Need a few answers before I BEG hubby to buy!

[Ike&Jakesmom]

I have been reading the DVC boards for a while, getting as much info. as possible to make an informed decision on the purchase of DVC. I am certain that resale is the way to go. My hubby hates to spend money, especially large amounts, so I am trying to present this as a good purchase for our family ! We have been to Disney 3 times with our fourth trip in 42 days ! Our first two trips were at Pop, last December we rented points at AKL in a studio..... LOVED IT!!!!! My questions are:
1) Our primary travel time would be May- October. We homeschool our boys so our times are very flexable. I thought a March or April use year would work best, is this right?

2) Torn on home resort, we loved our AKL villa, BLT would be awesome for the boys and the closeness to MK, but the OKW seems so quiet and relaxing. I am torn on the length of the contracts, MF and initial buy in price. Should we go for the lower buy in of SSR or OKW, or higher buy in of AKL (which we KNOW we like) or BLT (with much lower MF)? MY boys are 9 and 5, we see ourselves going for a looooong time (we have even talked about getting to take grandkids one day!).

3) If we bought OKW, would there be an option to extend the contract at some point, maybe closer to the end of the contract?

Thanks in advance for any help! If someone could come up with an award winning speech for me to give the hubby on why we should take the plunge, it would be greatly appreciated !

 

[rock_doctor]

1) Our primary travel time would be May- October. We home school our boys so our times are very flexible. I thought a March or April use year would work best, is this right?

As long as the UY is not close to you travel times it does not really matter. Being flexible about the UY will give you more contracts to choose from. I have two, one in March and one in April. I do not see any advantage...

2) Torn on home resort, we loved our AKL villa, BLT would be awesome for the boys and the closeness to MK, but the OKW seems so quiet and relaxing. I am torn on the length of the contracts, MF and initial buy in price. Should we go for the lower buy in of SSR or OKW, or higher buy in of AKL (which we KNOW we like) or BLT (with much lower MF)? MY boys are 9 and 5, we see ourselves going for a looooong time (we have even talked about getting to take grandkids one day!).

MF change and BLTs will change as the resort ages. So this must not have a deciding factor. You need to pick which location you like the best and go with that. We prefer BLT but that is because when i was a young kid i remember waking up over in fort wilderness to the sounds of the boat horns and steam train whistles. So BLT allows me to travel back to those times...Yea i know sappy but you need to spend time at each location and see which you prefer. I would rent points and stay at each...

3) If we bought OKW, would there be an option to extend the contract at some point, maybe closer to the end of the contract?

There is no way to know if they will extend contracts. I guess it will depend on how the buildings are holding up.

Thanks in advance for any help! If someone could come up with an award winning speech for me to give the hubby on why we should take the plunge, it would be greatly appreciated !

Tell him if he does not buy in you will divorce him and marry somebody with a DVC contract. We were also Pop people and over years we had increasing issues with Pop. Dirty rooms, waiting until 6, 7 or even 8pm at night to get into the room and very nasty managers. So we made the decision to either buy in to DVC or start staying off property. We bought in... There are two approaches you need to look at... one you will no longer have to lay out the cost of the room so you stay for the cost of fuel, food and tickets. So you do save a couple grand each time on that but the buy in is very high. We go over peak times and with the reshuffling of points on the points calender we had to buy more points. So we are in for over 40k, we would have to stay 12 times to make back our money and that does not take into account we pay a grand in MF each year, so that pushed the pay back to 15yrs. So you do not buy in for money, you buy in because you want to feel like you are a part of WDW. Being a DVC owner is totally different then staying in a non-DVC resort. You feel much more connected (imho) plus since you are now staying in a deluxe resort they treat you much better. I have yet to walk into my BLT room and find hand prints printed in feces on the bathroom walls... (yea that was gross!) plus i haven't got food poising yet at the Contemporary (do not miss Pop)... The jest of the story is...can you afford it w/o having to change the way you live. If so then go for it, if you do have to shift things around to come up with the money then you may want to think about it a little longer and if you have to take a loan for it i would wait until you have the cash.

Only you know what is right for your family and i don't care who controls the money in your house. If you want it he will give in, or else... Rent some points and stay at each resort. When you hit the one you like you will know it and you will not have to decide if it is something you should do. You will just know. Good luck. Let us know how it pans out. DVC is an unusual situation. It is like a really huge, really strange, dysfunctional family but most of the people are actually super nice.

