DVC T &C Personal Use - Only Thread to Discuss!

[Sandisw]

I'm from the old school timeshares where they are valued at zero after a while. So, the value of DVC if I need to sell has next to zero influence on what I buy. I'm much more interested in getting the type of reservations that I want for myself. Had I known about the mega renters and how they operate before I bought may have given me pause on buying, just because I want a fair shake on getting what I want. I truly had no idea how bad it was until specific information was posted in this thread.

It seems to me, that Disney could crack down by making the offenders only be allowed to stay in their own resort. This happened to the family that was selling private tours of WDW. Since they owned DVC, they were completely banned from all Disney properties, except they are allowed to stay in their home resort. They can't trade or visit other places. It seems to me since that's how they handled it, it would be a logical way to deal with commercial renters.

In that case, the family was trespassed from Disney. But, there was recently new legislation that might even allow Disney to trespass a DVC owner from their property

In this case, it’s a violation of the contract and they can hold owners to that. Lock out provisions, etc.

I don’t know though if they can remove the right to use BVTC, trades, in an indivual basis.

Plus, just easier for DVC to lock out use completely.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Disney certainly doesn't care about resale value. It's foolish for anyone else to, frankly.

This is a truth that people who own DVC versus another timeshare sort of get pixie-dusted out of believing. DVC is an absolute anomaly in the timeshare world in that it's resale contracts retain some value, but that is a thing that could change at any time and people should be purchasing DVC with the understanding that they might one day be holding a worthless liability, not an asset. There are many other timeshares that once held resale value that no longer do. Disney is not that special, and could absolutely end up that way (especially with the restricted resorts).

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

“I’m ok suffering if others are suffering more than me”

Bad analogy. These changes will not cause suffering amongst 99 percent of the DVC user base.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

Ok, it’s important to know who is advocating for solutions that would burn the whole system down just so that they can get what they want vs what is good for the overall membership.

Massively improved availability for booking is good for the overall membership though. I'd argue it's way more important than resale value.

 

[jennypenny]

I believe it is because of the rising MFs every year. They get to a point where less expensive stays can be had than the cost of the annual dues.

This is why I think DVC's choice to raise point per night requirements at newer resorts instead of raising the price per point might come back to haunt them.

Disney also artificially elevates cash prices to make buying DVC look attractive, but it makes renting look good too.

Everyone still gonna want the cheap studio at that popular time.

Is that really true? When we first bought DVC, two bedrooms were the hot ticket. I can't say for sure without checking stats but it feels like the preference for studios only started in the last 10 years or so. Could be because DVC lowered the buy in requirements. Could be the ballooning of online rental sites. Could be introducing bungalows and cabins. Could be all of it. But I'm curious to see whether studio demand drops if DVC torpedoes the rental whales.

----

If DVC has any interest in softening the impact (of crushing the rental business) on members, they could buy back the contracts from the whales instead of letting those get dumped onto the resale market.

 

[DanCali]

I think the commercial aspect really does not apply in practice to someone with 200 points (or even 2000 points) who rents out some points on occasion. Anyone following some of the FB rental groups sees the same names come up again and again offering points for rent.... ...

I wouldn't be surprised if some have a 6-figure DVC rental income per year. To me, that's when things start to feel and sound "commercial".

So I just did a quick search. There is a particular poster on the rental forum here (I'm not going to name the name or listings as I don't want to run afoul of any rules here) who, between May of 2024 and April of 2025, appears to have rented 9,500 points....

....It also looks like he was getting, on average, 20ish per point, so he pulled in around $100,000 in profit after accounting for maintenance fees. Based on the types of contracts he had (Aulani, Bay Lake Tower, Grand Floridian), he sure looks to have outlaid well over a million dollars to acquire them.

 

[Sandisw]

If you bought DVC for any reason other than to use the points to book vacation accommodations for you and your family, then you misunderstand the purpose of the product and should consider selling ASAP.

The DVC product is for use of you, familly and friends for vacation. But it also gives you the right to rent to others for vacations.

It simply prevents the use of renting in excess that means it’s being used for commercial purposes.

The FL law, whether you agree with it or not, even protects an owners right.

Anyone who owns who doesn’t feel owners should be allowed to rent unless it’s an emergency situation, IMO, didn’t quite understand what you can and can it do with your membership.

How many times has it been said here? The contract doesn’t allow owners to rent in a way that is deemed commercial but it does allow you to rent and last year at the board meeting, the board acknowledged that fact.

If DVC decides renting X times a year is find but Y is not, then owners needs to follow that rule.

 

[Sandisw]

I bought to vacation at Walt Disney World. Full stop.

I did too and don’t rent.

But the contract you bought gives you and all owners the right to rent, under the terms DVC decides are appropriate, whether you choose to or not.

Full stop.

 

[muppets3d]

The DVC product is for use of you, familly and friends for vacation. But it also gives you the right to rent to others for vacations.

It simply prevents the use of renting in excess that means it’s being used for commercial purposes.

The FL law, whether you agree with it or not, even protects an owners right.

