The VGF 2 pricing thread

[RamblinWreck]

Originally I thought that the VGF resale price would go down to the level you’re suggesting as well if the opening price for VGF2 is the same as Riviera, but now I’m not so sure. Assuming a resale price of about $180, that’s still a $27 savings per point over direct, with the only restriction being that buyers cannot book at Riviera or DLT in a few years, or some other unknown new build way in the future. Will new resale buyers, understanding that they can book at the original 14 for years to come, even with some diminishment at 2042, really care? I don’t think they will. I know I didn’t initially when I bought resale, at least not until I stayed at Riviera, became way more familiar with DVC, and switched to buying direct.

The direct VGF2 price will also no doubt go up after a few months, giving resale another boost, and let’s not forget new buyers who want to purchase less than the 150 point minimum having no other option but to buy resale. The huge Aulani incentives offered a few months ago didn’t really seem to impact the relatively high Aulani resale prices either.

One other factor, though, is that Disney will be actively trying to sell VGF points.

That artificial ROFR price floor won’t exist anymore. So buyers won’t be targeting any specific number in hopes of getting past ROFR. That alone should cause a price drop.

 

[RamblinWreck]

And that would be a bad thing?

For VGF sales, yes. Until RIV is sold out, anyway. Then they might pick up some.

 

[DVCsloth]

The only trouble I see is the 150-point minimum. Other than that, both of these resorts should sell pretty easily. I'm personally not happy with VGF2 Studio only, but I think DVC feels the demand is there for Studios that have walking, monorail and boat access to MK and Monorail access to Epcot. Riviera is another great resort with awesome access to Epcot and HS.

 

[DKZB]

One other factor, though, is that Disney will be actively trying to sell VGF points.

That artificial ROFR price floor won’t exist anymore. So buyers won’t be targeting any specific number in hopes of getting past ROFR. That alone should cause a price drop.

ROFR hasn’t been an issue with VGF. Maybe if you were looking to pay $150-$160pp but not many sellers were looking to sell there. VGF is one of the few that is not artificially propped up by ROFR.

We will see what happens in a few years when there is 2 Million additional points but for now, resale is governed by supply and demand.

 

[Nabas]

Here are updated RIV direct sales through January 2022. Keep in mind that these numbers are contract closings and typically reflect purchases that were mostly initiated the month before. In this case, this means during the busy Christmas season.



DVC News is reporting it positively but as you can see on the chart, there have been other recent upticks only to have RIV sales slide backwards.

DVC News notes "a 42.9% increase year-over-year" but December 2020 was a terrible month at WDW. COVID was spiking and vaccines were not available. We booked a last-minute stay at BWV in a Standard Room Studio in mid-December when DVCs are in peak demand! That's normally a difficult room to get at 11 months. When we booked, difficult-to-get rooms like VGF Studio, BCV Studio, and AKV Value Studio were available. Guests were cancelling left, right, and center.

We experienced incredibly light crowds at the theme parks in December 2020. Just have a look at how few Guests are standing about at the DHS central hub for Santa!




In Disney's most recent earnings call, Chapek suggested the primary drag on attendance was food staffing. He seemed pleased with theme park attendance. There should be tons of people buying RIV right now, if consumer confidence was there. All things considered, I cannot interpret recent DVC sales as positively as DVC News does. At least, not yet.

After nearly 3 years (April 2019), RIV is 39% sold out. Obviously, COVID has had a devastating impact on sales but it's not exactly a blistering pace.

What is offering VGF2 at the same time going to do for RIV sales? Strategically, does it make sense to delay VGF2 sales? (Disney won't.) Remember, VGF2 was announced when COVID was declining and even WDW was changing to a no-mask-indoors policy. Disney had every reason to be optimistic. Now we are facing COVID fatigue, inflation is up, and consumer confidence is down.

Will offering VGF2 at the same price as RIV hurt RIV sales? Will offering VGF2 for more than RIV cause VGF2 sales to stagnant? It just seems like a bad time to start selling VGF2.

