Tracking Sales of OKW and Other "Sold Out" WDW Resorts

[wdrl]

Since 3/1/2010, I have been tracking the sales of the "sold out" WDW resorts. With OKW down to $90/point with discounts, and VWL ($102), BCV ($115) and BWV ($115), I expected that OKW would have more sales than the other resorts. However, I am surprised at how many OKW points have been sold in the past three months. As seen in the table below, OKW has outsold BCV, BWV, and VWL by about a 3-to-1 margin.

NOTE: The chart below actually covers resale data through 6/02/2010 instead of 5/28/2010 as shown in the title.

OKW has definitely benefitted from the reduced price per point and its longer expiration date. Although I haven't tracked the numbers, there are quite a few OKW contracts that have new master contracts, suggesting that Disney is actively selling OKW to new DVC members. As with BLT and AKV sales, Disney is offering 2009 points to the OKW buyers. About 60% of OKW's sales have been in the April, June, and August UYs.

There may be a limit to how many OKW points Disney can continue selling at the current pace. On another thread (see http://www.disboards.com/showthread.php?t=2480269), a member stated that she bought the last 48 OKW points that Disney had in the October UY, and he would have to go on a waitlist if he wanted more points. It will be interesting to see if Disney raises the price of OKW if it runs out of available inventory. Or if it starts ROFRing more contracts to replenish its supply.

I am curious how many people are buying OKW because they want to stay there versus people who are using these as "play" points to be used at other resorts.

 

[staceymay00]

Wow, lots of new OKW owners!

We recently bought OKW through resale, not direct from WDW, but I will share that we picked OKW because that is where we'd like to stay most of the time. We have our first stay booked and did not attempt to switch resorts at the seven month mark.

 

[dianeschlicht]

I wonder if the lower cost, higher point value/point and lowish dues have anything to do with that?

 

[DenLo]

I wonder if the lower cost, higher point value/point and lowish dues have anything to do with that?

Not to mention the larger villas and the new sales have the extended contract.

 

[bookwormde]

Great data thanks

I will bet the 2057 date and the lower price has combined to make OKW the "default" unless someone "has to have" a particular resort. I am willing to guess that tha OKW sales have canabalized the SSR sales, who would buy SSR 2054 at a higher price unless THV was the goal and with so many SSR points getting THV at 11 months is certainly not a sure thing.

Can you tell from the unit # if the SSR points are from THV or ROFRed older points?

bookwormde

 

[joandegennaro]

I'm one of the "New OKW owners" who bought direct from Disney with an Oct UY. We bought where we want to stay as many of you vetern DVCers have advised us to do. I did my research on these boards before taking the leap. We stayed there in March, loved the feel of the resort(never liked the hotel over the motel feel although OKW is no motel) being able to walk from our car to our room was just like "Home". Only thing I regret is now it seems that Oct UY is no longer available and I have a bad case of addonitus! We will be good as far as points go for the next few years but I would like to stay longer and visit more than once per year as we get closer to our retirement. Maybe by then we will start to see some resales that have the extended years on them come into the market.

 

[wdrl]

I am willing to guess that tha OKW sales have canabalized the SSR sales, who would buy SSR 2054 at a higher price unless THV was the goal and with so many SSR points getting THV at 11 months is certainly not a sure thing.

Can you tell from the unit # if the SSR points are from THV or ROFRed older points?

bookwormde

Yes, you can identify the 15 SSR Units containing the 30 THVs that were declared for the DVC membership in January 2009. I have been tracking SSR sales, too, and since March 1, 2010, 34,852 points have been sold in the SSR-THV Units. Disney has also sold a few hundred more SSR points from other non-THV Units, but it definitely appears that OKW sales exceeded SSR sales in the past three months.

 

[bookwormde]

Thanks, I guess they are "holding onto" most of the SSR points they ROFRed last year in favor of selling the new ones.

That is only about 2 2br eq in 3 months, at that rate it would take almost another 4 years to sell out THV

bookwormde

 

[dianeschlicht]

I'm one of the "New OKW owners" who bought direct from Disney with an Oct UY. We bought where we want to stay as many of you vetern DVCers have advised us to do. I did my research on these boards before taking the leap. We stayed there in March, loved the feel of the resort(never liked the hotel over the motel feel although OKW is no motel) being able to walk from our car to our room was just like "Home". Only thing I regret is now it seems that Oct UY is no longer available and I have a bad case of addonitus! We will be good as far as points go for the next few years but I would like to stay longer and visit more than once per year as we get closer to our retirement. Maybe by then we will start to see some resales that have the extended years on them come into the market.

Maybe you should look at the resale market for additional October points.

 

[joandegennaro]

Maybe you should look at the resale market for additional October points.

I have been watching resales. Unfortunatly there aren't any out there that fit my needs. Oct UY with extended contract in the 50-100 points. Most of the 2057 expiry are for large 250 plus contracts. I will keep watching. I'm hoping that in the next few years we will start seeing OKW with extended years on the resale market. Don't even make my first trip home until March 2011 and already wanting to add point! I was however warned by the Dis'er that this might happen

 

[delmar411]

Maybe you should look at the resale market for additional October points.

The problem with the resale market and I believe that the new OKW owner is in the same boat as me, is that they are not extended points. And that does matter to me since I bought OKW originally w/ extended points and I don't want to have to pay an additional $25/pp to extend a resale through DVC. An un-extended resale would need to be going for $50-$52/pp to make it a real cost savings. Only seen 1 $50/pp contract so far (I admit I don't look terribly often) and that was that 1k point one.

DVC is selling OKW points, already extended and with previous points available, for $90/pp, no closing costs..and that's any number of points bought. The price simply is $90/pp.

Resale at $75/pp (for a 50pt contract), plus closing costs of $350, plus extending @ $25/pp, puts an OKW resale at $107/pp after all is said and done

wdrl~ I'm a 'she' BTW LOL

 

[zorro77]

We recently did a add-on to on OKW thru disney. We got the extra points from 09 plus the new contract at the $90 price. At that time they have like 9000 pts to sell for sept/oct. use year. When we closed two weeks ago they were down to only 2000 points in just 2 weeks. For us OKW meets our needs, loved the look of Animal Kingdom and others but OKW has just more to ofter and the ease of going downtown or other resorts.

 

[wdrl]

wdrl~ I'm a 'she' BTW LOL

Oops! I corrected my original post!!!

We recently did a add-on to on OKW thru disney. We got the extra points from 09 plus the new contract at the $90 price. At that time they have like 9000 pts to sell for sept/oct. use year. When we closed two weeks ago they were down to only 2000 points in just 2 weeks.

The data I have been tracking for the OKW resales shows that Disney is selling a lot of points in the September and October UY. In the last three months Disney has filed 62 contracts worth 8,027 points with OCC for just the September and October UYs.

I wish knew how many points Disney has available in the other OKW UYs. I don't even know how many points Disney allotted into each UY at OKW. I have compiled total resort points by UY for BLT, AKV, VWL, and BWV, but I have not tried to compile similar data for OKW. If anyone has this data, I would appreciate it if you could share it with me.

 

[Brian Noble]

At $90, OKW deeds are probably pretty close to a break-even proposition for DVC at current resale prices. Conventional wisdom is that marketing costs account for anywhere from 1/4 to 1/2 of the total sales price of a timeshare. If DVC is near the better end of that, say 1/3, then they need to acquire points at $60 or less to make it work.

Given the number of staffed kiosks throughout the entire WDW area, combined with DVC's soft-sell approach, I would not be surprised to find that their marketing expenses are relatively high. Have they ever reported them in quarterly/annual results?