What am I missing?

[Dean]

To alot of people time is money. How much is your time worth varies from person to person. For some people it is cheaper to buy direct then to spend alot of time buying resale, renting points, etc. I wish I was in that boat but I am not.
All I can say to those people whose time is more valuable then spending scores of hours learning about resale, how to rent points safely, etc. Is good for you! Buy direct and don't feel any guilt about buying directly from Disney.

I don't think anyone is suggesting micromanaging the situation but we're talking thousands, not just a few dollars. Those who would both make enough for that not to be worthwhile and miss important things are likely not to buy DVC, they'll just pay cash when the time comes. Otherwise the question is where is the break point on investment and return time and effort wise and the line clearly doesn't fall between retail and resale.

 

[a742246]

I disagree with a couple of your points,
First there is lots of people with demanding careers or businesses, they may have young families, they may spend (and have to be "on") for 60-70 hours at work a week, and/or days away from home. They may make salaries over 250,000 + a year. Saving ten thousand dollars or more may not mean anything to them, all they may want is time to be with their families.
For those people time to be with there families are precious, the last thing they want to do is spend time looking at resales, or renting points.
Yes I do believe many of these people would want to own a DVC membership and not just call for reservations. Maybe not all but a sizable percantage will.
To these people DVC is not a financial investment, they may see it as an investment in mental health, though.
We see this all the time, people buy expensive cars, mansions, diamonds, boats and whatever.
For many people if they didn't spend it on a DVC they would have spent it on something else, for many people 10,000, 50,000 even a 100,000 is spendable income. We may think of them as crazy spending all this money, but they may think we're crazy for working for so little. So who are we to judge when someone buys a DVC at retail?

 

[BenDiscipio]

First of all, I wanted to buy into Grand Floridian....and that is ONLY available retail. Otherwise, I might have considered resale. But, to be honest, if resale were a straight transaction, it would be more attractive. Instead, it's more of a pain in the neck game where you go back and forth making offers, having them accepted or refused, waiting for ROFR....back to the drawing board....huge delays that can drag on interminably, then maybe at the last minute, the owner changes his mind....back to the drawing board....limits to your ownership, however minor, that could always become more major in the future....

all to save a few thousand dollars? I only wanted a 100 point contract. If I were buying 300 points, might have given it more consideration....

It's not because I have money to burn...it's just that I don't have time to burn...that...and, VGF isn't available retail and I wasn't interested in wasting more money by renting for a few years until it was....

 

[chalee94]

For many people if they didn't spend it on a DVC they would have spent it on something else, for many people 10,000, 50,000 even a 100,000 is spendable income. We may think of them as crazy spending all this money, but they may think we're crazy for working for so little. So who are we to judge when someone buys a DVC at retail?

for such people, yes, pay the disney direct prices. buy the sales guide a boat with their commission. pay sticker prices for your mercedes to save time. sure.

but once we establish that a poster doesn't warm their house by setting dollar bills on fire, it's probably useful to point out the financial benefits to resale. that advice will apply to most people, as the indifferently wealthy are unlikely to be wasting their valuable time poking around on message boards like this one.

(they probably also appreciate the daily housekeeping and club level services of the hotels or don't mind paying the rack rates to book the grand villas if it means they don't have the hassle of having to try to book 11 months out.)

regardless, for those of us who do care about saving or potentially wasting thousands of dollars, dean has some pretty good input...

 

[Maverick]

When I look at purchasing DVC the initial cost and then the annual dues I just don't see how you come out ahead. Further, from what I gather DVC members do not get any discounts.

Can someone fill me in?

Hi Lizzy. There have been quite a few responses in this thread and some of them may have strayed slightly from your target, although all of them do have merit in the overall 'is it worth it' discussion.

There are hundreds of threads in the Puchsasing DVC forum that calculate every possible angle on DVC and whether it is worth it financially or not. My wife and I spent the last couple of years reading those threads, running those numbers, discussing our future yearly vacation plans and recently purchased a resale contract at BWV. (We also rented points before buying to make sure the resort was what we expected.)

Each person's situation is different and there is a lot to understand about DVC before making the decision. I honestly don't think you will find your specific answer by reading only this thread. There are so many factors to consider including the type of accomodations you stay in now, the time of year you want to travel, the number of points you want, the size of accomodations you need (want), maintenance fees, finance the purchase, buy resale versus direct, other vacation costs (tickets, food, airfare) etc.

I'd recommend reading a LOT of threads and then doing your own research to come up with your answer.

