Thinking about joining DVC -- a few questions

[DisneyGirl614]

My husband and I have been thinking about purchasing a DVC. We have been to Disney 5 times in the past 5 years, and plan to continue vacationing in Disney almost every year. We like to stay in the deluxe resorts, and now we are expecting and feel that DVC would be better for children, having one bedroom options -- small kitchens and separate sleeping areas. We have a few questions and would really appreciate your input.

1) Do you feel there is an advantage to purchasing DVC through Disney or resale? If you purchase through resale, do you need to get your own financing?

2) Do you need to have already received your points for the year in order to make a reservation?

3) Can banked points expire, and if so when?

4) Is there any difficulty involved in adding additional points as our family grows? This is probably a dumb question, but is it bad to purchase additional points that come in a different month than your current ones?

Thank you so much for your help!

 

[disneynutz]

Take some time and read through a few of the posts on the subject. This is a big financial decision for you and your family, I would learn as much as I could.

 

[kristenrice]

My husband and I have been thinking about purchasing a DVC. We have been to Disney 5 times in the past 5 years, and plan to continue vacationing in Disney almost every year. We like to stay in the deluxe resorts, and now we are expecting and feel that DVC would be better for children, having one bedroom options -- small kitchens and separate sleeping areas. We have a few questions and would really appreciate your input.

1) Do you feel there is an advantage to purchasing DVC through Disney or resale? If you purchase through resale, do you need to get your own financing?

2) Do you need to have already received your points for the year in order to make a reservation?

3) Can banked points expire, and if so when?

4) Is there any difficulty involved in adding additional points as our family grows? This is probably a dumb question, but is it bad to purchase additional points that come in a different month than your current ones?

Thank you so much for your help!

1) We bought through resale. You need to look at what you want in terms of home resort, points and Use Year and then compare what Disney has to offer vs. resale. Buying direct through Disney will almost certainly be a faster transaction than resale. We paid cash for our resale so I cannot help you out with the financing question.

2) No. Your points have to be available at the time of travel, not when you make your reservation. Your points are all there when you buy, all the way through the end of your contract. You just cannot make reservations with them outside of their particular UY's, unless they are banked or borrowed.

3) Yes. Banked points are "banked" into the next UY so they expire at the end of that use year. For example, we have a FEB UY and banked all 100 of our 2008 points. Now, they have become 2009 points so they expire January 31, 2010. We can use them for a vacation that occurs between Feb 1, 2009 and Jan 31, 2010.

4) I have no experience in adding on, but you have the same options as your initial contract. You can buy resale or direct. In this case, however, Disney does not require the 160 point minimum. If you add on through Disney (which is as simple as a phone call for current resorts) you can add as few as 25 points paying cash and as few as 50 points if you finance. You will have the same UY as your master contract when buying from Disney. If you buy resale, you have to find a contract with the amount of points you want AND the UY you want. The UY of a resale is set and cannot be changed. You do not have to buy a resale with the same UY, but it might simplify things for you as far as banking deadlines, reservations, etc. If it were me, I would NEVER have multiple use years...too complicated for me. Others who are less "logisitcally challenged" may not have any problems keeping it all straight.

You are in the right place to get your questions answered. Buying into DVC is not a decision to just jump into. Read and research here on the Dis and you will learn everything you need to know.

Feel free to PM me with any questions, or just post them here....everyone is ready to help add another to our "neighborhood"!

 

[Golden Rose]

We went back and forth about buying into DVC for several years... and continued to take Disney trips staying in Deluxe resorts. We were in your position, looking for info on the boards and suspecting we were a good fit. When we were starting to plan our third trip in a year and a half, we decided it was time to go ahead and buy. We bought our first 165 points from Disney. It was very quick and painless (except for the paying for it part .) We knew when we bought that we wanted to add on at an Epcot resort sometime in the near future. I mentioned that we were interested in doing an add-on (or almost simulataneous buy) at BWV or BCV and our guide put me off. He told me to call back after our UY in December. As I wanted 2007 points if I was paying full price, I didn't much like his answer.

I found the right resale contract for a right price - even with having to pay closing costs, I found a loaded BWV contract with our UY that I could pay almost $2000 less for resale than I would have paid from Disney. The going has been slow. Our offer was accepted more than a month ago and our closing is set for another week and a half from now. I assume we passed ROFR, but I've heard nothing from the resale broker. I've heard the time to get in the computer is slow even after you close, and likely to be slower now with all the BLT sales. So I would say we're looking at a more than two month process minimum. I'm not loving the resale purchase process. I am loving the difference in price. I don't know if I would do it again - let's see how I feel when our add on finally shows up at Member Services. (I know I wouldn't do it again for a smaller contract, since the difference in point costs is balanced by the fact that Disney pays for the closing costs on add-ons.)

 

[kristenrice]

So I would say we're looking at a more than two month process minimum. I'm not loving the resale purchase process.

Ouch! Our resale experience wasn't nearly as painful. We made an offer on August 18 and we were closed and in the system on September 16. We paid cash and I think it would have taken longer had we financed. We were anticipating a wait of 8-10 weeks and we were pleasantly surprised at how fast the process moved for us. We were not in a hurry to use the points since our next trip won't be until 2010.

 

[Rileygirl]

I assume we passed ROFR, but I've heard nothing from the resale broker.

Have you called your broker to find out the status? I would!
After estopple, you have to sign a bunch of papers, and you cant close without doing that! (and sending the money)

Find out what is going on for sure. I read on another board someones contract was suppose to be sent to ROFR, but somehow it got lost in transit. The buyer did not know this until they contacted the broker and asked if they passed rofr or not.

We had a much better experience during the resell process too. I made an offer on Sep 2, Passed ROFR on Sept 16, did the estopple process in eight days, and I just signed and sent the money on Friday. Jaki and **** are great, they have both phoned and emailed me at EVERY stage of the game.

 

[Golden Rose]

We just got the paperwork in the mail yesterday - we're set to close October 6. I'm guessing we passed ROFR (There was no way we wouldn't - I overpaid a little for the contract since I wanted it. It was our UY and it had all 2007 points banked and all 2008 points coming. It was a slightly larger contract than I had planned on buying, but it was enough cheaper than buying from Disney that I decided to go for it.)

We made our offer and it took about a week for it to be accepted, then 6 weeks until closing... and we've been warned that it will be slow going getting into the computer with all the new BLT purchases. So we're looking at between 2 and 3 months total, unfortunately.