 

[Einstein509]

This may be blasphemy here but I am not a huge Disney fan. I like Disney service, I know I have things to do at Disney, and I have young kids but if there wasn’t a strong resale market the is a 0% chance I would’ve bought DVC. I wouldn’t buy any other timeshare, especially not at DVC prices and especially not one that I can only stay at one hotel!

I didn’t buy direct because i didn’t want Aulani and I think resale restrictions are bad for the buyer. I don’t think current prices from the relatively low supply of RIV resale points on a shiny new resort is indicative of the long term value. Just wait until it’s not shiny and new and it is in need of an update!

Just my $0.02

I agree with your assessment. We bought direct to get the blue card a while ago, but if it wasn't for resale, we wouldn't have bought again. Additionally, I like the fact that I can unload my contracts at or above the price I paid for them in the near to mid-future. I like having that option knowing I won't take a loss.

I was a huge Disney fan a few years ago, but the changes at the parks, resorts, and the company are pushing me away. So it's nice not to be stuck with timeshares that you can't unload or if you do, will do so with a loss.

I know some people don't think like this and want to keep their contracts for the life of the contract, but change is inevitable and the only constant. I may not want to visit Disney in a few years so having issues unloading the timeshares or unloading them at a lower price because of restrictions or other things come into play in my thinking.

 

[Epcot Forever Forever]

Will offering VGF2 at the same price as RIV hurt RIV sales? Will offering VGF2 for more than RIV cause VGF2 sales to stagnant? It just seems like a bad time to start selling VGF2.

That depends on your goals. If DVC senior management is bonused mainly on how many dollars of revenue and dollars of gross profit they bring in on a year to year basis (rather than on margin or specific goals related to a project or resort), it makes all the sense in the world to open additional resorts despite having 2 already actively for sale.

If that’s how they’re bonused, It makes sense to turn on the ROFR jets for the least expensive resorts and sell them as starter offerings.

If that’s how they’re bonused, It makes sense to offer deep discounts on sold out resorts to try to lure existing owners to part with more of their money direct rather than resale.

And if that’s how they’re bonused, it makes sense to line price VGF or at least keep it close to maximize dollars of sales in 2022 as opposed to dollars over time.

/speculation

 

[Einstein509]

ROFR hasn’t been an issue with VGF. Maybe if you were looking to pay $150-$160pp but not many sellers were looking to sell there. VGF is one of the few that is not artificially propped up by ROFR.

We will see what happens in a few years when there is 2 Million additional points but for now, resale is governed by supply and demand.

I respectfully disagree with this statement. Last year, about this time, I had three VGF contracts taken in ROFR in a row. Each time I settled on more with the seller beginning with $160 per point for the first one and finally at $165 for the last one trying to beat the ROFR monster. Over the year, the prices kept rising on VGF and I finally bought one at $180 per point recently. So yes, ROFR did prop up the prices for VGF.

DVD stopped ROFR'ing VGF recently, but the price was pushed up over the course of a year prior to them not taking any more.

 

[Einstein509]

Sorting by absolute price, you'll see a clear pattern: location is king.

So apologies, I miss read the chart to be direct sales and not resales data. Location, location, location. Has been the real estate mantra for decades.

This has been my main argument about VGF or VGF2.....location, location, location.

 

[nuhusky123]

Here are updated RIV direct sales through January 2022. Keep in mind that these numbers are contract closings and typically reflect purchases that were mostly initiated the month before. In this case, this means during the busy Christmas season.

View attachment 647085

DVC News is reporting it positively but as you can see on the chart, there have been other recent upticks only to have RIV sales slide backwards.

DVC News notes "a 42.9% increase year-over-year" but December 2020 was a terrible month at WDW. COVID was spiking and vaccines were not available. We booked a last-minute stay at BWV in a Standard Room Studio in mid-December when DVCs are in peak demand! That's normally a difficult room to get at 11 months. When we booked, difficult-to-get rooms like VGF Studio, BCV Studio, and AKV Value Studio were available. Guests were cancelling left, right, and center.

We experienced incredibly light crowds at the theme parks in December 2020. Just have a look at how few Guests are standing about at the DHS central hub for Santa!