 

[DenLo]

1. Yes either UY would work for your current travel times.

2. Will you be making reservations at the 11 month mark or at least before the 7 month mark to make use of the home resort advantage? So if you really want to book at 11 months then I'd purchase where you want to stay. If you were interested in Christmas week through New Years or early December then the home resort advantage would definitely matter.

However I think that the only month that might be hard to get in at 7 months could be October because of F&W and MNSSHP, but usually there a villa available somewhere but you might end up with a split stay between two resorts.

3. You can purchase resale contracts that have already purchased the extension, they cost more and there are less of them available since only a third of the OKW owners chose to extend their contracts. If you purchase direct from Disney an OKW contract is for the extended contract.

As to whether you will be given an option to extend an OKW contract later, no one knows what Disney will be planning.

My one question for you will you be disappointed if you buy a resort because of the price and you find have to stay there more often than you like? Will that be okay or will you have regrets? If you know that it will weigh on your mind then perhaps you might want to buy where you want to stay. Now the kicker is will the resort you buy today be the one you want to stay at in 10, 15 or 20 years from now? LOL it's really hard to make those decisions.


My DH has spreadsheets to justify our purchase of the DVC and after 7 vacations we will recoup our initial investment, but our stays at WDW are for 10 days at a time and sometimes we reserve studios and other times 2 BRs. One advantage of a DVC villa, as the kids grow up there's more room to spread out and it makes family vacations more tolerable since you're not just sharing a regular hotel room.

But it's a big chunk of change to pay out at one time. I do think that both of you really need to agree on purchasing DVC for it to work.

 

[Dean]

I agree March and April are the best UY. Based on what you've said, I think AKV will be the best resort for you though SSR will give you the best bang for your buck. BLT will NEVER make up the higher buy in withe lower fees plus I don't expect the fee spread to cont at the same level anyway. BLT only makes sense if you have to have it a fair amount of the time and it seems you don't based on your post. IF you'll want a 3 BR or concierge AND can plan 11 months out, you should buy AKV, if you can live with SSR or OKW, buy the cheapest one weighted for the expiration.

 

[majortom1981]

Keep in mind that if you stayed at the hotel portion of akl you stayed in jambo house. Kidani is a lot more relaxing then jambo is due to it being a lot less crowded. AKV has the conceirge and the value points rooms .

If you liked akv i would suggest that as your home resort.

But you want the home resort to be the one you really like. BLT can be hard to get into at 7 months BUT value points rooms at AKV can also be hard to get at 7 months .

Pick the resort you wouldnt mind staying in if you cannot get another one.

 

[juncker]

I agree with the previous post that only you can decide what is right for your family. I will share my opinion though.

You've listed AKV, BLT and OKW as resorts that you would like to stay at. As long as you are flexible to travel dates, and aren't targetting difficult to get reservations (i.e. Christmas, AKV concierge, etc...) then home resort isn't as important to you and you should let price drive your decision. I probably wouldn't choose a non-WDW site like Hilton Head or Vero so that you can at least guarantee a WDW resort at the 11 month mark if you need it. Make your reservations at the 11 month mark and try and change at the 7 month mark. Certainly AKV, OKW, and even BLT (w/Lake view) are not difficult reservations at the 7 month mark. An SSR contract would be fine to get what you want.

We bought resale earlier this year, and when we started, I was leaning towards BLT or AKV. We decided to buy SSR based upon the price, length of contract, and Maintenance Fees being generally lower. Getting an 11 month booking window for the THV's was just a perk. We visited SSR back in April this year and we loved it. We're planning our next trip for Oct 2012, and as much as I want to get over to stay at AKV and BLT, I really want to go back to SSR. I would never have guessed. I'm also excited to go to OKW at some point. These generally aren't difficult reservations to get, so we will have the opportunity at some point to visit all of them.

Regardless, don't let anyone else make your decision for you. Research what you can (these boards are great), but do what is right based upon what it will cost you balanced with the type of travel requirements that you are going to have.

... and I also support the idea of leaving your husband for someone that does have a DVC contract if he doesn't agree to jump in. Best of Luck!