Anyone who owns who doesn’t feel owners should be allowed to rent unless it’s an emergency situation, IMO, didn’t quite understand what you can and can it do with your membership.

How many times has it been said here? The contract doesn’t allow owners to rent in a way that is deemed commercial but it does allow you to rent and last year at the board meeting, the board acknowledged that fact.

If DVC decides renting X times a year is find but Y is not, then owners needs to follow that rule.

Renting is a tangential and consequential aspect of the product, not a main feature. Sort of like Moonlight Magic or the discounts on shopping. The contract is clear that this is not a speculative product. During my new member orientation phone call they were very clear about that as well.

Just as nobody buys DVC because they get 10% off at Wetzel's Pretzels, nobody should buy DVC because they can rent their points.

 

[Moonspinner]

This is why I think DVC's choice to raise point per night requirements at newer resorts instead of raising the price per point might come back to haunt them.

Disney also artificially elevates cash prices to make buying DVC look attractive, but it makes renting look good too.

Is that really true? When we first bought DVC, two bedrooms were the hot ticket. I can't say for sure without checking stats but it feels like the preference for studios only started in the last 10 years or so. Could be because DVC lowered the buy in requirements. Could be the ballooning of online rental sites. Could be introducing bungalows and cabins. Could be all of it. But I'm curious to see whether studio demand drops if DVC torpedoes the rental whales.

----

If DVC has any interest in softening the impact (of crushing the rental business) on members, they could buy back the contracts from the whales instead of letting those get dumped onto the resale market.

I wonder if the studio preference also has to do with less people having children.

 

[muppets3d]

This is why I think DVC's choice to raise point per night requirements at newer resorts instead of raising the price per point might come back to haunt them.

Disney also artificially elevates cash prices to make buying DVC look attractive, but it makes renting look good too.

Is that really true? When we first bought DVC, two bedrooms were the hot ticket. I can't say for sure without checking stats but it feels like the preference for studios only started in the last 10 years or so. Could be because DVC lowered the buy in requirements. Could be the ballooning of online rental sites. Could be introducing bungalows and cabins. Could be all of it. But I'm curious to see whether studio demand drops if DVC torpedoes the rental whales.

----

If DVC has any interest in softening the impact (of crushing the rental business) on members, they could buy back the contracts from the whales instead of letting those get dumped onto the resale market.

Some of it is the fact that DINKs are a larger and larger slice of the demographic.

 

[DanCali]

The "system" will not burn down if resale contracts are devalued. Except for a few resorts, resale values have been dropping precipitously for years now that Disney has not been ROFRing much. If Disney cared about resale value they'd ROFR more to keep the price integrity up. But they don't. Why should anyone else care?

But they make a higher profit when they ROFR at a lower price. Their interests are, in many cases, not aligned with owners.'

As an owner of an asset (which is what a timeshare is legally) you should want that asset to have a value as high as possible. If you plan to live in your home till you die, do you not care about its value? I do...

That's like saying "Disney doesn't care if our dues are high, so why should we"? Disney really doesn't care. They actually make more money when dues are higher (because their management fee is a percentage of the other costs), and if you don't pay, they will foreclose... The system won't burn down either - if you sell or get foreclosed on, someone else will happily take that contract. So if your dues are up 30% next year, are you ok with that too?

 

[Brian Noble]

DVC is an absolute anomaly in the timeshare world in that it's resale contracts retain some value

It's not entirely anomalous. Resale value tends to be driven by three things.

First and most importantly is name recognition. People know and understand what Marriott is and means. They don't really understand what Wyndham is---and to the extent they know what it means, IMO the brand is a liability.

Second: owning has to have lower ongoing costs than renting on the open market, and by a fair margin. This tends to happen in places where supply is severely constrained vs. the demand as a leisure destination. Much of Hawaii is in this boat. So are several urban locations. Ski-in/ski-out weeks during high season also do quite well on the secondary market, as do some very specific event weeks. Think Mardi Gras in NOLA, Daytona 500 week, etc. (As an aside, Orlando generally is ABSOLUTELY not in this category.)

Third (and this one is just Micro 101): there has to be enough organic demand to keep up with owners looking to sell their interests.

DVC qualifies on all of those categories. Brand recognition is through the roof; the resorts are reasonably well-managed financially and the Disney marketing machine keeps market rents high with (mostly) a stranglehold on location; and there is still enough organic demand to keep up.

So far.

that is a thing that could change at any time and people should be purchasing DVC with the understanding that they might one day be holding a worthless liability, not an asset.

This is possible with DVC, though I think it is unlikely. I think the biggest risk is through some combination of overall system growth and resort restrictions. At some point, the resale product diverges so far from the "overall club" that they are just fundamentally different. That will be in the face of an ever-increasing set of owners. There is some (hypothetical?) point where the steady-state volume of owners desiring an exit begins to outpace the organic demand for resale entry, and the tipping point could be ugly if we get there.