View attachment 647087


In Disney's most recent earnings call, Chapek suggested the primary drag on attendance was food staffing. He seemed pleased with theme park attendance. There should be tons of people buying RIV right now, if consumer confidence was there. All things considered, I cannot interpret recent DVC sales as positively as DVC News does. At least, not yet.

After nearly 3 years (April 2019), RIV is 39% sold out. Obviously, COVID has had a devastating impact on sales but it's not exactly a blistering pace.

What is offering VGF2 at the same time going to do for RIV sales? Strategically, does it make sense to delay VGF2 sales? (Disney won't.) Remember, VGF2 was announced when COVID was declining and even WDW was changing to a no-mask-indoors policy. Disney had every reason to be optimistic. Now we are facing COVID fatigue, inflation is up, and consumer confidence is down.

Will offering VGF2 at the same price as RIV hurt RIV sales? Will offering VGF2 for more than RIV cause VGF2 sales to stagnant? It just seems like a bad time to start selling VGF2.

I don’t understand how anyone claims victory on riv sales. I see nothing but flat sales if you avg the peaks and valleys

my personal opinion is there are x number of dvc buyers in the market right now. adding gfv to the inventory isn’t going to create x+y, it’s still just x

If x have to pick between riv and gfv then the only logical expectation is that riv sales decrease to compensate for whatever gfv sells. Until those y customers show up in this market sales will be bad for dvc

 

[Sandisw]

I don’t understand how anyone claims victory on riv sales. I see nothing but flat sales if you avg the peaks and valleys

my personal opinion is there are x number of dvc buyers in the market right now. adding gfv to the inventory isn’t going to create x+y, it’s still just x

If x have to pick between riv and gfv then the only logical expectation is that riv sales decrease to compensate for whatever gfv sells. Until those y customers show up in this market sales will be bad for dvc

I read the sales as moving in the right direction for RIV finally after Covid hit. They represent about 66% of total sales which is not quite what others have done but certainly not bad. The problem is that you are never going to be able to take out what happened. Sales were pretty strong just prior to the shut down and there will never be a way to know the true impact.

What will be interesting in the next few months is to see the impact of VGF and BLT on the sales for the resort. BLT pricing is similar for 200 points and hopefully so will VGF.

Once that data comes in, we will have other resorts to compare it to in the same market and price range.

Given 2 months of over 100k in sales, DVD has to be happy with that right now.

 

[SusieQ93]

I don’t understand how anyone claims victory on riv sales. I see nothing but flat sales if you avg the peaks and valleys

my personal opinion is there are x number of dvc buyers in the market right now. adding gfv to the inventory isn’t going to create x+y, it’s still just x

If x have to pick between riv and gfv then the only logical expectation is that riv sales decrease to compensate for whatever gfv sells. Until those y customers show up in this market sales will be bad for dvc

So I am just one person, and probably not representative of the market as a whole, but I only became interested in buying DVC direct from Disney with the release of VGF2. I’m not interested in Riviera. Not because of resale. It’s because of the location. I’m a Disneyland fan first because that’s where I grew up going. I love that it’s a walking resort. I want to be able to walk to at least one park and Magic Kingdom is my favorite park and the park where I find walking most valuable (at the end of a long night when you don’t want to wait for a bus). Plus you can’t get dropped off direct by Uber to magic kingdom. I also love the Grand Floridian style. However, if Riviera was near the Boardwalk area, and walking distance to those two parks, I would be more interested in Riviera because it’s brand new and beautiful. I think they did a great job. It’s just the location for me. I’ll buy DLT when it comes out as an add-on but I don’t want 150 pts at DLT.

 

[tjkraz]

I don’t understand how anyone claims victory on riv sales.

The numbers are what they are, and can be viewed without emotion or bias if one chooses to do so.

This entire thread (and dozens of others) are filled with people attaching their own conclusions: DVC is overpriced, Disney is too expensive, inflation, pandemic, Chapek, Genie+, no APs, riviera sucks, resale restrictions…and on, and on, and on. It’s mostly a futile exercise. The only thing we know for certain are the sales numbers themselves. And the current volume may prove to be the new normal for DVC. If they don’t respond with lower prices, better member perks, eliminating restrictions or other moves which could help boost interest, maybe…just maybe, they’re content with the present course.

