Resale vs. Direct from Disney purchase

[MickeyMamma]

We are researching into whether DVC is right for us.

There seems to be alot of resales listed and I hear about people buying resale all the time. When we were at Disney, the DVC rep gave a strong arguement for buying direct from Disney since they have the right of first refusal and the longer deed period.

I am curious to hear opinions on which option worked best for you and why/how you made that decision.

Thanks in advance.

 

[Dean]

Just a salesman trying to hook you in. Buy where you want to stay but you can certainly save some money on resale.

 

[Granny]

I do think that the new ending date for Saratoga Springs Resort is a pretty compelling benefit if you are young enough to think that it will matter. And it looks like it will be a very nice resort.

But, as Dean said (and most of us will echo), the most important thing is to buy where you want to stay the most. The booking advantage of 11 months at your home resort vs 7 months at all other resorts could make the difference in being able to reserve accommodations at the place you like best.

Good luck with your decision!

 

[Nana Sue]

After you buy resale and the sale has been completed Disney does not treat you any differently than if you bought from them. As for the "right of first refusal", I'd wager to say that only happens in a very small percentage of sales. Most contracts, if they are reasonably priced, go through. So your main decisions are what resort do you want to stay in most of the time, and is the extended time at Saratoga Springs an issue for you. Take your time in your decision making and good luck!

 

[MickeyMamma]

Need more opinions please! My husband is getting excited about DVC but we are not sure which way to go.

Please help! And thank you to those who have responded so far.

 

[momsully]

We bought a resale because we really wanted our home resort to be VWL. Even though we are young the extra years at SSR do not appeal to us as much as having the 11 month window at VWL. We are not treated any differently than if we had bought from Disney. In fact our cards show members since 2001 even though we bought in 2003. (They reflect the date of the original contract.) Good luck in whatever you decide!

 

[pirateparrot]

Disney's financing is another reason to go direct unless you have the money or are planning to finance with a home equity loan. At 9.75% they beat the other timeshare financing and since disney treats this as a mortgage, your interest may be tax deductible. The only other timeshare financing I was able to find was unsecured debt which is not tax deductible.

 

[Disneeformee]

I changed my mind 4 times before actually signing. My final decision was resale at the Wilderness Lodge Villas. I based it on our pattern of visiting parks during our last three trips. We spend more time at the Magic Kingdom then any other park so we picked the DVC closest to the Magic Kingdom. We've also stayed at the Wilderness Lodge and liked it alot (prior to purchasing). Plus ask yourself this, if I only could stay at one DVC which one could I go to every time and be totally happy. I would think really hard, do research, look at pictures, look at maps of the resorts, look at prices and then decide. Although another factor might be financing. We secured a loan through my husband's job. With our resale we needed a 3,000 check to be held in escrow (they didn't except credit cards). Although what we did was use a credit card check and payed it off once we had our loan money. Disney only needed 500.00 to get started and they accept credit cards. I would talk to some resale brokers ask them for the total price including their fee and if you need financing ask them some options. Disney is the simplest route. And I like things right now!! So I shocked my husband when I said I wanted to go resale! but I feel in the long run I made the right decision.

 

[stacy6552]

We bought into SSR after a failed attempt to buy at HH. We tried for the resale while we were waiting for sales to open up at SSR.

The big question is how you feel about the home resort. We wanted HH because we wanted the 11mos booking window to go in the summer. But we were not happy with the whole resale process because if Disney excercises their ROFR, they notify the seller and if you dont have a diligent broker, you may spend your time waiting for longer then neccessary. Jerry at the Timeshare store blew off our repeated inqueries and it wasnt until he wasnt in the office and another broker took my call, that she looked into it and found that Disney had excercised their ROFR 2 weeks before.

When it came down to picking a home resort at WDW, we realized that ocne we were down there, any one of the 5 resorts would be fine. And we decided that the additional cost of SSR, which can be very small depending on the resale contracts your looking at, would be the better investment. If we should fall on hard times, SSR will hold its value better in the long run.

 

[mbb]

If you are buying a smaller contract, like us, 160pts, the closing costs of resale can add to your purchase...we were quoted approx $400 in closing. Buying direct means no extra costs....but right now your only option to buy from Disney is SSR...buy where you want to stay!!

Enjoy!

 

[CrzyforPiglet]

We just bought base 160 points at SSR through Disney. We too had looked at the resale route but I thought it would be more hassle and with the closing costs and different financing I did not think it was the way to go for us. We bought direct from Disney with a 10 year simple interest mortgage on the balance. We plan on paying it off in 3 years and are currently saving now before the payments start to get a jump on it. Now in the future after we buy a regular day-to-day home if we decide to do an add-on I would consider resale if I could get a good home equity loan to pay for it. Good luck with your decision and either way - you'll love DVC!!

 

[FOTM_Ring_Bearer]

We just bought 200 points at the BW this year resale through the timeshare store. We spent a lot of time on this board gathering information. And there is a lot of great info here.

The main reason we bought resale was banked points. We ended up getting a contract with all 2002 points banked and all 2003 points.

The resale process was really easy. Disney only took a little over 2 weeks to pass on the right of first refusal.

I would definitely do resale again.

 

[CK1]

We bought our original contract direct from Disney (we were young and naive and had never heard of resales!) A few yrs laters, I learned of resales and told dh if we ever add-on, that's the way to go. We typically purchase flat-out (no financing) so we didn't need to wrry about that aspect. However -- when time finally came that we seriously considered add-on, Disney just won out. For starters, they make it too easy -- one phone call, that was it. Papers come in the mail, sign by the tree and the ears, badabing, you're done. If you want financing, just buy at least 50 pts and you can have it. We didn't want to go through the ROFR and we wanted our same use year (which is June, and can be hard to find sometimes). Lastly, we have BWV already and when Disney opened up those extra pts at BWV this spring, well, like I said before, it was just too darn easy.

That said, however -- my BIL/SIL are considering DVC. If they do get verrrrry serious about it, I would probably recommend looking at a resale for them. Between banked pts, getting a resort you love, and getting a pts discount, it's hard to beat, and for a first contract, it could really add up. For our dinky add-on, a resale just wasn't worth the effort! Besides, my SIL would probably want HHI pts, or maybe BCV, and the only way to get those is resale. If you are sold, sight unseen, on SSR, or if you feel that ANY resort in DVC would do for you and the extra 12 years is a doable benefit you want, then go DVC through Disney. 12 years is a long time!

But otherwise -- well, it certainly doesn't hurt to take a quick peek at the resale boards! You might find just what you're looking for and more.

 

[ILPHIL]

We are waiting for our closing right now. After several yrs of leaning back and forth we finally went the resale route. My wife really loves the look of OKW, so when we found a resale out there with the approximate number of pts we figured to need, with all of the 2003 pts banked, we jumped on it.
After seeing the horror stories from people left hanging during the ROFR process I made it clear to the broker that we expected prompt notification...and we got it.

At our ages the extra yrs for SSR weren't that big an issue...

Good Luck with your decision!!

 

[MickeyMamma]

Still trying to decide. Bumping up for more opinions.

Thanks