For us... I created my own spreadsheet that included multiple scenarios, points wanted, resort wanted, expected maintenance fees (including inflation), DVC AP discount (which isn't guaranteed) among other things and compared that to our current Disney vacation habits. We typically stay in either a moderate or deluxe resort and travel about 9 nights per year to WDW. Using those variables and others, buying DVC would save us money when factoring that type of comparison. Some will say there are other variables, and there are. Some will say there's no guarantee I figured everything right, and that might be true as well. But - We took the time (years) and agreed upon our math and planned vacation strategy. Ultimately it does work out for us and by a pretty decent margin. The only way to know for sure if it works for you is to do that type of analysis along with alot of information from smart folks that post on these forums!

Mav

 

[disneynutz]

Buying a DVC interest is one thing, coming up with the money to support your Disney vacations for years and years is another.

Another issue is that DVC owners are small in number compared to cash guests so the cash guests seem to come first. DVC has issues with their website, MS, call hold times, waitlists, room condition, and changing rules and policies.

All of this needs to be considered when buying.

Bill

 

[a742246]

for such people, yes, pay the disney direct prices. buy the sales guide a boat with their commission. pay sticker prices for your mercedes to save time. sure.

but once we establish that a poster doesn't warm their house by setting dollar bills on fire, it's probably useful to point out the financial benefits to resale. that advice will apply to most people, as the indifferently wealthy are unlikely to be wasting their valuable time poking around on message boards like this one.

(they probably also appreciate the daily housekeeping and club level services of the hotels or don't mind paying the rack rates to book the grand villas if it means they don't have the hassle of having to try to book 11 months out.)

regardless, for those of us who do care about saving or potentially wasting thousands of dollars, dean has some pretty good input...

My point is, we on the disboards are too hard on people who buy direct from Disney. On many times it is after the fact, why make them feel as if they have done something wrong. We don't know their situation.

Both you and Dean are invaluable to these disboards much more than I am and we are lucky to have you. But occassionally we on the disboards are too negative for people who want to buy direct. IF I had the money I would buy into GF at direct prices.
Why? It is a fabulous resort, I was lucky to get a room in November. True
you are paying maybe double the price of resale at another resort but you are getting 40% more years. In 15-25 years most of the other resorts are likely to be will be worth very little. The GF will be worth somthing and if it's not, more than likely the world economy would have plunge and all our investments would have plunged also.
As for renting points, sure we could rent points but control is a big factor.
Many of us have 2-4 weeks vacation a year(if we are lucky), we want control and control has a price. There is nothing wrong with buying direct for GF.

 

[disneynutz]

My point is, we on the disboards are too hard on people who buy direct from Disney. On many times it is after the fact, why make them feel as if they have done something wrong. We don't know their situation.

Both you and Dean are invaluable to these disboards much more than I am and we are lucky to have you. But occassionally we on the disboards are too negative for people who want to buy direct. IF I had the money I would buy into GF at direct prices.
Why? It is a fabulous resort, I was lucky to get a room in November. True
you are paying maybe double the price of resale at another resort but you are getting 40% more years. In 15-25 years most of the other resorts are likely to be will be worth very little. The GF will be worth somthing and if it's not, more than likely the world economy would have plunge and all our investments would have plunged also.
As for renting points, sure we could rent points but control is a big factor.
Many of us have 2-4 weeks vacation a year(if we are lucky), we want control and control has a price. There is nothing wrong with buying direct for GF.

There isn't anything wrong with buying direct as long as the person buying has all of the information to make an informed choice. Disney spends millions to paint a one sided picture and they are hard on resale buyers to the point of treating them differently than direct buyers.

In the end buyers can do what they want, it's their money. I have to assume that due to the number of resales hitting the market each year that some buyers didn't have all the information before they bought.

Bill

 

[crisi]

When I look at purchasing DVC the initial cost and then the annual dues I just don't see how you come out ahead. Further, from what I gather DVC members do not get any discounts.

Can someone fill me in?

Based off the trips in your signature, what you are missing is that DVC is a luxury purchase for those that want to spend more money than they would staying in a value (and possibly a moderate) but want to stay in a room where you have more deluxe amenities... Location, in the case of many of the resorts....or want a multi room unit...a kitchen to cook breakfast, a washer and dryer in the room to throw in a load of laundry, and the kids sleeping in a different room.

It probably won't end up saving you anything, given your posted travel history...it might give you a better value for a reasonable amount of money.

 

[Dean]

I disagree with a couple of your points,
First there is lots of people with demanding careers or businesses, they may have young families, they may spend (and have to be "on") for 60-70 hours at work a week, and/or days away from home. They may make salaries over 250,000 + a year. Saving ten thousand dollars or more may not mean anything to them, all they may want is time to be with their families.
For those people time to be with there families are precious, the last thing they want to do is spend time looking at resales, or renting points.
Yes I do believe many of these people would want to own a DVC membership and not just call for reservations. Maybe not all but a sizable percantage will.
To these people DVC is not a financial investment, they may see it as an investment in mental health, though.
We see this all the time, people buy expensive cars, mansions, diamonds, boats and whatever.
For many people if they didn't spend it on a DVC they would have spent it on something else, for many people 10,000, 50,000 even a 100,000 is spendable income. We may think of them as crazy spending all this money, but they may think we're crazy for working for so little. So who are we to judge when someone buys a DVC at retail?

