Putting in offers for resale

[AdmrlAwesome]

I'm brand new at this and have now ventured over to resale land because direct is just bonkers expensive. Any advise on putting in an offer on resale. I'm looking for at least 300 points. Does "lowballing" work? Or, am I really looking at going with near asking price? Thank you.

 

[Rush]

I'm brand new at this and have now ventured over to resale land because direct is just bonkers expensive. Any advise on putting in an offer on resale. I'm looking for at least 300 points. Does "lowballing" work? Or, am I really looking at going with near asking price? Thank you.

Look less at asking price, and more at market price, both what they’re selling at and what’s getting through ROFR.

The ROFR thread and the one for the previous quarter is a great place to start. Also, DVC Resale Market has a good blog to help as well.

 

[skippytx]

This might not be a popular opinion, but this is how I feel about it.

Don't focus so much on the initial price per point. The initial acquisition cost of the DVC points is such a small part of the overall expense of owning and using DVC, it's not worth trying to lowball and find the best deal. If you find a contract that has the points and UY you want, just buy it. Do your research and know what the market is like, and if it's reasonable go for it.

You're signing up for at least 2K a year in dues, plus all the other expenses that come with a WDW vacation. You don't want to lose a good contract that works for you over a few dollars a point.

 

[Katie L]

This might not be a popular opinion, but this is how I feel about it.

Don't focus so much on the initial price per point. The initial acquisition cost of the DVC points is such a small part of the overall expense of owning and using DVC, it's not worth trying to lowball and find the best deal. If you find a contract that has the points and UY you want, just buy it. Do your research and know what the market is like, and if it's reasonable go for it.

You're signing up for at least 2K a year in dues, plus all the other expenses that come with a WDW vacation. You don't want to lose a good contract that works for you over a few dollars a point.

I gotta say I'm seeing this side more and more. Contracts already passed that were $5 more than mine and now I'm stuck in limbo where they won't pass or take mine and I'm heartily annoyed. Roar.

 

[kniquy]

Any advise on putting in an offer on resale. I'm looking for at least 300 points. Does "lowballing" work? Or, am I really looking at going with near asking price? Thank you.

If you haven't already check out the ROFR thread and see what offers have been accepted for the resort you are looking for. I'd say look back about 6 months to get a good idea. Prices have gone up over the past year or so which makes data from even the summer of 2018 to be irrelevant.

I will tell you my recent experience. I was looking for a smallish Poly contract - I looked on ROFR and did see a range of price per point from $140-150pp --of course larger contracts usually sell for a lower price per point than smaller ones. I put in offers on 2 very similar contracts both at $140 per point (One listing was $165 per point and another at $160 per point). The one for $165 countered at $150pp - we negotiated to $145 pp and the offer was accepted. The listing for $160pp only came down to $158 per point -- I told the listing agent it was too high. They felt it was market price - so i passed on that and feel like i got a good deal.

So you just never know. I looked back a little and noticed the contract who accepted my offer has been listed since September, so possibly the longer a listing is there the more willing the seller will be to negotiate.

With you looking for a larger contract you might have more working for you on your side -- i think more people buy up the smaller contracts and they go quick so the larger ones might take a bit to find a buyer.

I would start off with a low offer, the seller can counter offer, decline or accept -- you just never know.

 

[AdmrlAwesome]

If you haven't already check out the ROFR thread and see what offers have been accepted for the resort you are looking for. I'd say look back about 6 months to get a good idea. Prices have gone up over the past year or so which makes data from even the summer of 2018 to be irrelevant.

I will tell you my recent experience. I was looking for a smallish Poly contract - I looked on ROFR and did see a range of price per point from $140-150pp --of course larger contracts usually sell for a lower price per point than smaller ones. I put in offers on 2 very similar contracts both at $140 per point (One listing was $165 per point and another at $160 per point). The one for $165 countered at $150pp - we negotiated to $145 pp and the offer was accepted. The listing for $160pp only came down to $158 per point -- I told the listing agent it was too high. They felt it was market price - so i passed on that and feel like i got a good deal.

So you just never know. I looked back a little and noticed the contract who accepted my offer has been listed since September, so possibly the longer a listing is there the more willing the seller will be to negotiate.

With you looking for a larger contract you might have more working for you on your side -- i think more people buy up the smaller contracts and they go quick so the larger ones might take a bit to find a buyer.

I would start off with a low offer, the seller can counter offer, decline or accept -- you just never know.

Where were you able to find the date when they were first listed for sale?

 

[RaymOOOnd]

How much is it worth to you to avoid a couple months of wasted time and some disappointment?

If the answer is "a significant amount", I would look at the ROFR monthly reports which give the maximum price taken back by Disney... and not bargain the price-per-point down below that. For instance if 15 BCV contracts were ROFR'd and the highest was $138pp, I'd not bargain a 200pt contract listed for $140pp down to less than that. Bargaining to save a few dollars per point and risk being ROFR'd, with all of the associated frustration and having to start all over, especially given the relative unimportance of the buy-in-price put to the total amount you'll pay in dues as noted earlier in the thread.... just doesn't seem worth it to me.

 

[DougEMG]

In the past lowballing, especially on large contracts was a good strategy, but with the recent change DvC made allowing them to switch UYs on contracts, I think those contracts will have the highest chance of being taken in ROFR. With UY no loner mattering for DVC, all they really need to look at is price and how many points they need.

 

[kniquy]

Where were you able to find the date when they were first listed for sale?

I have been receiving listing emails from the company so i was able to just go back in my emails (because i never delete anything) and see when it first showed up. I know one of the resale companies actually puts the date the listing went up, can't remember which one though.

 

[Rush]

Where were you able to find the date when they were first listed for sale?

