Questions

[nicesocalguy2002]

Im sure these have been asked many times, but:

1. New or Resale?
2. Are there monthly fees? Annual Mtc Fee?
3. Does this show up as a 2nd home on credit report
4. Tax Deductible?
5. Transferable to heirs?

After going to DW last year and Falling in love with it, and seeing how buying into the time share program they offer will allow for future vacations for my family and when my girls have kids and the long term application of this has me thinking of buying in. This year we are going to the Washington DC area and Im now wishing that we were going back to DW.

 

[hellerjw]

I will take a stab at these.

1. There are pros & cons to both

New/Direct Pros

• Can take advantage of Disney promotions
• Can finance direct through Disney - high interest rate but its usually tax deductible as mortgage interest and doesn't show up on your credit report
• You get in the DVC system immediately, no Right of First Refusal (ROFR) to worry about
• You get first shot at new locations (Hawaii, Contemporary, etc)

New/Direct Cons

• Your initial contract has to be at least 160 points
• The costs are sometimes higher than a comparable resale for the same number of points

2. There are annual dues/maintenance fees that vary by DVC resort. I believe the average is somewhere in the $4.75 range, so if you have a new 160 pts contract you would expect the annual dues to be somewhere in the $760 range. You can pay annually or monthly with automatic drafts. These dues also include a small portion of property taxes which may be tax deductible.

3 & 4. If you finance through Disney it doesn't show up on your credit report since DVC finances it in-house. The interest is usually deductible as mortgage interest, like a 2nd home. You may also be able to use a home equity loan/LOC and still deduct the interest, just ask your tax advisor. If you use a credit card or 3rd party the interest isn't deductible and it will most likely show up on your credit report.

5. These are not open-ended contracts and do have expiration dates, the newest AKV, expires in 2057. You can will your DVC interest to your heirs, but they still only have the use of it until the contract expires. Disney may choose to offer contract extensions, like they recently did with Old Key West (the first DVC resort that expires in 2042) but they aren't required to.

 

[nicesocalguy2002]

Ok...this fee thing is what I am most concerned with since it seems kind of open ended. You get billed the service or mtc fee based on how many points you currently hold or originaly purchased?

 

[disneymotherof3]

Ok...this fee thing is what I am most concerned with since it seems kind of open ended. You get billed the service or mtc fee based on how many points you currently hold or originaly purchased?

Your maintenance fees are based on the number of points you have. The fees are different at each DVC resort. For example, if you purchased 160 points at AKV, then you will pay $4.71 per point, $753.60 for the year.

 

[nicesocalguy2002]

Ok...and that fee can be taken out of our bank account on a monthly basis?, $63 a month?

Do most people buy the annual pass or each time you go you buy the ticket package offered?

And you can build up points by not using the room, so if I go every other year, I will build up points?

 

[hellerjw]

Ok...this fee thing is what I am most concerned with since it seems kind of open ended. You get billed the service or mtc fee based on how many points you currently hold or originaly purchased?

Its how many points you currently hold and is billed annually. The more points you hold the higher the annual dues.

They calculate it on a cost per point basis, somewhere in the $4.75/point range for the newest DVC resort AKV. The other DVC resorts are slightly different, some higher and some lower. The annual dues/maintenance can (and always does) go up each year, usually increasing around 4% a year. The costs for cash stays at other disney hotels also go up about 4% a year so its in line with general increases across the board.

They will split the dues payment into 12 installments with no interest and auto-draft them from your checking account.

You will often hear that over the course of your 50 year contract the total amount of dues you will pay far exceeds the initial buy in costs.

Buying the annual pass with the DVC discount is usually a good option if you will hit the parks 10 or more days within a 365 period. Others prefer the 10 day Park Hopper w/ no expiration but you still are limited to 10 days. It all depends on usage. There is a good discount on the APs for DVC members so we prefer that to a standard Park Hopper.

You can bank current points into the next use year and you can borrow from the next use year. So in a given time period you could potentially have 3 years worth of point to use. For example, if you bought today at 160 points and didn't plan to travel until 2009 you could bank your 2008 points into 2009. Then when you made your 2009 reservations you could utilize the banked 2008 points (160), your 2009 points (160) and borrow from 2010 (160), giving you 480 points to use all at once.

