It’s just the price that is holding me back. I have a potential contract resale for GFV/ 175 points at 162/pp. And it has almost double points for 2022
That's a $12k difference between the 200 point direct contract you described, and earlier you said you were "bootstrapping" for your first contract. My wife and I are both educators and we have three kids so I feel the initial anxiety about picking the right resort. We also never stayed anywhere nicer than Pop Century before we purchased DVC, and most often were off-property to save $. We also knew we were going to add a kiddo to our family and so we needed to think about where 5 people would sleep.
If you like DVC you're going to add-on points, so you can always pick a different resort if you need to.
We bought 100 resale points at Poly to get our feet wet and to not have to finance anything. Then last year I wanted more points and added 150 points at the Riviera because I liked the resort, decide I wanted direct benefits, and I had stimulus money that we hadn't spent. Then this week I decided I wanted more Poly points and bam! I'm under contract with another resale.
My suggestion is you also need to take a look at DVC inventory not just DVC availability although they are closely related. You'll find standard view Poly studios at 7 months because there are 288 of them in the system. BLT has only 30 standard view studios and 30 standard view 1BR and that makes them hard to come by. BLT, VGF, and Poly have very similar resale prices right now, so look at points for the room too.
If you are bootstrapping for a monorail resort with that many people in your family. I think you should steer clear of BLT because you just won't have the points for a 1 or 2 bedroom for 7 days annually. Just look at a points calculator for examples. A week in February at BLT in a 1BR Lake View is 280 points and Lake View is 70% of the 1BRs. That's 1.6 years' worth of points on that 175 points contract. BLT has no murphy beds (yet). Add a 6th person and the 2BR Lake View is 361 points for the week.
You don't want to be in a BLT studio with 5 people even when one is an infant. Okay maybe I don't because I just did it. It was a tight squeeze and we basically only ever do studios. They galley kitchen layout takes up all of the space unless you're going to have someone sleep in there, which I don't recommend.
VGF studio actually sleeps 5 and is 157-185 if you can avoid the theme park view resort studios. That's about one year's worth of points on the 175 point contract. Going to a 1 BR Standard View is 312 points or 1.78 years worth of points on the same contract and still only sleeps 5 people. Oh and by the way there are only 47 VGF 1BRs which can also be used up to book 2BR lock-offs. Add a 6th person and the VGF 2BR is 421 points for the week. Inventory above studios here is not great.
The Poly standard view is 156 points for a week in February and it sleeps 5. It's also the largest studio on property and has the best layout in my opinion. If you add a 6th person, you either have to book 2 studios or look at a different resort. 2 studios is 312 points which is cheaper than BLT and VGF 2 Bedrooms. You would give up a kitchen, washer/dryer, and "living room" space in your room, but the advantage over a 2 bedroom is that you would have 6 beds and can sleep up to 10 people and 2 infants- 2 queens, 2 queen murphy beds, and 2 murphy singles. My family got connecting studios last Thanksgiving and it was super convenient, had lots of sleeping surfaces and cost much fewer points. However, we don't like to cook on vacation, so giving up the full kitchen is super easy.
Okay, after writing all of that. My question is when you close your eyes where do you see yourself staying. If you don't buy there, then you'll probably just be unhappy. The rest is really just the financial part and there are a million ways to get creative with it, or add-on contract by contract.