 

[Ike&Jakesmom]

Thank you all so much for your answers . We did stay at the villas at Jambo house last year, it was stunning ! My two boys were in awe of our savanna view, too bad it was in the 20's for 4 out of our 6 days so we didn't get to enjoy the balcony like we had hoped . The cheaper price at SSr is appealing, but I am just not sure that is where I would like to stay too often. I guess AKV is probably the best fit, BLT price is quite high. My husband is softening to the idea, it is just a large sum of money. We have the money in the bank, did think about doing a home equity loan for part of it since our savings is being built up to hopefully pay our house off in 2 years ! We are not wealthy by any means, but we are blessed enough to live a very comfortable life!

 

[magicron]

Quick background. We've been DVC members for 2-1/2 years. Wish we had done it sooner. Go to WDW at least once per year, sometimes 2-3 times, sometimes just for a couple days (we're in Florida a couple times a year to visit my mom, who lives about 2 hours away).

How many points? You have some flexibility in schedule, and have the opportunity to visit when points requirements are lower, so this could influence your decision on number of points. I would advise looking at points charts for 1 bdr. We bought our points based on one week in a studio. Then we stayed in a 1br - now we can't go back to a studio.

I've never really felt like UY made any difference to us. We're always thinking 11 months about making a reservation at our home resort, with the idea that we could try to make a change at the 7 month window to try someplace new and/or save some points. We were just at Kidani (AKL) in July, so here it is August and it's time to start thinking about reserving the same dates for next July at our home resort. Our UY is Feb, so I know what we'll have available to us next July. So far, I've been able to manage some shortfalls by renting or transferring points from someone else.

Justification. There is a financial justification (payback) in the 5-10 year range, depending on what your alternative lodging is. It will be very difficult to show a payback against Pop. But compare to places like GF, Poly, Wilderness lodge, and even mid resorts like PORF, and there's financial justification, assuming you plan to go at least yearly. I've created spreadsheets, and even downloaded some from the web in order to convince myself of the financial justification.

As many on these boards will echo, the real payback is along the following. I spend 6 nights at Kidani 1BR last month. DW and I had our own room. DD15 slept in the sleeper sofa, and DD12 slept in the sleeper chair. Every morning we fixed our own breakfast (cereal, bagels, etc), sat outside and watched zebras, giraffes etc out in the Savannah. Then we hopped in the car and within 30 minutes were standing in line outside a park waiting for it to open. We would also run a load of laundry every couple nights. Hard to put a price on those experiences and memories and conveniences.

 

[appleorchard]

We're planning a cash trip for March because we're out of points and I'm having absolute sticker shock. I love never having to worry about the cost when we stay on points. Even the cost to RENT points gave me sticker shock lol. We've owned since 2000 and it was one of the best moves we ever made. We go usually alone--sometimes with my mom, sometimes with kids and grandkids--and we love it no matter what. Wish we'd done it 10 years earlier when our kids were younger.

 

[Greta]

Quick background. We've been DVC members for 2-1/2 years. Wish we had done it sooner. Go to WDW at least once per year, sometimes 2-3 times, sometimes just for a couple days (we're in Florida a couple times a year to visit my mom, who lives about 2 hours away).

How many points? You have some flexibility in schedule, and have the opportunity to visit when points requirements are lower, so this could influence your decision on number of points. I would advise looking at points charts for 1 bdr. We bought our points based on one week in a studio. Then we stayed in a 1br - now we can't go back to a studio.

I've never really felt like UY made any difference to us. We're always thinking 11 months about making a reservation at our home resort, with the idea that we could try to make a change at the 7 month window to try someplace new and/or save some points. We were just at Kidani (AKL) in July, so here it is August and it's time to start thinking about reserving the same dates for next July at our home resort. Our UY is Feb, so I know what we'll have available to us next July. So far, I've been able to manage some shortfalls by renting or transferring points from someone else.

Justification. There is a financial justification (payback) in the 5-10 year range, depending on what your alternative lodging is. It will be very difficult to show a payback against Pop. But compare to places like GF, Poly, Wilderness lodge, and even mid resorts like PORF, and there's financial justification, assuming you plan to go at least yearly. I've created spreadsheets, and even downloaded some from the web in order to convince myself of the financial justification.

As many on these boards will echo, the real payback is along the following. I spend 6 nights at Kidani 1BR last month. DW and I had our own room. DD15 slept in the sleeper sofa, and DD12 slept in the sleeper chair. Every morning we fixed our own breakfast (cereal, bagels, etc), sat outside and watched zebras, giraffes etc out in the Savannah. Then we hopped in the car and within 30 minutes were standing in line outside a park waiting for it to open. We would also run a load of laundry every couple nights. Hard to put a price on those experiences and memories and conveniences.