 

[nicesocalguy2002]

Ahhh...ok...now its getting clear, thank you. So we can buy the 10 day w/park hopper and water park with no exp and use 5 days on one trip, and the next trip use the other 5 days?

Im reading the dvcnews.com page in addition to this web page, very good info, and mousesavers.com

One thing I havnt seen is how I can get vacations in other locations "500" resorts around the world. My points follow me vs the home resort?

 

[nicesocalguy2002]

I just ran some numbers and I think Im missing somthing or somthing does not make sense:

cost: a week at Boardwalk with 7 day ticks and flight/express $5,200

DVC: If I buy the 10 day hopper no exp with water parks $2,000 so $1,000 a year
$1,000 for really only 5 days
$1,500 flight very good price
$ 750 mtc fees a year rough
$ 285 a month for purchase on 10 year loan + 1,500 down payment

$6,670 a year.....not including down payment.

Am I missing somthing?

 

[hellerjw]

So we can buy the 10 day w/park hopper and water park with no exp and use 5 days on one trip, and the next trip use the other 5 days?

Yes

One thing I havnt seen is how I can get vacations in other locations "500" resorts around the world. My points follow me vs the home resort?

They handle these through trades with other timeshare organizations, Interval International being the biggest. You basically pay a $95 fee to trade into the other timeshare system and get a reservation through the other system. This is a major reason why DVC requires a 160 point minimum buy-in because that's how many points on average it takes to reserve a 1-bedroom for a week at WDW. That way when you want to trade out they can offer a 1BR for a week in exchange for a 1BR for a week at another timeshare.

If you call or go online and request the DVC package they will send you information on how all this stuff works. Its very low key and no pressure.

 

[hellerjw]

I just ran some numbers and I think Im missing somthing or somthing does not make sense

DVC is strictly for accomodations and the few perks (AP discount, etc) are not guaranteed. The real "value" with DVC is after you pay off your intial buy-in. After that cost is gone you only have your annual dues to worry about, but you still get the same number of points each year. It usually takes around 5-7 years to break even for most folks (depending on how often you use it, amount financed, etc). After that period you would only be paying around $850 year for 1 week in a deluxe resort vs. cash stays in the $2400-$3500 range (each increasing around 4% from that point on). Obviously, the initial year will be the most costly but the annual accomodations costs eventually level out as the dues become your only DVC related expense. The ticket and meal costs are constant for both the DVC and cash-stay scenario for the most part (baring any freebies they might throw in with a cash resort stay)

There are several good "break even analysis" charts out there on the boards you can look at.

 

[browniemtb]

I just ran some numbers and I think Im missing somthing or somthing does not make sense:

cost: a week at Boardwalk with 7 day ticks and flight/express $5,200

DVC: If I buy the 10 day hopper no exp with water parks $2,000 so $1,000 a year
$1,000 for really only 5 days
$1,500 flight very good price
$ 750 mtc fees a year rough
$ 285 a month for purchase on 10 year loan + 1,500 down payment

$6,670 a year.....not including down payment.

Am I missing somthing?

I guess you could look at it this way....but is the $5200 considering the villas in a deluxe resort.....example a 1bedroom at the BWV could cost upwards of $5200 just for the room. So in simple math look at it this way...
Remind you simple math
$285x12x10yr=$34,200
$750xlets say 42 years since this is when some DVC's start expiring, not AKV=$31,500. Dues will increase but for this example I am leaving them static.
So $34,200+$31,500=$65,700 now divide by the number of ownership years, in this case 42 which would bring you to $1565 a year....now depending on points and how you use them you could get a few weeks in a studio.
This is the value side...more so if you don't finance.....as some one has already stated around 7 dvc trips is roughly break even. The value is there if compare to normal stays in deluxe resorts....but not compared to value resorts. So crunch the numbers but spread the numbers out over the years of the contract and things will change.......but I do agree the first few trips are pricey. Good Luck

Brownie