Those that have purchased resale...

[bkelly65us]

What kind of bargaining/negotiations did you go through or insist upon? I trolled a thread and was surprised to read that one of the posters had just closed and that the seller had agreed to pay both the closing costs and the year's maintenance fees. Is that normal, that type of horse-trading, or can that be chalked up to a VERY motivated seller wanting to get rid of their contract?

 

[Cap]

What kind of bargaining/negotiations did you go through or insist upon? I trolled a thread and was surprised to read that one of the posters had just closed and that the seller had agreed to pay both the closing costs and the year's maintenance fees. Is that normal, that type of horse-trading, or can that be chalked up to a VERY motivated seller wanting to get rid of their contract?

All elements of the deal are negotiable including cost / point, who pays closing costs, who pays dues/maintenance, and, to a degree, closing date. The key as a buyer is to structure a deal that gets both the seller to agree to sell and Disney to pass on Right of First Refusal (ROFR). You don't want to leave money on the table (e.g. negotiating a total package that is higher than the minimum the seller would have taken), BUT you don't want to negotiate a deal that is so attractive that Disney will buy it instead of allowing you to do so.

Look at the four major resale brokers to get a feel for what is available. Look at the ROFR thread here to get an idea of what has passed and has been ROFR'd by Disney. Then, if you want to buy and can fund it, analyze the total cost package and make an offer. Sellers will bargain!

 

[Sandisw]

We both bought and sold through the TSS. In both cases, we negotiated on price per point and MF's. Closing costs were paid by the buyer in each situation.

All aspects of the contract are negotiable. And, there are sellers who are willing to cover all the costs just to get the contract sold. Everything still has to go through ROFR, but from a seller's standpoint, that is no big deal because they have the contract sold regardless (either to the buyer or to Disney).

 

[Audray]

We made an offer in February for 180 pts at AKL that required the seller to pay the closing costs. It was accepted and passed ROFR a few weeks ago, and we are now waiting on the seller's documents to close.

When preparing our bid, we spend time looking at the ROFR thread and tried to estimate where the ROFR threshold was. Our next vacation isn't until Jan 2011, so we knew that we would have an opportunity to take another shot if we missed this one.

In our experience, generally you can be more aggresive now because there are more sellers than buyers; but you can be even more aggresive when the contract you are looking for is common (use year, location and level of points) in the resale market. For us, there were tons of 160 - 200 point contracts available for AKL, so if one seller wasn't willing to deal; we could just move to the next on the list.

I'm not certain that we got a great deal, because our first offer was accepted by the seller and it passed ROFR in 23 days, but hopefully we did OK.

 

[staceymay00]

Sometimes contracts are stripped and the current year's points have already been borrowed and used. In that case I personally would ask the seller to pay the MFs for those points, but you can negotiate anything you'd like. Just be aware that if your price gets too low (considering also what closing costs/MFs the seller is paying) Disney might buy back the contract.

We just passed ROFR for our first contract of 150 points. I was willing to pay more for the peace of mind that it would pass ROFR. We paid asking price for the points ($70, OKW 2042), we paid 2010 MFs, and we split closing costs with the seller. We are getting all 2009 points which we will bank. Those MFs were paid by the seller last year and we are not reimbursing them, so you could say we are splitting MFs with the seller also. In our case the seller accepted our initial offer of asking price and splitting closing costs and that was it. We did not go back and forth.

I'm sure we could have paid less and passed ROFR but I didn't want to take a chance with our first contract.

 

[paults]

what's better to do, buyer paying closing costs or dues not both .

 

[bkelly65us]

This is all new to my wife and I. I've been trolling the other threads and DVC forums here on the board and, Jeez!, my head is hurting. I realize this is a real estate transaction but I don't remember it being this complicated when we bought our house.

 

[DenLo]

If you check the ROFR thread, you will see that more contracts are ROFRd that have the seller paying the closing costs as well as the MF's on last year's points (or this year's). Disney likes a bargain too. So some bidders price the points lower and offer to pay the fees, and others bid a middle of the road point price and ask the seller to pay the closing costs or sometimes MF's. We purchased an AKV resale last year and offer a lower price per point but paid the fees and we were the only bid that was reported as passing from September until another passed in December. While many were ROFRd.

http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=1960185&page=152 The OP's list of all of the posts in currently shown on post 2272. He updates it regularly.

Buying resale will often save you money, but I would still call Disney to see what incentives they have now and compare the total cost of two contracts.

 

[sweetdana]

You could offer 20$ a point and all costs paid by seller and they could accept... BUT you will not get the honor of buying.. as Disney will excercise ROFR.

In the end if the deal is too sweet for Dis to pass up they will not pass it up. ESPE with SSR, BLT, and AKV as they are currently selling them and have excess quanties.. so why not more to sell at 20 - 30 - 50$ more than they paid for it. As well, if they have no say June UY for BC, they may want that. Or may let go Feb UY of a WL because they have enough.

I am sure, there is a secret some where on whether they will ROFR, but the lower the price and the more the seller pays the less chance you will have of passing ROFR. (IE the best overall packages.)

Use one of the magor resale places and talk to them about this. The reality is they will know what your bottom line out the door needs to be to pass, needs to be to probably pass, and even a # to possibly pass and what is way to low. If you pay say 5$ more per and ask MF fees (about 5$ a point) paid, your bottom line is still the same, .. and so is Disney's.

Find a resale realtor you feel confortable with and trust them. If you are okay going through it more than once for a better deal, tell them this, they will asssit.

GOOOOOOOOD LUCK!