Do you have a spreadsheet that you could share with us?

 

[erikawolf2004]

This isn't mine, but it is has a whole threaad for it, so I'm hoping it is ok to post:
http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2716759

 

[Ike&Jakesmom]

Thanks for all the words of advice! I am convinced that DVC is a good fit for our family, my husbands (I think) does too, he just has issues with the amount of money up front. I am hoping that just the right contract will come along, and he will agree that the time is right to buy. If not, I guess I will have to get me a man with DVC! Just kidding!

 

[Dean]

Thanks for all the words of advice! I am convinced that DVC is a good fit for our family, my husbands (I think) does too, he just has issues with the amount of money up front. I am hoping that just the right contract will come along, and he will agree that the time is right to buy. If not, I guess I will have to get me a man with DVC! Just kidding!

Generally the best contracts don't make it to the web or email listings. Once you've decided what you want, contact one or more brokers and let them know exactly what you need in terms of home resort, price, # of points, etc. Loaded contracts are often a better deal due to the price difference not eating away all of the value of the added points but it's not difficult to adjust any contract and compare to another with a few simple assumptions and values placed on the various components.

 

[magicron]

My spreadsheets are not really self-explanatory like some of the others referenced. There are a least 2-3 good ones referenced on these boards that I've used to start my own thinking. I like the ones that include 'present value', since it takes into account the value of money over time. Also, while I do not intend to sell my contract, I like to take a look 5-10 years out, and make some assumption about what I could sell my contract for if I wanted to. This makes the payback look better, earlier on in the contract. There's some historical data on what people paid for their points 10 years ago, and what these points are now selling for by owners. 5-10 years out one could probably get a decent portion back, making the analysis better vs paying cash for 5-10 out, with nothing owned (kind of a rent an apartment vs buy a house analysis). Certainly 30-40 years out, there's very little cash value left, but by then payback vs yearly cash outlay has long since occured.

 

[Disney Doll]

We have been member since 1997. Here are some of my thoughts, for what they are worth:
~ Pick a resort that, if WDW changed the rules and said you could only stay at your home resort, you could be happy always staying at that resort. Our home resort is OKW. We like the theme, the larger unit sizes, the lower per point costs, parking near our unit, the fact that it is not a hotel but more condo-style. We have stayed at other DVC resorts and always enjoy them, but we could be very happy at OKW forever if necessary...actually, I could be happy living there fulltime if that was possible.
~ March/April use year is good for primarily travelling in May-October
~ OKW extension-has already been offered once. Who knows if it will be offered again? As a PP said, if you buy OKW from Disney I think you automatically get an extended contract.
~ When we did our research DH figured out that if we went to WDW oce every other year, then DVC would be a good purchase.
~ Don't purchase a contract that has a huge amount of points. For example, if you want a total of 400 points, purchase 2 contracts with 200 points each. Smaller contracts are easier to sell in the event that you have to do so in the future, as sad as that would be....
~ Your real savings begins once you have paid off the initial purchase price, so do that as quickly as possible.
~ Realize that you are purchasing the ability to vacation more nicely than having your family stuffed into an average hotel room. It is an investment insofar as you are investing money into it but it is not an investment as in it will earn you money. It will not. It will give you the ability to stay in some pretty nice digs at a fairly reasonable cost....especially once the initial purchase price is paid off.

DH & spent a a total of about $27000 on DVC broken into 2 contracts...one purchased from Disney in 1997 and one purchased resale from the Timeshare Store in 2002. If I figure high and say that the yearly maintenance fees have cost me $2000/year (which is a high estiamte), that would be $28000 for 14 years of ownership. I'll add another $5000 for miscellaneous things that people will bring up such as interest on the loan. So we've spent $60000 in 14years on 40 trips. So we spend $1500/trip on lodging on average. That's pretty good considering the level of lodging we get....we usually do at least a 1BR and often a 2 or 3 BR. Our trips usually average a week...

For us, it's been a good purchase. As a matter-of-fact, in terms of enjoying vacation and sharing it with family and friends, it's the best money we've ever spent.

