favor by giving you a benchmark. If you're the type of person who would ask $10 then by selling it for you, David is doing you a great favor in taking out the hassle and headache.
If you're the type who can't stand the thought of people renting points period, then ponder that through renting, it gives our points a yearly dollar value. I don't know about anyone else, but it gives me great peace of mind knowing that my membership has value. Value in every single point I own, whether I use them myself or through renting or resale.
And yes, I've definitely overkilled my point and this thread!
