Newbie here, just back from DL & DCA

[ChrisMouse]

Hi everyone!

I've just begun to lurk here and wanted to introduce myself. Our family just returned from CA, and are seriously considering DVC as a way to feed our "Mouse Addiction" and plain old "Vacation Addiction" yearly.

First, I apologize for my ignorance. I'm trying to come up to speed, but it's a slow process so far. I am sure I will have a ton of questions, but my main question is in regards to how difficult it is to get reservations at that magic 7 month timeframe when you don't want to stay at your "home" resort.

We are considering a resale at Vero...as a way to get in for a low per-point cost. We don't particularly care where we stay, as long as it's on property. We will nearly always choose a studio, and we nearly always travel off season (which I know doesn't necessarily mean the same thing for DVC members). By this, I mean we can't travel in the summer due to our jobs, and we tend to choose to pull our kids out of school to travel in the fall, winter, or early spring well before spring break. We don't enjoy weekends, though we do tend to include a weekend night occasionially for fireworks, etc. If we travelled at Christmas, it would be the very early part of the month--certainly no later than the 20th of Dec.

Anyway, what I am asking is this--if we purchase at Vero, will we have trouble making reservations since we will almost never be able to take advantage of the 11 month booking/home resort situation?

Also, we might want to explore the "other" destinations (not that I've seen a list of the "500 destinations" touted in the DVD that has captured all of our attention....but I'm sure there are places in that 500 that we would like to go. How "point-expensive" are these other locations??? We have a conference we like to attend in Las Vegas, and we are amusement park fanatics who would love to travel the country visiting different places. How likely/easy is it to use points for this type of trip? Our plan would be to split our points into two trips...one Disney trip per year and one "other" trip per year.

I would appreciate any help anyone can provide.

TIA--you're the best!

 

[Donald is #1]

Do you think that you will be visiting DLR or WDW more? The reason that I am asking is that there are rumors that Disney may announce a DVC at DL.

 

[CarolAnnC]

The early part of December is actually hard to book with DVC. It has become extremely popular with the decorations up, lower park crowds, and lower points.

I would highly recommend purchasing where you want to stay.

 

[CarolMN]

If you really don't mind staying at any WDW DVC resort but want to be sure of getting a reservation, my advice is to buy something on property. Al least that way, you will have the 11 month booking window for something on property.

Also, the initial buy in is not the only cost consideration - be sure to look at the annual maintenance fees as well. They are relatively high for VB. That makes VB less of a bargain than you may think. I would not advise someone to buy off property unless that is where they want to stay most of the time. Nothing wrong with VB or HHI -they are both wonderful places to spend a vacation.

With few exceptions, it's not a good economic choice to buy DVC with the idea of trading out on a regular basis. DVC is rather expensive -there are les expensive timeshares out there that trade just as well and are less expensive to own.

Consider buying just enough DVC points to take care of your WDW trips and another timeshare for your non-WDW trips. Again, buy one of the on site DVC resorts if you want to be sure of getting a reservation for one of the on site DVC resorts. There are many times of the year where the home resort booking advantage is important.

Good luck with your research and welcome to the DVC Boards!

 

[kend58]

We are looking at buying DVC for an every 2 or 3 year family vacation on property with the occaisional 1 or 2 day add on to a 1 week off property visit. I am considering HHI and VB contracts for the entry price but only because I would be able to bank and borrow and make a SB Beach or Summer Golf trip using those points. I intend to acquire additional points directly from Disney once I am a DVC member likely at AKL but less than the 160 minimum they would require for me to just buy there as my original purchase. We just don't see ourselves at WDW that much I know I could trade or rent but IMHO there are much better economic opportunities for that outside of DVC.

We also own two weeks in another TS system and have heard horror stories outside of DVC about resale value crashing to date Disneys ROFR and new property entry price increases have helped avoid that but someday years out on the horizon the value of the 2042 contracts will begin to errode based on the number of years of remaining use to recover the price that set of economic realities will dictate what people are willing to pay ... the same will be true later on for SSR and AKV. I personally wouldn't dream of paying the Disney premium for points I didn't intend to use within the Disney system and wouldn't want points at a resort where I didn't desire to stay. They have some good value properties available in the Concierge and trading collections but there are often much lower costs of entry available to get into those resorts if those opportunities are the focus of your vacation plans then IMHO you should research other possible resale properties as ways to implement trading to meet those plans. I would outside of DVC avoid direct purchase from the TS developer like the plague based on resale prices I see elsewhere.

 

[ChrisMouse]

Wow, thanks for all of the great advice, guys!

I think we've made a decision. We're going to go ahead and purchase points on property for our WDW trips, but we're only going to buy enough points to cover exactly what we need each year. Right now we're going back and forth between SSR and BWV. We LOVE the look of BWV, but love the fact that we could use the SSR longer...so we'll have to make that decision! It will be a tricky one, esp. since we haven't seen the resorts in person. I wish we'd known about DVC years ago...water under the bridge, though.