The very liquid rental market---facilitated by brokers who themselves do a fair bit of advertising---help keeps a floor on value even in the restricted world. But the rental market has never produced exceptional returns given the higher risk vs. a nice safe boring diversified index fund. At least, the returns are not good enough using the buy-and-hold model. I've never gone far enough down the rabbit hole to see how much better buy-strip-flip performs, but given its obvious prevalence among the pros, it presumably does well.

Agan, for now. Disney is very clearly making moves to try to put a large hole in that particular boat.

 

[Brian Noble]

I wonder if the studio preference also has to do with less people having children.

Given the reaction to the presence (or lack) of studios that sleep five, I'm not so sure.

 

[Sandisw]

Renting is a tangential and consequential aspect of the product, not a main feature. Sort of like Moonlight Magic or the discounts on shopping. The contract is clear that this is not a speculative product. During my new member orientation phone call they were very clear about that as well.

Just as nobody buys DVC because they get 10% off at Wetzel's Pretzels, nobody should buy DVC because they can rent their points.

I completely agree that owners invest in a DVC timeshare for the primary reason to vacation.

But, they also have a product that if they need to, can be rented within the guidelines that DVC sets.

Of course no one should buy DVC for the sole reason to rent or even be able to rent. Contract is filled with that language.

But I do believe that every owner should be given common sense and reasonable rules in terms of the level of renting afforded to them

As long as an owner is following the rental rules that DVC sets, then we should all be happy with that.

You want strict and I want reasonable. We shall see what DVC decides.

 

[muppets3d]

That is true and that many owners invest in a DVC timeshares for the primary reason to vacation.

But they also know that if they need to, it’s something that can be rented within the guidelines that DVC sets.

No one should buy DVC for the sole reason to rent. And if you don’t want to rent your points, you don’t have to.

I’m confused now because it seem to me that your position is not about commercial renters but all owners who choose to rent under the terms of their DVC ownwrship.
.

If people only rented within the terms of their ownership (or at least the way I understand the terms to be as they were explained to me during my new membership orientation phone call - granted I am not a lawyer nor do I work for Disney so my opinion doesn't really matter), for one thing the rentals board on this website wouldn't exist because there would be so few rentals on offer at any given time it wouldn't be worth having a board dedicated to it.

 

[Genie+]

You mean, drop our resale value to zero?

It’s never a good thing when rights are removed from the members. The end result will be that you still have availability issues because math exists, but you have a lower resale value.

Or… people are still going to pay a decent price for resale because the math per night to stay at a deluxe resort in WDW continues to work. Deluxe is a fraction of onsite rooms. How much further than say a 20% crash is possible when there are plenty of consumers in the wings to pick up the slack at that cost. Salvage values can only go down so much before it starts making the math work for a larger amount of people. Is there really any possibility this causes resale value to zero? It would take demand at WDW diving on its neck for that to happen.

Personally I don’t feel like any of my rights have been taken away. I can still do an occasional rental if the need arises. We bought under the impression DVC is for personal use. It was never sold like Tupperware, actively encouraging to sell it to pay some of our own use. There needs to at least be some years where an owner is using all of their points (not selling any). If excess points were purchased with the sole intention of making extra money to subsidize WDW trips, that seems to be a grey area if the plan was never personally use them.

 

[muppets3d]

But they make a higher profit when they ROFR at a lower price. Their interests are, in many cases, not aligned with owners.'

As an owner of an asset (which is what a timeshare is legally) you should want that asset to have a value as high as possible. If you plan to live in your home till you die, do you not care about its value? I do...

That's like saying "Disney doesn't care if our dues are high, so why should we"? Disney really doesn't care. They actually make more money when dues are higher (because their management fee is a percentage of the other costs), and if you don't pay, they will foreclose... The system won't burn down either - if you sell or get foreclosed on, someone else will happily take that contract. So if your dues are up 30% next year, are you ok with that too?

Then why aren't they ROFRing now?

 

[MB_01]

Massively improved availability for booking is good for the overall membership though. I'd argue it's way more important than resale value.

I’d settle for moderately or even slightly improved bookings!

Normally I’m all about never giving up anything or taking a step backward on what was agreed to but renting has gone from a nice side hustle for some people to a business model. Not a model where there were people taking advantage of a loophole either but an obvious intent to use the product in a manner that was forbidden when they purchased it.

 

[Brian Noble]

But they make a higher profit when they ROFR at a lower price. Their interests are, in many cases, not aligned with owners.'

The value at which ROFR is competitive with stick-built resorts is probably a lot lower than most people assume.

Post in thread 'Future of Riveria'

Feb 22, 2023

I think ultimately they would like to buy back all resale points and resell them directly.

Only at the right price.

The general rule of thumb in the timeshare industry is that the "cost of inventory" is at most somewhere between 1/4 and 1/3 of the total cost of the product you are selling. (The biggest cost component? Marketing at 40-50%.) That's cost not sales price. So even if they weren't making a dime of profit on any sale, it's better to build a shiny new resort than to ROFR a resale at anything more than about 1/3 of the direct price. Because there is...

• Brian Noble

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