 

[Plutofan]

I personally would go with BLT. You should be abale to get a AKV and OKW at the 7 month window unless you want conceirge or a Grand Villa. The dues at BLT will probabbly go up less since it is a high rise. BLT is a much harder reservation to get at the 7 month window. Good luck.

 

[Dean]

I personally would go with BLT. You should be abale to get a AKV and OKW at the 7 month window unless you want conceirge or a Grand Villa. The dues at BLT will probabbly go up less since it is a high rise. BLT is a much harder reservation to get at the 7 month window. Good luck.

Unless one wants to stay there most trips or there are must haves for BLT for a given trip (3 BR), the cost difference is a pretty steep ticket at almost double the price. I believe it's actually likely that BLT dues will rise faster than at least SSR and that the gap will narrow but even if it doesn't, one would never come close to making up the price difference. The premium price may be worth it for some but definitely not for one who doesn't value that location and who is fairly flexible on when they can go compared to most.

 

[Plutofan]

Unless one wants to stay there most trips or there are must haves for BLT for a given trip (3 BR), the cost difference is a pretty steep ticket at almost double the price. I believe it's actually likely that BLT dues will rise faster than at least SSR and that the gap will narrow but even if it doesn't, one would never come close to making up the price difference. The premium price may be worth it for some but definitely not for one who doesn't value that location and who is fairly flexible on when they can go compared to most.

For the difference between buying SSR reasle at low 60 and BLT in the low 90 I would still consider BLT since BLT has more value if you want to rent out the points. You can easily get a higher rental rate for a BLT reservation than a SSR reservation. Also I feel like the resale value of BLT should be higher than the resale value of SSR. If you decide to buy BLT direct then I would agree that it is not worth the difference. The main cost of a DVC contract is always the dues. If you amortize out the intial investment over the length of the contract the difference is more reasonable if you get a good resale contract. Its the projection of the increase in dues that will have the biggest impact so you need to consider which type of build out would have the highest increase.

 

[Dean]

For the difference between buying SSR reasle at low 60 and BLT in the low 90 I would still consider BLT since BLT has more value if you want to rent out the points. You can easily get a higher rental rate for a BLT reservation than a SSR reservation. Also I feel like the resale value of BLT should be higher than the resale value of SSR. If you decide to buy BLT direct then I would agree that it is not worth the difference. The main cost of a DVC contract is always the dues. If you amortize out the intial investment over the length of the contract the difference is more reasonable if you get a good resale contract. Its the projection of the increase in dues that will have the biggest impact so you need to consider which type of build out would have the highest increase.

I think the difference is larger than your projection of $30 a point and is closer to $40 a point or more (likely more) when you look at the actual amounts you can buy for. While I agree that the resale value of BLT will be higher than that of SSR, I also think that difference will shrink somewhat over time, put another way, BLT will likely come down a little faster than SSR looking at resale prices, we'll see. As I noted, I think the BLT dues are artificially low compared to the others and I do not feel the difference or relative difference will remain as great. I agree that it comes down to perceived value and what you can actually buy in for of each option. That and the lack of WDW 11 month option are the reasons that HH and VB are not good vehicles for this type of planning unless one would use the home resort period for one of those routinely.

 

[keishashadow]

Thank you all so much for your answers . We did stay at the villas at Jambo house last year, it was stunning ! My two boys were in awe of our savanna view, too bad it was in the 20's for 4 out of our 6 days so we didn't get to enjoy the balcony like we had hoped . The cheaper price at SSr is appealing, but I am just not sure that is where I would like to stay too often. I guess AKV is probably the best fit, BLT price is quite high. My husband is softening to the idea, it is just a large sum of money. We have the money in the bank, did think about doing a home equity loan for part of it since our savings is being built up to hopefully pay our house off in 2 years ! We are not wealthy by any means, but we are blessed enough to live a very comfortable life!

I'm old school and my DH was also skeptical (has since seen the light). He was initially only comfortable with the purchase if i paid cash out of 'my' money to initially buy small resale. It was loaded with points(we worked with the TSS and it didn't take long before we were advised a great contract to fit our needs had come on the market) and we were able to enjoy our 1st DVC stay.

The plan was if we felt it didn't work out, a smaller contract would be easier to divest. It didn't take long after our maiden trip to add on thru DVC direct.

While I know many do rely on financing, imo its do-able to start small and add on after saving for the points. If your house will be paid off in two years then you'd have free money to work with at that point in time to expand your holdings.

good luck