help me decide - HH resale or SSR thru disney?

[dcibrando]

HELP ME DECIDE!

I think me and my girlfriend are actually going to take advantage of this new Disney special in Aug-Oct (w/ free dining) and take another trip down there… along with a tour of the DVC resorts.

Now I'm not rich by any means.. but as I expect to go on vacation at least somewhere once or twice a year… and not to mention my two favorite places are Disney and the beach… the DVC looks very good to me.

.. but I need some help here. I'm finally beginning to understand how all of this works, but the hardest part of figuring out what I want/need if I decide to do it.

Purchase a Hilton Head resale? – or – Purchase Saratoga Springs Resort through Disney (or resale if I can find one available when I'm ready to purchase)?


Hilton Head resale
Ex. 150 points = $10,200
Ex. 200 points = $14,000
Pros:
- Close to home (6 hour drive and would be cheaper to drive there then fly to Orlando, and then spend money on park tickets)
- Cheaper cost
- More points per year
- 11 month reservations in peak summer time
Cons:
- Lower resale value?
- Ends in 2042 (I will be 63)
- Not in the Disney area (might be hard to get Disney reservations in the future within 7 months???)
- More points per year = more maint. fee



Saratoga Springs Resort thru Disney
Ex. 150 points = $14,700
(Resale of SSR example 175 points = $14,525)
Pros:
- New
- Lasts until 2054 (I will be 75)
- In Disney Resort
- Incentive – 150 extra points (I wish you could bank 100% of them next year, but use year is February, and they are making you pay 6 months maint. For 2005, so not sure I would benefit much from this if I purchased this late 2005?)
- Cheapest maint. Fees
- Less points per year = less maint. fees
Cons:
- More expensive
- Less points per year



*Notes:
- If I purchase a low amount of points (150) and need more, I can always rent others, or bank.
- I will probably be carrying over 100% of points from 2006 if I purchase since I already have vacations planned next year
- most of the stays (until I have a family) will be in studios for the time being which could easily come out to 2 vacations per year if I had 200 points annually

 

[senecabeach]

Its a mind expanding experience trying to decide where "Home" will be and how many points to buy.

You have explored all the avenue's quite well ... especially trying to look out into the future and taking in all the family considerations!!

Congratulations!!

Certainly...The tour will be a plus..... Buy what you can afford right now... usually latter (when the family arrives) there will be other priorities, prices certainly will rise...etc

 

[mikesmom]

You've researched this really well. I never thought I'd say this because I am normally a loud proponent of "buy where you want to stay", but I'd lean toward the HH resale. Reasons:
- you do want to stay at HHI from time to time and it is REALLY hard to get at peak times.
- HHI is so hard to get that I believe there are owners at the onsite DVCs who would gladly trade a reservation made for you onsite for a ressie at HHI in the summer. (I want to be first in line on this, how about a Boradwalk View room during Food & Wine? )
- there is usually something available onsite at 7 months if you move right at 7 months (not 4 months or 3 months!) and are not too fussy about exact days or which resort.

On the other hand, what about an onsite resale?

 

[dcibrando]

does disney sell resales of HH? is that what you meant by onsite resales?

 

[wtpclc]

Other onsite resales would be resales for BWV, VWL, BCV, OKW.

You can purchase HH direct from DIsney, but you'll likely pay more than re-sale. You can purchase any D from Disney, but you'll likely pay more and you may have to wait list.

 

[dcibrando]

whew... this keeps getting harder to decide.

now I'm finding out HH only has about 20+ Studios which would be tough to get so going with a HH resale might be good. On the flip side, I'm concerned about being able to stay in other disney resorts (even during off seasons) at like SSR, BCV, etc... and of course the resale value of HH

I could get about 200+ points for HH about the same or cheaper than 150 for SSR. ...and then there's the fact that SSR lasts longer! *arg* was it this hard for you guys to decide what to do haha

 

[Tanya]

Hey DCIBRANDO...

My husband bought HH DVC as a surprise gift to me. We had toured BWV and also the Marriott Grand Vista. I know most people say buy where you will vacation the most. In this case, I didn't have a choice since I didn't even know about the purchase! We are members since 1998 and took our second trip to Hilton Head afew weeks ago. We have always gone to WDW and stayed either at BWV or BCV and have never had a problem so far with the 7 month window. We also haven't gone during the prime times either. (Ex: like the summer when kids are out of schoo, Easter, etc....). We have gone the end of November, beginning of December and got what we wanted.

So, I say I guess go with what fits your pocket if you really want DVC. I guess it depends on where/when you are going to vacation.

Good Luck.

 

[dcibrando]

ok well I would plan on going to WDW prob in early January, May, around those times... do you think most are booked then?

 

[Tanya]

We have gone in May quite afew years now to WDW. We have also gone the end of November/beginning of December and had no problem with the 7 month window but it doesn't mean it can't happen....

Good Luck!

