purchasing DVC thru resaler

[fr8trainhays]

We are looking into buying a DVC timeshare. We have found there are several different options, going thru Disney direct or a timeshare resaler. Can anyone give some helpful info on which is the best way to do this? Has anyone used the resaler or Disney? Any information would be great! thanks!

 

[browniemtb]

Buying through:

Disney - SSR is the only resort being sold right now at $101 per point with a $15 rebate with a refferral from another DVC member. You may or may not get any points immediately to use, but you will be in the system right away. Closing cost...not sure here if Disney starting charging yet. Also you can get on the waiting list for the sold out resorts. Financing with Disney is very easy as well.

Resales - All the resorts are available generally at a better price. Closing costs may be in the $500 range. Points may be gone....or you may get banked points. Time frame is longer to get into the Disney system if you pass ROFR. Financing through resale...not to sure.

Good Luck

Brownie

 

[minniemomof3]

One of the biggest advantages of buying resale is that you don't have to purchase the 150 point minimum.

 

[PSC]

I just completed a purchase from a reseller. The Timeshare Store was great to deal with, keeping me informed at every step of the process. It took about 30 days from start to finish (initial offer to making my 1st reservation via member services). Good luck!

 

[Micmaniac]

I can ditto the last post. About 32 days from contract over the phone to being in disney's system. The Timeshare Store handled it, the whole process was smooth and quicker than I thought it would be.

 

[JimMIA]

Buying through:

Disney - SSR is the only resort being sold right now at $101 per point with a $15 rebate with a refferral from another DVC member.

This is a common misconception, and one that is actively promoted by many DVC guides. The truth is you can buy ANY DVC resort directly through Disney, provided they have points available at that resort via ROFR.

Many members have bought direct from Disney with nothing more than one phone call. If you are flexible on Use Year, that greatly improves your chances of getting the points. BCV is the most difficult resort to get -- both resale and direct.

DVC guides do not want to sell the so-called "sold-out" resorts for their own financial reasons, but they are available. If your guide tells you that's impossible, you need to speak to a supervisor and get a new guide who will tell you the truth.

As stated, you will usually save some money buying resale, but you'd have to look closely at the details of each contract to be sure. Like others here, I have bought through The Timeshare Store and I highly recommend them for resales. I also bought an add-on directly and that was very smooth as well.

TTS has financing arrangements available, but if you have the option of home equity financing, that would probably be less expensive.

The closing costs, both for resale and direct from Disney, depend on the size of the contract and you'd have to get that info directly from whichever outfit you are purchasing through. They'll be able to give you the exact figure.

 

[deedeetoo]

Buying resale doesn't always go as quickly as some have posted. We took considerably longer. Contract by phone was July 14th. In the Disney system on Sept 25. It took us over 2 months. The reason for this is that Disney was in the process of foreclosing on the contract we purchased. We did not know this until close to the end of the process. All we knew was that everything was taking longer than we had been told to expect.

But in the end, we were in the system and everything appears to be fine. We saved about $2k over directly buying from Disney.

 

[DMKEDM]

We bought directly from Disney (150 points at SSR) this past June. We (19-year-old son and I) went to the presentation on the last day of our vacation; we were given 3 days from the day we returned home to take advantage of one of two incentives: $93/point ($8/point credit) and we got all 150 points for 2006, or $87/point ($13/point credit) and we wouldn't get any points til 2007 (w/a Feb use year). We chose to get current points.

I took all 3 days to decide. Read Disboards (thanks to my son who found it for me); asked a zillion questions of my guide (Tim Grabman--he's WONDERFUL!) at Disney...

For me, the complete convenience/ease of going through Disney--and the sense of trust I felt in dealing with Tim--was one of the two major reasons I chose to buy through Disney (we paid about $7/point more than the "going rate" for SSR at resale). The other major reason was that we plan to go to Disney every Thanksgiving, and I wanted to make 2006 Thanksgiving reservations right away.

I can't say that I was "emotionally" aware of availability issues. To be fair, Tim told me about them...he told me that T-giving (and other holidays) are popular DVC times and that we might need the 11-month window to get to stay where we want to stay at T-giving (he also made it clear we could buy our 150 points (more more) at any other resort; he did not "insist" on SSR)...and he also noted we might have trouble getting T-giving reservations (we were five months out at the time). I didn't quite believe him...like many others, I was used to going thru CRO and I knew there was plenty of availability for T-giving in June...it took some "experience" to fully understand the truth of what Tim told me--that DVC reservations and "regular Disney" reservations are entirely separate!

In any case, he advised me to use the wait list; I did and we got our T-giving reservations with no problem--took about 5 weeks to get the 2 days that were not available on the day I called first...

On the third day after we got home, I gave Tim my credit card number to pay for our purchase (we didn't finance)...an hour later I made our first reservations. Two days before the paperwork arrived.

