Sharing Our Recent Resale Experience

[GuitarCarl]

www.dvcresalemarket.com is stellar in all aspects of DVC. The communication is by far the best I've experienced, not only in DVC, but as a business in general. I've only had the experience with working with Humberto, so I can't speak for others. But from the sounds of the experiences I hear on the boards, the other staff is equally dedicated to their job. Other companies take forever to respond, meanwhile, offers come and go and the risk of missing out is huge. The website and APP are both great tools. I highly recommend DVCResaleMarket.

With you on my experiences working with Humberto! I’m UK based, he always phones with any updates, great communications.

 

[DisneynBison]

Bought one contract through Fidelity, went smooth and saved thousands over the higher prices at dvcresalemarket. Had owner bank points and Fidelity wouldn't proceed till new paperwork was received from DVC. Fidelity definitely did not hold my hand through the process but I was ok with that because that hand ended up holding thousands of extra dollars at the end of the day.

 

[DVCSunDevil]

During the last 6 months or so, we've been fortunate enough to purchase two DVC contracts via the resale market. Unfortunately the experiences with each transaction couldn't have been more different so I thought I'd share a bit in hopes that it helps some folks moving forward.

Over the course of the summer, we purchased our initial contract at VGF via Marissa at www.DVCResaleMarket.com. I was thoroughly impressed with Marissa and the entire DVCRM team throughout the entire process. Communication was incredibly fast and while the process itself was on the slower side (due to ROFR taking several weeks), everything was incredibly easy and seamless.

Then, in the fall, we decided to purchase a small, add-on contract (50 points, also at VGF) via www.FidelityResales.com and this process was a stark contrast to the previous transaction.

The initial offer/negotiation process was a bit drawn out because as others have mentioned, Fidelity appears to adhere to a strict "9 to 5, Monday - Friday" schedule. I can certainly respect the separation of work and personal time but it is certainly worth noting that Marissa/DVCRM always responded to us very quickly, often in the evening and during the weekend. Eventually, we settled on a purchase price, were under contract, and off to ROFR. And fortunately at this point, ROFR was flying and we were able to close the entire transaction rather quickly. However, after closing is where the communication issues really became apparent.

Unfortunately, there was a discrepancy regarding the points and how they were allocated once the contract was added to our membership. According to the original listing, contract, and several emails to clarify a few things, we were expecting to receive:

• 4 points from the 2019 use year (banked into the 2020 which would expire 8/31/21)
• 38 points for the 2020 use year that could be used immediately or banked into 2021
• 50 points in 2021 and beyond

However, we actually received:

• 8 2020 points
• 84 2021 points (34 points from the 2020 use year banked into 2021 with other 50 being the normal 2021 allotment)

Ultimately, not a huge deal (we did receive the same number of total points we were expecting) but due to the borrowing restrictions currently in place, we ended with 34 fewer points that we could access immediately, impacting our plans for a trip in May of this year. Again, certainly not the end of the world but a bit frustrating nonetheless.

Shortly after the points were loaded into our membership, I reached out to Fidelity to try to get some clarification as to what happened while also emailing DVC Member Administration to make sure there wasn't an error when loading points. After initially reaching out to my Fidelity rep on 12/7 and following up again on 12/9, I finally received a response on 12/10 that they'd "look into it" - again, understandable that they need to figure out what may have happened. On 12/16 I was notified that Fidelity had reached out to DVC and it would "require significant IT research to pull the data and it is not a quick process." I mean I guess that's understandable???

In the meantime, DVC MA responded to my separate inquiry and informed me that on 10/2 - weeks before the contract was even listed for sale with Fidelity - the previous owners banked 34 2020 points into 2021. Upon receiving this email from DVC MA, I forwarded the info to Fidelity and expressed my frustration/disappointment that this error went completely unnoticed during the listing, contract, and closing process. Honestly, I wasn't really expecting much in terms of a resolution to the error (perhaps a refund of the administration fee we paid Fidelity??) but I did want it addressed in some manner due to the inconvenience.

On 12/28 I was told by my rep that someone from Fidelity would call me "tomorrow" to discuss. After not receiving a call on 12/29 (and giving the benefit of the doubt for downtime during the holidays), I followed-up again on 1/4. After no response to my follow-up email, I called and emailed my Fidelity rep again on 1/6 and was told the "VP of Sales, Mary" would call me first thing the morning of 1/7 to discuss. Needless to say, I did not hear from "Mary" on 1/7 and after following-up again yesterday afternoon, I have not heard from anyone at all to this point.

At this point, it's more about the principle of the matter rather than what's ultimately a minor error/miscommunication in the point allocation. Moral of the story, I've always been a big believer that at the end of the day, most of the top DVC brokers are basically created equal and the parameters of the contract and the price are much more important. That being said, I'd offer a strong word of caution before potentially purchasing a contract via www.FidelityResales.com. While the price, use year, size of contract, etc., were precisely what we were looking for, the communication and post-transaction "support" has been extremely frustrating and leaves a lot to be desired - especially when compared to our transaction with www.DVCResaleMarket.com.

Wow, you had a completely different experience with Fidelity than I did. We bought resale via Fidelity last January/February and had an AMAZING experience. We decided to go through Fidelity because their listing prices were dramatically less ($10-$15 per point) than the other sites, including DVC Resale Market. We were a little worried that "you get what you pay for" and that the experience would be terrible, but Fidelity reviews on this site were generally good.

Our points were deposited into our DVC account 6 weeks after we put the initial offer in on the contract. 6 weeks!! Our agent, Frank, was awesome. He would respond to my emails and calls almost immediately. Since we are first time DVC buyers, I was worried I would annoy him with my constant questions regarding the process. Not at all! He was very patient and explained everything thoroughly. On top of all of that, Frank "found" us 100 points that were not on the original listing. After the offer was accepted, I was talking to Frank on the phone and he said he thought this contract had more points on it. He communicated with the seller and DVC and got back to me about an hour later saying that there were indeed 100 points that were banked from the previous UY that the seller didn't add to the listing (those "added" points were expiring at the end of May). Our UY is June so we were hoping to close in time to use the points for April break, so Frank made sure to follow up with the sellers to get things submitted in a timely manner. I was kept in the loop throughout the entire process. The only time I didn't hear back immediately was during closing, which had more to do with the title company. All of a sudden the deed showed up on the county website, so I knew it closed. But, IMO, that was worth the $3000 we saved via going through other resale agencies.

I'm sorry your experience with Fidelity wasn't great. Maybe it's all in the agent you get? Which is probably the case with many companies. I know our experience was great and I would highly recommend Fidelity, or at least I would highly recommend Frank.

 

[Red Dog Run]

I hear people usually request Mason title to avoid these type of issues when buying through fidelity, I did that as well even it is a little more expensive.
Which title company did you use?

Mason, by request for 2 contracts and Jefferey Sweet, Attorney for one. Had zero issues