 

[Y-ASK]

Keep in mind that with a re-sale you will have to pay closing cost unless the seller agrees to pay them. I think it's like an extra $300-$500 bucks depending on the size of the contract.

1st you need to decide what is more important, cost or location. Since this is such a long term investment my opinion is location should be number one.

That makes it easy right? Go with the resale!

But, if cost is a factor go with an SSR purchase. Rent your 05 and 06 use year points for $10.00 per point and then apply that $3,000.00 to the purchase price for a net total of $11,700.00. Then you can gradually work your points back into the positive without having to borrow every time you want to make your next years reservations.

You can also rent your re-sale points as well but you might not have as many points to rent right away.

Y-ASK

 

[disneyeveryyear]

What about 100 points each with resale?

Then you could have 11 month window at each place!

 

[dcibrando]

yea but what I understand... I can only have the 11 month window to use JUST the 100 points at one of the resorts... not good if I want to stay a week in a 1 or 2 bedroom at either. i'd have to wait until 7 months

 

[mikesmom]

Except with banking and borrowing you have 2 years worth. Example: Year 1 - use your 100 pts from HH plus 100 HH points you borrow from the next year. That's 200 11 month points available at HH. Bank your 100 SSR (or other points). Year2: Use your 100 SSR points plus the SSR points you banked for 200 points SSR points available.

See? If you skipped a year or didn't use them all you can conceivably have 3 years points from one location available by using banked points+current points+borrowed points.

 

[candizfan]

I had the same choice but I may have made the decision for different reasons.

1st I am Canadian and the thought a resale going through US closing scared me to death. I bought from Disney to avoid this.

Plus I worked the numbers a little differently.

Take the resale of 200 points at $14,000 and divide by the number of years left (37) and divide by 200 to get a per point cost. You are paying $1.89 per point per year.

Now look at SSR 200 points @ $98 per point if don't any deal (sometimes you can exchange this years points for $ off the purchase price - say $10 off per point). Divide the $19600 by the 49 years and divide by the 200 points. You are paying $2.00 per point per year. Usually though Disney will offer some chance to reduce the price by some amount.

If you got SSR for $88 per point it would drop to $1.80.

So they were pretty close if you looked at it that way. With the extra time on SSR, we went that way because I plan to live a long time and wanted the extra years.

But don't over think it. You can never be sure you made the perfect choice. Decide what you really want then pick the one that best fits.

Good luck.

 

[cruise-o-matic]

We loved SSR and the tour really sold my wife. In fact, we ordered a 160 point contract from DVC but never executed it. Instead, we bought HH for the following reasons:

Cost of points were cheaper (less than $73 once you add in closing costs). We bought 200 points for roughly the cost of 175 SSR points. Plus we got some banked points that we'll be using up in September. We were able to bank our 12/04 points and will be using them next year and will probably ban about 75% of our 12/05 points. So hopefully, we'll have a points surplus for a few years.

Also, since we bought resale, there was a credit on the '04 maintenance fees, so our '05 fees net out to $3.88 pt, only a nickle more than SSR.

We live closer to HH, so we can alternate summers at WDW and HH. If you want HH in summer, especially a studio or 1BR, b/c there are only 21 of them each, you need the 11 month advantage.

We'll be in our mid-70's in 2042, so the extra 12 years was not a factor either.

Besides higher point costs, our main concern was that SSR was going to be so large that:

What 11 month advantage do you have by owning at SSR? Unless, they categorize views a la BWV, you could book 11 months out and still not get the DTD view. At 7 months out, there will always be availability at SSR.

In a few years, as the ownership of SSR grows, there will be more on the resale market. Simple supply & demand will take it's toll on resale prices. While Disney is still selling SSR, they may keep the ROFR prices propped up but what happens after it sells out? Anyway, with more on the resale market, it will become a "buyer's market" with the contracts with banked points being gobbled up 1st and those without will take longer to sell.

 

[KJMickey]

We are a bit biased...but we say go with HH. We own at HH and are so glad we do.

When we bought HH, we were WDW and the "deal" for HH was better at the time. We do not buy into the buy where you want to stay theory. If we are going to stay at WDW any DVC suits us just fine. The 7th month window works out. After all, we are at WDW...what else matters!

Now as far as HH goes....my DW will not give up the 11 month window to get the week of July 4th every year for anything. When we bought we had no intention of using our points at HH. Once we saw the resort it was over....HH is our favorite place to go!

 

[walter]

We own at OKW (250 points) & VB (only 50 pts), but we love HH! We will be visiting once again in October 2005 & 2006 and will visit WDW/OKW in 2007. We loved HHI so much that we purchased an offering with Marriott's new Surf Watch Resort (on the beach). What intrigued us most was the possibility of trading our 1 week (gold) at HHI for two weeks at a Marriott Resort in the Orlando area. Even if it is not true, we feel it is a great investment (for vacationing purposes).