DVC Resale Market puts the date it was listed right in the listing. The Timeshare Store makes it a little more challenging, but since I bought there I know how to crack their code. Look at the ID number of the listing, for example, SS100-04-0401 is a Saratoga Springs 100 pt April UY listed April 1st. The other broker sites I have no idea, but you can always ask, I did and that’s when the Timeshare Store broker told me their ID coding. It shouldn’t be a secret, so I suspect any broker will tell you that info if you want to know it.

Just like buying/selling anything else, the more recent it’s been listed the less likely the seller is willing to entertain offers, the longer it’s been sitting the more likely they will take offers. Like others have implied, lowballing might not be in your best interest unless you have nerves of steel, time to wait, and don’t really care whether you end up with it or not. If any of those three things don’t apply to you, offer a market rate, or even slightly higher. We offered $98pp, expecting a counter offer, when they accepted we paid $100pp instead to help assure passing ROFR. It worked and passed in 14 days. Would $98pp have worked? To us it wasn’t worth $350 to find out.

 

[kidren21]

In the past lowballing, especially on large contracts was a good strategy, but with the recent change DvC made allowing them to switch UYs on contracts, I think those contracts will have the highest chance of being taken in ROFR. With UY no loner mattering for DVC, all they really need to look at is price and how many points they need.

Wait - what? What's the background here? Are we allowed to request a UY change?

 

[Rush]

Wait - what? What's the background here? Are we allowed to request a UY change?

No, but what he means, if Disney takes a contract in ROFR, they can change the UY to suit a direct buyer.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

I'm brand new at this and have now ventured over to resale land because direct is just bonkers expensive. Any advise on putting in an offer on resale. I'm looking for at least 300 points. Does "lowballing" work? Or, am I really looking at going with near asking price? Thank you.

Lowballing worked for us.

 

[AdmrlAwesome]

Lowballing worked for us.

Where did you buy? And when, if you don't mind me asking?

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

Where did you buy? And when, if you don't mind me asking?

Fidelity, last fall
They accepted right away. We were on the fence about lowballing but we wouldn't have been happy without trying at least once.

 

[chicagoshannon]

Doesn't hurt to try lowballing. However, even if they accept Disney could still take it at ROFR.

We just had a bid accepted for AKL for $100 per point for 100 points. I"m very happy with that price but Disney will probably take it. We shall see.

 

[AdmrlAwesome]

Fidelity, last fall
They accepted right away. We were on the fence about lowballing but we wouldn't have been happy without trying at least once.

By lowballing are we talking $10 lower than asking or more like $15-20? And you made it through ROFR? Sorry for so many questions. I'm thinking about putting in an offer tomorrow after I talk to the other half.

 

[Rush]

By lowballing are we talking $10 lower than asking or more like $15-20? And you made it through ROFR? Sorry for so many questions. I'm thinking about putting in an offer tomorrow after I talk to the other half.

Again, don’t only look at asking, people are all different and ask different prices based on what THEY want. An example, recently I saw a contract asking $120pp, while other similar contracts were averaging $105 or so. Offering $105 on someone asking $120 isn’t really a lowball offer, it’s asking price for others. Lowballing is offering much less than market price. That you can only find out by researching recent sales.

Also, price per point will play a factor. $10-$15 less than asking on a VGF on a percentage basis is much less of price reduction than say a SSR contract. All that said, I don’t think $10-$15 less per point is absurd, all they can do is say no or counter.

 

[sndral]

Here’s the link to the ROFR thread https://www.disboards.com/threads/r...ost-for-instructions-formatting-tool.3743908/ post 3 has the current numbers.
In looking at value per point I always considered what the current state of the points were.
To me stripped contracts - those with no current use year points and perhaps no next years points either - had far less value, in fact I didn’t offer on those because I was buying to use the points and didn’t want to wait that long to do so. Who pays the MFs for current years points is negotiable (although the resale norm seems to be buyer pays this year’s MFs if those points are there) & if you pay this years MFs add $7-8 per point to your cost.
Loaded contracts - those with banked points plus current years points and no missing points from next year - are usually worth more because even if you can’t use the extra points you can perhaps rent them out to recoup some of your costs.
Consider also which resort you want, when I bought my VGF contract I felt I needed to be much closer to asking because those are so hard to find (it’s a small resort) especially as I was matching my existing use year (in fact I ended up w/ a few more points than I planned as VGF contracts just don’t show up that often.) With my 2 AKV contracts I felt I could offer lower as there are a lot of AKV contracts for sale (it is a bigger resort.)

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

By lowballing are we talking $10 lower than asking or more like $15-20? And you made it through ROFR? Sorry for so many questions. I'm thinking about putting in an offer tomorrow after I talk to the other half.

We did $7 lower, but it was already priced very low, around $8 lower than the average sale price for same resort contracts. So I would say we were around $15 lower than average selling price. You can find that information on dvcresale. Their stats are just on their sales but give a general idea. They have a lot of great info on their website. Plus the contract was fully loaded and we did not pay any mf on the extra points. We did not fully get the ROFR situation when we put the bid in. While waiting for ROFR, we started reading more and thought it was all over. We thought for sure Disney would take it. We really regretted our bid while in ROFR. We thought we had really messed up because the contract was awesome anyway with 2x extra points. My husband was a bit miffed because the low bid was my idea. We were so sure that the contract was gone that we put in a bid on another contract. On that one we did $5 lower and they accepted-- but that one was not priced as low to begin with. (Also loaded, they pay mf). I was not worried about the second contract passing. Of course both passed ROFR. We were honestly floored and my husband said that he can only think they have records on us and saw how much we have spent on DIS over the years and let it slide.
If you don't mind possibly getting ROFRed I say do it. Go low. All they can say is no.