Reading through all the paperwork (something I felt compelled to do) was a pain--and the ONLY "pain" in the process. Everything else was incredibly smooth and easy ... Tim, MS, and the people who handle the paperwork were wonderful about answering my "mountains" of questions...and MS has been wonderful about walking me through my early efforts at making reservations (we've planned three trips so far...I've used up all our 2006 points, and 2/3 of our 2007 points...but I refuse to even consider succumbing to "add-on-itis" until we've actually taken our first DVC vacation! And that's T-giving, 2006...)

From reading Disboards, it sounds like buying resale thru the Timeshare Store is just as easy, altho it takes longer. And now as I understand it new buyers have to pay closing costs, whether thru Disney or thru TTS...Disney paid our closing costs.

For us, the convenience and ease and sense of "being taken care of"--at a time when I was still learning the system, made it totally worth buying thru Disney. Whether I'll feel that way if and when I want to add on remains to be seen. It's hard to overrate "trust" and in the 18 years we've been regular WDW visitors, I've grown to "trust" Disney (yes, I know it's a big corporation whose purpose is to make money...but I've been treated extraordinarily well by Disney, under lots of different circumstances--when there were problems that had to be solved as well as when all things went exactly as planned). Whether TTS (which is where I'll go if I decide to try resale) will inspire my trust at a level where the savings in acquisition cost outweights my peace of mind with respect to a big chunk of money is something I just don't know yet.

Good luck in making your decision! Hope this story of our experience is helpful to you...

 

[Jeremy&Susan]

We recently purchased through Disney as well in July. WE tried multiple offers through resale and each one was ROFR'd.

The price we ended up paying through Disney was only $2 more than the what the aftermarket had been paying up until that time.
After we got ROFR'd three times we figured it was worth the small increase in price to be able to get the process completed and not worry about whether an offer would be accepted, ROFR'd, or completed afterward.

Depends what your wait time is worth and how the ROFR'ing has been going at the time you are lookig to buy.

 

[JimMIA]

Contract by phone was July 14th. In the Disney system on Sept 25. It took us over 2 months.

I actually don't think that's an extraordinary amount of time for resale. I think our resale took about the same amount of time.

I usually tell people to plan on 8-12 weeks from offer to "in the system." It might be quicker than that, and if so, be pleasantly surprised...but it is a bit of a slow process.

 

[deedeetoo]

I actually don't think that's an extraordinary amount of time for resale. I think our resale took about the same amount of time.

I usually tell people to plan on 8-12 weeks from offer to "in the system." It might be quicker than that, and if so, be pleasantly surprised...but it is a bit of a slow process.

I completely agree with this. If we had heard this time frame upfront we probably wouldn't have gotten as stressed out when things seemed to be going slowly. That's why I posted about ours taking over two months. Other posts are indicating that you can do it in one. I don't think someone should go into the process of purchasing by resale with that expectation

 

[psu4glory]

agree on the time it takes to complete a resale purchase - start to finish. although, i do think that the time of year that you're attempting to purchase plays a part in the process....

for instance, we put our offer in for 200 BWV points in late DEC 2005 - just about the time that DVC was preparing to process annual dues for its members. because of this, our offer was very slow to land on someone's desk for ROFR, and we were not "in the system" until mid-FEB....about 8 weeks total.

it's not an unreasonable wait...but somewhat stressful (waiting on ROFR) and anxious!

 

[WorkForVacation]

If I buy a resale, once the transaction is complete and I am in the system, can I call Disney and have them send me the book with all the points and info or do I need to ask this from the seller?

 

[the who #3]

i was first assigned a guide when i asked that disney send me information about dvc. we decided that we wanted bcv and asked the guide about that resort. i was told by my guide that bcv was not possible and the only thing available was ssr. i recieved no other explanation other than sold out.

about 1 to 2 years after that, while at disney we went to tour ssr and decided to buy. the guide who helped us was very nice, helpful and not using pressure to sell. the guide who was assigned to us was the first one, not the one we purchased from. we increased the pts. before closing, and later added on another 25 pt. contract.

still no one told me that we could wait list for the resort we really wanted.

i did, 9 months later buy a resale at bwv (and could have had bcv thru resale). i quess being a woman i want what i want. ssr is beautiful but we have not wanted to spend our vacation there. isn't that just like a woman.

when my guide asked why i purchased a resale instead from disney, i told him that he never told me we could waitlist for a sold out resort and i only found out after finding a website with discussions about the waitlist.

bottom line, i was very pleased with the resale from the timeshare store, but might have enjoyed having both my use years being the same. it may cause me trouble down the rd.

i do wish the guides would guide just a little bit better. maybe we don't really need the guide. i did not use one with my resale purchase. what else do they do? maybe this post is in the wronge place.