Thinking about buying

[PrincessMom4]

what is all in involved in one of these deals? I want to know all the costs for buying so that we can budget everything.

Thanks Isabell

 

[drusba]

If you buy through Disney:

1. You purchase a real estate interest for a set cost per point. Minimum is 160 points. That set point cost for the purchase is a one time cost and gets you an annual allotment of points equal to the amount you buy and you will get that annual allotment until some certain time in the future, e.g., 2057 for AKV, 2054 for SSR.

2. New purchasers, I believe, also pay a closing cost, for the closing of the sale. Not sure of amount but likely in the three to five hundred dollar range.

3. If you finance, you also get a mortgage that you need to pay off over time at an annual interest rate -- don't know current interest rate but likely somewhere near 10%.

4. You then also pay annual dues for the maintenance, operation, repair, refurbishing, transportation systems, taxes, other costs. Included in those dues is an amount for annual property taxes which portion you can deduct if you itemize taxes. Annual dues are currently in the $4.50 to $5.20 range depending on your resort. That is an amount per point per year. Annual dues can and do go up some every year as applicable costs rise. You can either pay those all in one lump sum at the beginning of the calendar year for the year or set it up with Disney for monthly automatic withdrawal from your bank account. You cannot do monthly payments unless you also do bank account automatic withdrawal. Note you will start paying dues (a percentage of the annual ammount depending on how many months are left in the year) for the year you are in shortly after the closing.

5. If you ever want to use points to trade out of DVC to non-DVC places, there is also a reservation fee, now $95, which can also be increased. No such fee applies to reserving DVC resorts.


The above are all the costs to consider. If you buy resale, there is the additional issue of who pays dues for year you are already in -- you may have to reimburse seller for portion of what he has already paid for the year.