Your choice of course. I'd suggest that the group that fit into this characterization and also where DVC is a reasonable purchase is VERY small. Plus there are VERY few people that are truly this busy they couldn't turn off the TV here and there, but I'd agree they may be more likely to be the same group. However, IMO, unless DVC makes sense financially, it's not reasonable to buy. Certainly they shouldn't buy without understanding what they're getting in to no matter how busy they are. If they're too busy to learn it, understand it and plan for it; they should pay cash or maybe not go at all.

 

[Dean]

I still don't get anyone saying it doesn't work financially...even if financed...

Here's what convinced me to buy in last year....we were looking at a family vacation to the Grand Floridian. The cheapest room was going to cost us over $4,400 just for the room for 6 nights during April vacation.

Then I found out, for $15k, I could buy a 100 point stake in VGF, which would let us go down there every other year for the next 60 years, staying in a larger room with a kitchenette...plus $500 or so per year in MF....it's a complete no brainer. Even if I had financed by putting down 20% and paying the rest over 10 years, I still come out WAY ahead. 10 years of every other year vacations would cost me at LEAST $22,000 for accommodations. Or I could pay $15000 plus 6000 or so in MF for $21,000....and at the end of the 10 years, I could turn around and sell it for at least $10,000....for a total vacation savings of $11,000....or if I keep it, I'm already more or less even...or will be soon....and I have another 50 years of every other year vacations for just the cost of MF which is INSANE savings...

Even if you finance at 10.5% which is the preferred credit level, you aren't paying all the money down at once so you don't lose as much in opportunity costs on that money....and you end up paying an addition 6 or 7 thousand....which makes your break-even point further down the road...but that isn't even taking into account room rate hikes....which over 10 years are going to be HUGE. And your main costs are fixed with only MF increasing...

It's a complete no-brainer.

Of course, that doesn't even take into account other discounts like Annual passes, food and dining, regular purchases....

There's really 2 issues there, does GF make sense which is only retail at present and is financing reasonable. IMO the answer to is maybe and no but YMMV because there's no situation IMO where financing a timeshare or luxury purchase makes sense. I used to give a few exceptions but now I think it's simply a yes or no answer. It's true that 100 points used EOY will get you there 6 nights in a standard studio the time of year you quote, well that and dues of $1100 per trip and $15K up front. If this is what you want and can afford it, enough said but read on. Generally when people are discussing buy in and related options, you don't know what you don't know plus anything that makes you think about your choices is a good thing. IMO the best comparison for savings is related to what you've historically spend but it's certainly viable to compare to a discounted rack rate for the hotel to a studio for the place you already know you prefer, I generally use a discount of 20% off rack rate for this situation as a good average though for that exact time 10% may be your limit if this is the ONLY time you'd travel.

One areas where people often make incorrect assumptions is related to off property timeshares. For example, we were having a discussion along some of these lines a few months ago and someone said they'd stayed in an off property timeshare twice. Once in a very low rated timeshare and once maybe 20 years before when younger in a timeshare or condo.

As for financing, IMO financing is 80% about behavior and risk and only 20% math which is the issue I see with most of these type of threads. People get caught up in the math and emotions and ignore the true overall situation. The problem with people who finance is they often have car loans, CC's with balances, student loans, furniture loans, etc. In short they often make bad decisions with money and spend far more in the long run they could have kept themselves and are frequently, by definition, living beyond their means not just with DVC. One of my life philosophies now days is that being able to afford the payments is not the same as being able to afford the purchases. So it goes far beyond the math of the interest paid, what it "costs" to wait, etc even for a resale purchase financed, which is a much better mathematical comparison than even a retail purchase for cash. Of course there will always be exceptions such as someone sitting there with the cash who decides to finance for some reason, there are a few exceptions but not many. The way I'd look at such matters is what if you lost half the family income without warning right after you sign the papers. My guess from your posts is actually that much of this doesn't apply to you but it's still good to have the discussion.

I'm also of the opinion that one who can afford it and who buying DVC is important to can save up fairly quickly and get into the system. If they can't they are missing one of these requisites, often both. But then I don't feel people should go on an expensive vacation if they have a debt mess anyway, apparently the idea of living within one's means is radical nowadays.

These comments are to the principles, not to an individual as I always attempt to do. I'm not singling out anyone specifically as we rarely have enough info to truly make informed final decisions on a given poster's situation, only opinions based on what they've posted and our general knowledge and philosophy. However, if the principle applies to a given person's situation, hopefully the comments will encourage them long term.

