DVC vs vacation rental home purchase

[jkcala6]

Hello,

Did anyone consider investing in a vacation rental home near WDW in
lieu of a DVC purchase?

Thanks

 

[OneMoreTry]

No because that would be a house in Orlando. Not a home away from home at WDW.

And now I'd be afraid of buying on top of a price bubble.

 

[justloveit]

We have actually thought about it, but decided against it, mostly because we felt it would be more of a worry than an escape from reality like DVC. We would be looking for repairs that need to be made, or signs of wear and tear, upkeep and maintenance, rather than being on vacation.

 

[LIFERBABE]

We stayed in Vacation Homes (Rented direct from owner) during our first 2 trips to WDW.

Windsor Palms had just completed, and Emerald Isle was just getting started. They had huge 6 bdrm homes for less than $200K! We LOVED IT!

Dh and I had our downpayment ready and having never stayed onsite (too expensive, magic smagic!) I told Dh we needed to try onsite so we knew we were making the right decision.

After our trip, I was reading on the DIS about DVC. I didnt even know WDW had timeshare! So we booked a fact finding trip over Labor Day week and stayed at BC and CR. We toured DVC on our own not really trusting timeshare salespeople. SSR was a pile of rubble then.

We had such a good time staying onsite and we really loved the BC and OKW was totally impressive. If DVC can keep OKW in such pristine condition after 13 years we knew that they would take care of all the resorts like that.

Then we thought how we could keep our Vacation Home in pristine condition and what it would take. I saw our vacations, becoming maintenance house calls to keep our property desirable on the rental market. There are management companies, but they charge top dollar for any work they do, so most owners choose to do touch ups and smaller things themselves.

We liked staying in homes, but we thought of our DS's too. A home is socially isolating and we wanted them to play with other children. Many do have community pools, but when you have a pool in your backyard, you tend to use it. I love the fact that when they are older, they can hop on a WDW Bus, Monorail or Boat and go to the Parks, TL/BB or DQ. I dont think I would let them drive while on vacation even if they had licenses. No need for cars with DVC.

Then you have the Hurricanes! Those could put you out of business for a long time, and we didnt have the cash reserves needed to sustain long periods of payments without income. We figured we would have to rent our home at least 48 weeks a year to cover costs (most say 36 weeks) so there would be at least 2 months a year we would have to make mortgage payments. That's the money we use to pay our DVC dues each year.

So to make a long story even longer, we used our downpayment money to purchase DVC and several add-ons and we pay the dues with the mortgage money we won't have to pay to cover slow rental months.

Now Im an onsite snob, and wouldnt think of staying offsite

 

[DVC-Don]

We looked into it, but there was no way we'd take on the renting ourselves from 1200+ miles away and the management companies would take most if not all of any profit if you used a good one.

 

[Granny]

Regardless of the financial aspect, it's pretty much the old WDW on-site vs off-site debate. If someone wants to save money, they can certainly stay off-site and get nice accommodations less expensively than staying on-site.

For most here, I suspect, the ambience and convenience of staying on-site at WDW outweighs the premium we pay to do so.

 

[JimC]

Hello,

Did anyone consider investing in a vacation rental home near WDW in
lieu of a DVC purchase?

Thanks

No for the following:

1. We wanted to be on-site for our holidays at WDW. We could have chosen a number of very fine timeshares that would cost less (for example Marriott's Cypress Harbour was about 40% of the upfront cost and 70% of the annual fees -- 2 bdrm at CH vs 2 bdrm resale at OKW in January of 05) -- that said we do buy at CH for a non-Disney week in central FL.
2. Second homes are a lot of work and expensive if you contract out management and maintenance -- which we would need to do.
3. If we were to invest in central FL property it would be a condo to minimize the management and maintenance costs and it would most likely be on the Space Coast and not Orlando.

 

[kaw1106]

We just like staying onsight way too much to even think about that!!!

 

[DVCJEN]

We looked into a real estate investment but realized that what we really wanted was something someone else took care of! We love to go to WDW and staying offsite just isn't the same for us. That's how we became DVC Members. Coming "home" is so much better than just having a second house to us.

 

[byoung]

Staying onsite did it.

 

[jdvm]

GREAT QUESTION!!! There are tons of reasons why people buy an interest in DVC. Some people buy DVC instead of a second home. Many, many more treat it like it was their second home without even thinking about it.
As for us, we were sitting in a two bedroom unit at the Longboat key Club on the beach near Sarasota considering buying the unit we were staying in in May, 1992. The Longboat Key Club is a condo-hotel where each of the units is owned by one person who uses it 3-4 weeks per year and puts it in a hotel rental pool for the remaining weeks. Old Key West had just opened and I went for one night and fell in love with it and bought on the spot. We could stay at Old Key West for 3-4 weeks per year for exactly one tenth of what it would cost to fully own a unit in the condo hotel. Hope this helps!
John V

 

[jekjones1558]

As others have stated, our decision boiled down to this: Do we want an investment for renting, gaining equity and/or a future personal residence? -or- Do we want a prepaid vacation onsite at WDW? Our purpose was R & R, so DVC was the answer for us. YMMV.