Seriously considering purchase.. a couple of questions

[joyful1nh]

After our 3rd trip to WDW THIS YEAR I decided maybe we should have bought into DVC. We are a family of three so a studio would be fine, or we could splurge on a one bedroom every now and then... Based on our vacation habits (we never travel at peak, but do make long weekend trips) I think we need 170 - 200 points.

We absolutely love the Wilderness Lodge, so those would be the Villas of choice. A couple of questions for you experienced DVC'rs

1. If VWL is not available, or if there are less expensive points available at the Boardwalk -- should we buy there and hope for VWL availability when we book our trips?

2. Once DD (4) gets a little older we will probably have to travel during Febr. vacation -- or we will trade for some other location in the summer months (I refuse to do Disney in the summer!). Would we be better off not buying if we aren't certain we will always use the points at DVC?

3. What is the difference between buying from Disney vs. resale? Disney is selling at $84/pt now and resales around $70 -- will that save me enough to make up for closing costs and the like that I wouldn't incur through Disney? We would be cash buyers so not concerned with financing...

4. What is the one thing you wish you had known before you bought?

Thanks!!!

 

[KNWVIKING]

Part 1) All points are the same price. Currently only BCV points are the only on-property points availible for new contracts, (I believe there are some VWL points out there for add-ons).

Part 2) Maybe I'm misunderstanding your question, but I think you believe your buying points for a specific time of the year,like a typical timeshare. You're not. Using your 11 month booking window you can plan & book for whenever you want.

Part 3) No difference in the actual ownership after the purchase,just a different process at the purchase. Basically you get the same thing for less money, and at VWL if that's really where you want to buy.

part 4) How addictive the points are,(three add-ons,so far).

 

[Dean]

Resale will be cheaper and WLV is available resale as well though BW will likely be a little cheaper. If you would buy DVC points to trade a significant portion of the time, don't bother. Either don't buy or buy less points and pay cash for the other options.

 

[Scoootch]

Originally posted by joyful1nh


We absolutely love the Wilderness Lodge, so those would be the Villas of choice. A couple of questions for you experienced DVC'rs

1. If VWL is not available, or if there are less expensive points available at the Boardwalk -- should we buy there and hope for VWL availability when we book our trips?

The one thing almost any DVC member will tell you, is to buy your pts. where you think will stay the most. If VWL is where you'd ultimately stay the most, buy VWL pts rather than BWV pts because you will have an 11 month booking window at your home resort where you will only have a 7month window for booking outside your home resort and if you plan to go in Feb. when it's a very busy time, that extra 4mos to book earlier will make a big difference in availibility for you.

2. Would we be better off not buying if we aren't certain we will always use the points at DVC?

Personnally, we haven't used our pts. outside of WDW so I can't really give you much advice on this question as I don't know how well trading out would work for you.

3. What is the difference between buying from Disney vs. resale? Disney is selling at $84/pt now and resales around $70 -- will that save me enough to make up for closing costs and the like that I wouldn't incur through Disney? We would be cash buyers so not concerned with financing...

It's definetly less expensive to buy resale.

4. What is the one thing you wish you had known before you bought? Thanks!!! [/QUOTE

I really wish we had bought into DVC a few yrs earlier, it would have saved us $$$. We bought into DVC because we went once or twice a year every year and if we had bought sooner, we would have started saving money sooner. Good luck with your decison!

 

[Maistre Gracey]

I will leave the resale advice to the other good members here that know more about it.
I will say that if you decideto buy from Disney, they DO have some limited VWL left. They may not have all use years, but that's okay for a new member.
I certainly understand your desire to buy at VWL. Personally, I think it has the best theming of any Disney resort, including the Lodge itself.

Good luck with your decision.....

 

[CRobin]

You can figure your closing costs to run around $450 in the resale market. That's pretty much a fixed number regardless the number of points (the seller pays the agent's commission).

Echoing Dean's comments, DVC points are good for DVC, and not very good when trading for non-DVC Disney resorts. I don't have any experience trading outside of Disney.

If you have relatively flexible travel plans, don't mind getting in some cases your second choice of any of the DVC resorts (they're all great), you shouldn't have grave concerns about not being able to find a DVC studio somewhere. JMHO.

Good Luck!

 

[vbfamily]

When I talked to our guide about 3 wks ago about doing a VWL add on to a contract we were preparing-he said they had 16,000 pts left for VWL-June use year. It sounds like a lot but he said it wasn't.

You may want to ask if that is where you want to buy.

 

[CaptainMidnight]

Someone probably said it, buy where you want to stay most often, so you'll have the advantage of the 11 month booking window in your home resort over the 7 month booking window at any resort. If you like WLV, you'll want to buy there. To buy there at this point you'll need to go through the resale market.

Points cast the same, the number of points required per resort for a specific type of accomodation during a point season will be different.

A great resource for all timeshares is the Timeshare Users Group, www.TUG2.net.

You can also consider renting points on the rent trade board to try things out, especially if you think you vacation plans will be changing when your son gets older. I may not be reading it corectly, but if by february vacation you mean during the normal school break when your 4 year old gets to school, be sure to check out the point values for the Easter Break, it's a prime time and more points are required at that time. You can always use banking and borrowing to go every three years, or supplement with rental points now if going more often now versus in teh future.

I would have liked to know more about having points at two resorts and managing both contracts. You can have points from WLV and HH and bank one set of points, while borrowing from the other to create an 11 month advantage every other year for vacation scenarios between alternating resorts. HH can be tough to get into in the summer.