 

[BenDiscipio]

Your choice of course. I'd suggest that the group that fit into this characterization and also where DVC is a reasonable purchase is VERY small. Plus there are VERY few people that are truly this busy they couldn't turn off the TV here and there, but I'd agree they may be more likely to be the same group. However, IMO, unless DVC makes sense financially, it's not reasonable to buy. Certainly they shouldn't buy without understanding what they're getting in to no matter how busy they are. If they're too busy to learn it, understand it and plan for it; they should pay cash or maybe not go at all.

I think you'd be surprised that they're a much larger group than you think....and that you are more in the minority. I don't know many people that would quibble, dicker and obsess over a few thousand dollars when that amount compared to the total cost of not just DVC but all the money spent in the parks is going to COMPLETELY dwarf it.

Don't get me wrong, it's your choice to obsess...but don't be so foolish as to think that everyone else is obsessing over the same thing you are. You can make people think you're right and they're wrong all you like, and some will actually cower away and let you make them think they're the "loser".....but not this guy. And I'm sure there are thousands, if not tens of thousands in the same position.

I'll use a little of your own language for you. If you need to obsess and waste close to a year over a few thousand dollars in the DVC purchase, maybe you really shouldn't be buying into DVC.

If you can afford to be going to the parks this much, then a few thousand dollars at ONE point....not recurring.....is a virtual DROP IN THE BUCKET.

Bottom line...to each their own. Some may call me the "loser"....others may call you the "loser". I prefer not to call anyone the "loser". There is no right or wrong on this.

Give people information and let them decide, but let's try to refrain from painting this as black and white when it clearly isn't. Sometimes I think there's a group of people on this site purposely trying to dissuade people from buying....can't figure out why...

 

[Dean]

Give people information and let them decide, but let's try to refrain from painting this as black and white when it clearly isn't. Sometimes I think there's a group of people on this site purposely trying to dissuade people from buying....can't figure out why...

That's what I try to do, provide information and perspective. Ours is clearly different and I'm sure neither will convince the other differently. I can't speak for others but I would want to discourage many from buying because I want those that buy in to DVC to find it a blessing and not a curse. I'd rather convince someone not to buy where it would have been a good thing that fail to help someone avoid a bad purchase. And truthfully, I do think it's pretty close to black and white in most of these areas from a reasonableness standpoint so we'll have to disagree there as well. To me it's like the room stuffing secretly, sneaking people into the pool etc type discussions; it really a question of honesty and integrity and it should be black and white but it obviously isn't for many.

 

[vicki_c]

In those threads, there always comments about what you're comparing the cost of DVC to. One says only compare it to renting points, one says make sure to compare only studios at DVC to a regular room, someone always says compare it to a Disney room with a typical discount, etc.

To me, all that matters is that if you want to make that comparison, you compare what you would have done (usually based on your past history or known future plans) and what you think you will do if you buy DVC. For my family, we only stayed in deluxes and usually paid rack rates. I would not have rented points from an owner. So my pre-DVC expenses were a lot higher than someone who always did free dining or only stayed in values.

So there's no hard and fast rule on what the appropriate comparison is for any particular person, only that they should be honest with themselves when doing those calculations.

 

[SarahInMN]

In those threads, there always comments about what you're comparing the cost of DVC to. One says only compare it to renting points, one says make sure to compare only studios at DVC to a regular room, someone always says compare it to a Disney room with a typical discount, etc.

To me, all that matters is that if you want to make that comparison, you compare what you would have done (usually based on your past history or known future plans) and what you think you will do if you buy DVC. For my family, we only stayed in deluxes and usually paid rack rates. I would not have rented points from an owner. So my pre-DVC expenses were a lot higher than someone who always did free dining or only stayed in values.

So there's no hard and fast rule on what the appropriate comparison is for any particular person, only that they should be honest with themselves when doing those calculations.

If we weren't DVC owners, we would be paying rack/best discount rate to stay in a deluxe room with 2 queens and no kitchen. With DVC, we get 1 br with a king bed, real shower, kitchen, and in room laundry. For us, this is the value of DVC.

I completely agree that people should not finance/take a loan to buy a DVC because, well, its better to save money than pay interest.

As for resale vs direct, we bought BCV on the resale market and had an awesome experience. We would have bought resale again at the BCV but wanted to buy into Grand Floridian (we got married at the GF, wanted a monorail DVC, and the Contemporary isn't our "thing/style") = so our only choice was to buy direct.

We paid more, but got a DVC at the GF AND didn't have to jack around trying to find a resale with the same UY, etc as our BCV. As someone said upthread, sometimes time is money and we would have wasted a lot of time trying to find the "perfect" BCV resale (which honestly could have taken months).

Again, value/worth is all what people make of it. I would warn people who are new to the process to not get swept up by emotion and excitement but to really consider the financial piece of it.