 

[SleeplessInTO]

I have zero interest in purchasing Riviera. But I am very interested in VGF2. So disney actually is attracting x+y buyers by offering both. Yes VGF2 sales may cannibalize some RIV sales but overall it will increase the number of buyers of DVC direct in 2022.

 

[BeachClub2014]

I have zero interest in purchasing Riviera. But I am very interested in VGF2. So disney actually is attracting x+y buyers by offering both. Yes VGF2 sales may cannibalize some RIV sales but overall it will increase the number of buyers of DVC direct in 2022.

Exactly. That's the beauty of DVC and the variety of options. There is literally something for everyone. I had zero interest in GFV, either 1 or 2, so bought RIV. I have no desire to stay at GFV. I'm sure it's a spectacular resort, just not for me. Some prefer BCV over AKL, or OKW over BWV. Which resort is the best, and which is priced as a value, is truly a matter of perspective and frame of reference.

 

[SusieQ93]

Exactly. That's the beauty of DVC and the variety of options. There is literally something for everyone. I had zero interest in GFV, either 1 or 2, so bought RIV. I have no desire to stay at GFV. I'm sure it's a spectacular resort, just not for me. Some prefer BCV over AKL, or OKW over BWV. Which resort is the best, and which is priced as a value, is truly a matter of perspective and frame of reference.

Totally. Which is why I don’t buy into the narrative that VGF is the superior resort and should be priced higher. Riviera is a very nice resort and I don’t think it behooves them to cheapen it and imply it’s inferior through pricing. It’s all so subjective.

 

[DVCsloth]

Totally. Which is why I don’t buy into the narrative that VGF is the superior resort and should be priced higher. Riviera is a very nice resort and I don’t think it behooves them to cheapen it and imply it’s inferior through pricing. It’s all so subjective.

I think some people look at the historic resale prices of the different resorts. I believe that VGF has always been at the top of the WDW resale prices. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but that may be part of the reason.

 

[SusieQ93]

I think some people look at the historic resale prices of the different resorts. I believe that VGF has always been at the top of the WDW resale prices. I'm not saying one is better than the other, but that may be part of the reason.

I’d be curious whether that factors into Disney’s strategy at all. I doubt it, but who knows. I think the average buyer is completely unaware of the resale market. If you do good research, you should quickly learn about it, but I don’t think many people research to the level of us on this board. Personally, I would never drop $30k on something without lots of research, but seems like lots of people do

 

[tjkraz]

All things considered, I cannot interpret recent DVC sales as positively as DVC News does.

All of the sales numbers and percentages were accurately reported. Along with mention of the fact that DVC still had better sales more than 100 times over the last 9+ years. There was no attempt to spin the numbers in any fashion. They are what they are.

You're entitled to be skeptical of the future. DVCNews isn't trying to predict the future. In a message board post, folks can say "hey guys, check out my photo of how empty the parks were last year." DVCNews doesn't view that as a valid data point for comparing the two periods. (Also, see below for a starkly different pic from December 13, 2020.)

Whatever happens in February, March and beyond will be reported in the same manner. Readers are free to draw their own conclusions. DVCNews isn't trying to frame the information either "positively" or negatively. We'll leave it to you to do that...

 

[DVCsloth]

I’d be curious whether that factors into Disney’s strategy at all. I doubt it, but who knows. I think the average buyer is completely unaware of the resale market. If you do good research, you should quickly learn about it, but I don’t think many people research to the level of us on this board. Personally, I would never drop $30k on something without lots of research, but seems like lots of people do

I was sweating bullets when I bought VGF in late 2014. The minimum was 100pts at $165 and they wouldn't let me buy a smaller contract. So, 150pts at $200 is a pretty good size purchase. I didn't know anything about DVC, and I initially wanted Wilderness lodge, but VGF was what they were offering. They only told me it was sold out and I didn't know about resale. Very happy with our purchase and never looked back. Bought CCV direct instead of Riviera though because of the resale restrictions. We have stayed at Riviera a few times and totally fell in love with it. Now we own 2 resorts and love them both equally well.