Prospective DVC Member -- Financing?

[bmb3]

My husband and I have been seriously considering buying into DVC. We are going to be headed to Disney in 10 days cool1 and are planning on going through a DVC presentation. These boards have been extremely helpful - but I still have a few questions.

1) I know we can use our Disney Visa for the down payment and get 0% for 6 months. How does Disney handle the rest of the financing? What is the interest rate? (We just built a house last August - and therefore have a mortgage payment, and don't want to 'bite off more than we can chew...')

2) I'm a school teacher - so as of now, our prospective vacation times would be in the summer, spring break and possibly Christmas. What do you think the best use year would be?

3) We don't have any children - and aren't planning on having any for awhile. Should we just buy the minimum amount of points?

4) Who do we contact about setting up a reservation for the presentation at Disney? (Phone number?) It is at SSR, correct?

Any other tips and information would be much appreciated! Thanks!

 

[chalee94]

1) I know we can use our Disney Visa for the down payment and get 0% for 6 months. How does Disney handle the rest of the financing? What is the interest rate? (We just built a house last August - and therefore have a mortgage payment, and don't want to 'bite off more than we can chew...')

it's a lot - i think 10.75% if you have really good credit.

2) I'm a school teacher - so as of now, our prospective vacation times would be in the summer, spring break and possibly Christmas. What do you think the best use year would be?

december, if you'd be unlikely to travel in the sept-oct-nov months.

3) We don't have any children - and aren't planning on having any for awhile. Should we just buy the minimum amount of points?

if you go resale, you can start with as few as you like...50-60 pts or whatever. disney will allow you to start with 100 pts at SSR and AKV.

if that is enough to get you started, it might be a better way to go if you can avoid financing...

4) Who do we contact about setting up a reservation for the presentation at Disney? (Phone number?) It is at SSR, correct?

the tour is at SSR. there is a number on the DVC website or else just wait and talk to a salesperson at a DVC kiosk at wdw.

 

[Sandisw]

We just became members this winter and will be leaving tomorrow for our first DVC stay!!! I bought in to BLT and am really excited about it!

You can put the down payment (up to $5000 per the Chase disney site) on the Disney Visa and get 6 months, 0%. I was lucky to get the entire cost of both my add ons to qualify for the promo, but this has been hit or miss for others.

For Disney financing, their rates are high (10.75% for direct debit preferred and 14.25% for direct debit standard). You can take it out for 5 or 10 years. I believe that there is also a 1 year rate if you put down 50%.

You can make an appointment at the DVC center. If you don't yet have a member referral, you can find one at the thread on these boards. Members are more than willing to share the names of guides. It also gives you the best deals as having one can save you money.

I am also a teacher and my UY is June. It works out great as we will be mostly summer travelers. However, it allows me to have until January 31st to bank points...so even if we decided to ever go during my Feb break, I would still be in my banking window if I had to cancel that trip. The ideal situation is to travel during the first few months of your UY to give you flexibility of banking points if you have to cancel more than 31 days out...or, if you borrow points and cancel, gives you time to rebook during your UY (as once borrowed they can not be returned).

Good luck!!! And have a great trip down!!!

 

[ToddyLu]

Just to break it down for you--this would have really helped me ahead of time....but it is hard to find out your monthly amount of mortgage unless you call DVC to get the ball rollin'....

DH (45) and I (40) do not have children and we 'Do" Disney every year for at least 9 days. We purchased 210 points at AKV this past June. Our monthly mortgage note will be about $234 and our MF's about $ 80 something. We got the preferred 10.75% rate and bought a new Jeep the week before.....I told the Guide up front that our credit was great and all he needed was our SS# to check us out...almost instantly. We chose to finance through Disney because it was difficult to find a lender for a timeshare type loan and we didn't want to put a lot on our credit card (just 10%). Even with good credit our interest rate would not have been below about 8%. There is no penalty for paying it off early. We got our points instantly from 2008 and made a reservation with the Guide that morninng for the trip we were taking already in Oct. So we just decided to jump in with both feet and haven't looked back.

I give you the above numbers just so you can know what we didand how the points corresponded to a mortgage. We got a Dec. UY. DH is a fireman and doesn't know what his vacation is for the year until mid January. So I can't plan anything until that comes out and his vacation is assurred. We usually book our Disney trips in February anyway. That is how the Dec UY will help. It will kinda keep me organized and ready for the coming years vacation. That might sound dumb but I think it will work for us. I know lots of people have to be careful about their use year and travel--I will just always bank by July 31, we have never had to cancel a vacation.

Didn't do resale because of the difficulty financing for a resale contract. It was just easy with Disney and we hope to pay it off in 3-5 years. Plus we got our full amount of 2008 points to use for this year's trip, immediately.

 

[GoofItUp]

Regarding the financing....since you know now that you'll possibly be buying, go see your banker before you leave. Check out what loan options they have that you might can utilize. If you feel certain you're going to buy, go ahead and fill out the loan paperwork and have things in place so you can just call and give them the go-ahead if/when you're ready. DH and I are thinking about buying, and although we are hoping to save up and pay mostly cash, I did ask my banker about a loan just this week. There are several options, and I could get a loan right now with about 6.5% interest rate. Definitely worth checking into before you head to WDW.

 

[Greysword]

Although your questions seem to have been answered, I would like to add a couple additional benefits to using Disney financing.

First, Disney does not post your loan to the credit bureaus, so it is not counted into your debit to income ratio if you ask for credit from other firms (mortgages, car loand, credit cards, etc). This may also help our credit if for some crazy reason it becomes necessary to default (definately don't plan on it...I like my points!).

Second, we have been able to deduct the Disney loan intrest from our taxes (as a mortgage). I don't know if you can do this with a signature or credit card loan.

Third, it is a fixed loan (we treat it as a car loan), which means a definate payoff date is set. The somewhat higher interest (if compared to a house loan) is lower than some signature loans or most credit cards.

Just some things we enjoy,. Good luck!