We're going to look into other TS options for our secondary trip each year.

Thanks a million for all the input!

 

[BWV Dreamin]

Alot has been said about the devaluation of properties that expire in 2042. However, BWV and BCV have very desired locations. Has anyone thought about what Disney might offer if you are an owner when the contracts expire, or are near expiration? It might be an advantage to own property in these locations at that time as there may be heavy incentives to continue them. Otherwise, who could imagine what the cost would be to repurchase new? I can't really see any loss in value, with the desired locations having a very big impact. Of course, I'm sure the " Dean Factor" will have something to say about this!

 

[jcodespoti]

I do believe that technically DVD can do away with and/or modify the 7-month booking window. No would they...I doubt it very much.

Although I love Vero...I say buy where you want stay the most.

Joe in CT

 

[kend58]

Alot has been said about the devaluation of properties that expire in 2042. However, BWV and BCV have very desired locations. Has anyone thought about what Disney might offer if you are an owner when the contracts expire, or are near expiration? It might be an advantage to own property in these locations at that time as there may be heavy incentives to continue them. Otherwise, who could imagine what the cost would be to repurchase new?

I posted earlier that values would one day have to decline and I posted that I am presently seeking to buy DVC at WDW for my families use.

I am not and I have not seen anyone else on this thread saying that the 2042properties will follow the path that many off TS properties have and quickly devalue Disney has to date defeated that scenario and ROFR will give them a mechanism to accomplish keeping the price up so taht their sales of new DVC properties remain reasonable investments. I am saying until and unless something changes all a DVC owner owns is the right to use the property until Jan, 31 2042 or later contract expire dates and clearly that on Feb 1, 2043 Disney owns all of the 2042 DVC points for no additional cash outlay. Why do you believe they will offer you anyting to get it back before that date?

Yes they will use ROFR to keep prices stable and yes they will forclose if you do not pay the contracturally obligated dues and suspend your priveliges as an owner until you do pay the dues so you will have to pay or sell and that is what I am saying will drive the resale down eventually. When you bought your contract you bought 50 years or 50 years minus some amount amount of time up to 15 years so no less than 35 remaining years of usage at current prices that is still a reasonable deal and people regularly calculate and post there 5 to 7 to 12 year recovering analyiss that they have based their purchase on.

What I am saying is when remaining years are approaching 20 or 15 or 10 those analysis look a whole lot different from an economics perspective than they do now and basic econmic theory will dictate that resale values will have to fall for those properties until they reach zero on 1/30/2042 (except as a collectibel (sp) item for having the last contract or last card issued or something like that).

The OP asked about whther or not buying DVC was a good value and presented a reasoned approach for using their proposed points. I posted that at some point economics would come into play since you are buying an assett with an arbitrairly defined useful life. I also posted that oen should by points where they want to stay (i.e. in any real estate location is highly important).

I can't really see any loss in value, with the desired locations having a very big impact. Of course, I'm sure the " Dean Factor" will have something to say about this!

I'm not Dean ... But I do stand by my analysis and ask you how you can conceive that your contract has any value as of 2/1/2042.

 

[nuts]

I posted earlier that values would one day have to decline and I posted that I am presently seeking to buy DVC at WDW for my families use.

I am not and I have not seen anyone else on this thread saying that the 2042properties will follow the path that many off TS properties have and quickly devalue Disney has to date defeated that scenario and ROFR will give them a mechanism to accomplish keeping the price up so taht their sales of new DVC properties remain reasonable investments. I am saying until and unless something changes all a DVC owner owns is the right to use the property until Jan, 31 2042 or later contract expire dates and clearly that on Feb 1, 2043 Disney owns all of the 2042 DVC points for no additional cash outlay. Why do you believe they will offer you anyting to get it back before that date?

Yes they will use ROFR to keep prices stable and yes they will forclose if you do not pay the contracturally obligated dues and suspend your priveliges as an owner until you do pay the dues so you will have to pay or sell and that is what I am saying will drive the resale down eventually. When you bought your contract you bought 50 years or 50 years minus some amount amount of time up to 15 years so no less than 35 remaining years of usage at current prices that is still a reasonable deal and people regularly calculate and post there 5 to 7 to 12 year recovering analyiss that they have based their purchase on.

What I am saying is when remaining years are approaching 20 or 15 or 10 those analysis look a whole lot different from an economics perspective than they do now and basic econmic theory will dictate that resale values will have to fall for those properties until they reach zero on 1/30/2042 (except as a collectibel (sp) item for having the last contract or last card issued or something like that).

