We just rented points for the 1st time... It was really rather easy. Just as the above poster noted, we rented directly thru a DVC owner. Basically how it works is depending on where you want to stay, what accomodations you are looking for and when you want to go. Once you have all that it is based on a point system and the points broker or the DVC ower will charge you X $'s per point. So for us we wanted a standard view studio at Animal Kingdom Villas for 7 nights in June. For that we needed 116 points. The DVC owner then charged us $11 per point. So it then cost us 116 x $11 = $1276.
That cost is a pretty big discount as opposed to booking the same room directly thru Disney.
For us to see if renting was really worth it we priced out what a vacation package booked thru Disney would cost with park tickets and dining plan included. We then compared what it would cost us to rent the Studio, what a 8 day park hoppers would cost and added in the QS dining plan. At the end of the day, staying at AKV with 8 day park hopper and QS dining plan worked out to about the same price as it would cost us to stay at POR (a moderate resort) with the same tickets and dining as we are getting staying at AKV. So for us, it was a no brainer to stay at a nicer resort.