I've explained my reasoning for buying RIV direct, and mostly kept quiet with all the people who want RIV to fail. But it's getting to me. Because whether or not the "Never Riviera!" camp means to or not, the implication is that those of us who did buy RIV direct must not know what we are doing. Or that we are somehow disloyal for deciding to buy RIV direct. I don't think RIV "failing" is going to help any owners - resale, direct, grandfathered - as others on this thread are saying, there isn't going to be a rollback of the resale restrictions no matter how many current owners "boycott" RIV. The chatter and activism here isn't going to change their minds either.
Buying RIV is not a political act, and I am not validating the restrictions by buying RIV. I certainly don't expect potential RIV resale buyers to pay "top dollar" for RIV resale and indeed, 9-10 months ago I was sure I was willing to wait for a cheap RIV resale to use exclusively at RIV. I decided I'd pay a premium (not a whole lot, actually) to have points now and another home resort in the EP/HS area because, for various reasons, we decided we would not buy either BCV or BWV, resale or direct, given the features of the resorts themselves, the layouts of the villas, the cost at the time, and years left on the contracts. (If BWV had ANY dedicated 2br, that might have been a different story).
There are a few too many negatives in that sentence, but I guess you are saying that you believe too many RIV buyers look at their RIV direct purchases as an "investment"? I'd be curious to see how that lines up with DVC buyers in general. And the DIS might not be the best place since we are largely an echo chamber here of pretty informed owners. Which I guess gets me back to the point above - that owners here who have bought RIV direct (making an informed choice) - are insinuated to either be disloyal or dumb? I think that's the insinuation that matters - not that there exist resale buyers who seem happy to hear negative news about anything RIV-associated. There have been plenty of threads saying bad things about particular resorts ("who would ever stop at BLT" and "VGF is too snobby" are 2 threads I remember from the last couple of years), but this time feels different.
^^^ This, for sure. Whether I own at a particular resort or not, I want to see the system as a whole do well. That benefits all of us - all of our points are easier to rent, resale values are strong-ish if we have some major disaster, we won't lose everything, etc. It sets Disney apart from other timeshares.
I agree! And while I know I could sell BLT and VGF now and essentially have vacationed a LOT for free lodging in the last few years, I also know that if I *have* to sell RIV anytime in the future, we are NOT going to recover anything close to what we paid. That said, given where we are in our lives and how we have planned financially, even with a financial catastrophe, we'll not need to sell RIV. (touches wood)
At least you are self aware!
I know this plays into the whole "big bad Disney" storyline, but if Disney can make the same amount of $ by charging more money to fewer people, does anyone think they wouldn't do that? The people who do go will have less crowds to contend with (granted, some people will always complain about crowds), and maybe they'll be happier and spend more money and come back more often.
I've also said on these boards before, that Disney probably makes a lot of $ through financing direct contracts too; if there's a huge crash and many of their direct owners have to sell, how much do they really care? The mortgages will get paid off if the owner goes by resale, or they foreclose and they get the points back. I'm not saying I agree with this or that I think it's ok, but if you're looking at the bottom line (and they are a for profit company, last I checked), I don't think they much care if resale prices are low if they can make a big distinction between them. We may think the distinction between direct and resale is stupid (or worse), but if anything it reduces ROFR pressure for them.
Yes. And also why the vast majority of DISers say you should "never" buy unless you are able to do so paying cash and having that much cash tied up indefinitely.
A little background - My parents and inlaws owned RCI and other timeshares starting about 35 years ago - none of them are worth anything now and are not sellable. I think we actually agreed to just let a resale company take them rather than pay the $500/year in maintenance fees. I think my sister uses one of them from time to time, but that's about it. But, we had many years of terrific vacations all over the world with those timeshares. They were not nearly as luxurious as the DVC ones, and involved a lot of planning, sometimes years in advance, but we went to lots of places and stayed in 1-2 bedrooms where, if paying cash, we would have crammed all 4 of us into a hotel room (if we'd gone at all).