The OP asked about whther or not buying DVC was a good value and presented a reasoned approach for using their proposed points. I posted that at some point economics would come into play since you are buying an assett with an arbitrairly defined useful life. I also posted that oen should by points where they want to stay (i.e. in any real estate location is highly important).



I'm not Dean ... But I do stand by my analysis and ask you how you can conceive that your contract has any value as of 2/1/2042.

Let's call it the Ken58 factor.

Seriously...good advice here. Do buy onsite. Don't just look at price per point. Your biggest cost over the long haul are the annual dues.

 

[ChrisMouse]

Thanks, all, for the spectacular advice.

We've been eating, sleeping, breathing DVC for the last several days.

We are ready to buy, as soon as the "perfect" resale pops onto the list. Now that we have done all of this research, we are definitely buying on property. I just don't know if we'd ever visit Vero, so giving up our 11-month booking possibilities at a resort we like on property would be really foolish. Added with the higher MF's, and our decision was easy.

(Now if we could just definitively make up our minds between BWV and SSR...we keep waffling...at least it's only between TWO and not more... )

We'll be on pins and needles watching the resales. AND we'll be hoping for an announcement someday of DVC in CA. We'll be early in line for a chunk of points there, too!!!

Thanks SO MUCH for all of the help. I'm sure I'll have more questions as we proceed.

 

[FLYNZ4]

I'm not Dean ... But I do stand by my analysis and ask you how you can conceive that your contract has any value as of 2/1/2042.

Kend58,

I personally think that at some point... that DVC will offer "contract extensions" to extend the life back up to 50 years. It would generate a large influx of cash.

My condo association for my airplane hangar does this. We own the physical hangars... but the airport owns the land under them. We have a 30 year lease... but every 10 years or so we extend the lease back out to 30 years. Thus... the airport gets a renewable stream of revenue from us... and our hangars continue to rise in value rather than depreciate because of the term of the land lease.

I would think that DVC could generate addition revenues at great margins if they adopt this approach... and at some point, I expect that they will do so.

/Jim

 

[kend58]

I personally think that at some point... that DVC will offer "contract extensions" to extend the life back up to 50 years. It would generate a large influx of cash.

/Jim

FLYNZ4

I agree I also believe that at some point when the contracts start to have insufficient remaining useful life to keep the point price up that DVD will start offering extensions but not necessarily everywhere. They may for instance decide that the OKW buildings need major overhaul to install Elevators etc and offer extensions only to those OKW owners willing to ante up for a portion of that renovation cost and committ to additional years.

They might choose to collapse one or more of the "small resorts VWL BCV BWV" back into the attached hotel as cash rent suites. They might choose to raze one or more of the resorts to build the new ....... (Narnia or Incredibles or whatever) virtual theme park gotta compete with Harry Potter at UO somehow and Disney owns the land under the resorts.

However my point is these are fixed duration contracts and unless and until Disney chooses to extend an offer they are worthless (except as memorabelia) the day after the current contract end date.

 

[BWV Dreamin]

Kend58,

I personally think that at some point... that DVC will offer "contract extensions" to extend the life back up to 50 years. It would generate a large influx of cash.

My condo association for my airplane hangar does this. We own the physical hangars... but the airport owns the land under them. We have a 30 year lease... but every 10 years or so we extend the lease back out to 30 years. Thus... the airport gets a renewable stream of revenue from us... and our hangars continue to rise in value rather than depreciate because of the term of the land lease.

I would think that DVC could generate addition revenues at great margins if they adopt this approach... and at some point, I expect that they will do so.

/Jim

I do agree with this position. Why would Disney want to re-sell every DVC ownership that expires in 2042 at the same time!! They would never put themselves in a position to loose all that maintenance fee at one time. As I previously stated, too much inventory deflates the sales price. I feel they will offer extensions or new contracts to existing owners a resort or two at a time so as not to flood the market. Thus they will preserve their price per point bottom line, and this in turn will help keep values stable. (This sounds like ECON 101!)

 

[kend58]

I do agree with this position. Why would Disney want to re-sell every DVC ownership that expires in 2042 at the same time!! They would never put themselves in a position to loose all that maintenance fee at one time. As I previously stated, too much inventory deflates the sales price. I feel they will offer extensions or new contracts to existing owners a resort or two at a time so as not to flood the market. Thus they will preserve their price per point bottom line, and this in turn will help keep values stable. (This sounds like ECON 101!)

The trick is the Disney entity owning the land not DVC will make the extension decision so the first best use for the property in the overall portfolio of options that Disney has at that time should be the objective not just what is best for DVC and by extension the resort(s) existing owners (as a Disney share holder I sure want it to be anyway). What outside non DVC factors will come into play in the Econ 101 decision that is being made remain to be uncovered (possibly here on the DIS 1st). It will be inetresting to see how it plays out over the coming years and decades.

 

[JadeDarkstar]

wait i thought dvc was also in dl. ..i coulda swore i heard about it