When should we join??? Advice needed.

[dopeynme]

If you are considering purchasing a house, you should keep in mind that they use your debt-to-income ratio in determining whether you get a mortgage and how much you can borrow. So if you finance DVC, that debt will decrease the amount of money you can borrow to buy your home.

Also, you have to prove that the down payment on your house comes from your own money, not a gift or loan. So you want to have money saved so that you can show where it came from. If you use your savings for DVC, you will decrease the amount of house you can buy by decreasing your down payment.

Just things to consider......make an informed decision. Good luck!!!

 

[adminjedi]

Also, you have to prove that the down payment on your house comes from your own money, not a gift or loan.

Actually, FHA loan programs allow for "gifts" toward the down.

 

[CrazyDuck]

So you plan to buy a house... Ok so are you certain that you will be able to afford DVC and the regular trips to wdw after you purchase your house? One thing that will cause a lot of people to change your spending habits is a big mortage payment every month... (the other thing is kids). You may take a lot of Disney trips now... Are you sure you can afford the mortgage and vacations?

 

[donutz022]

if you really want it but dont want to commit to a large some of money buy a small contract either thru disney or resale and bank and borrow as needed to vacation maybe everyh other year.

 

[nickspace]

Start with a small resale contract and wait till you can pay cash. You can always add more contracts latter but at least you will have a foot in the door.

 

[emacek]

I wouldn't have a problem buying into DVC before buying a house, particularly if you know you'll vacation at WDW frequently and you don't know where you'll settle. However, I would not buy in until I could pay cash. There are still annual dues to pay and for me, it would not make sense to take on debt for what is a luxury purchase, particularly not knowing how life will change in terms of employment and family. If you have to buy now, I would go with a smaller contract on the resale market--one that you can afford to pay in cash--and then add on smaller contracts through Disney as you can afford them.

emacek

 

[lmshaggard]

I wouldn't worry about maintenance fees personally. We have 260 and our maintenance fees run less than $1000 a year. If I don't have $1000 extra hanging around for maintenance fees, I never should have looked at DVC or doing anything other than working and paying bills. As far as DVC or house first, like I said, we weren't sure where we were going to settle either. Our situation was different as we did buy, but on the bottom of the scale as to have no mortgage and not be renting for our 1st house. It is a great time to buy - we are now settled and had to think about school districts - so we bought our 2nd house (1st mortgage) since we are 1 year away from our oldest starting kindergarten, but I would NOT buy unless you were sure about where you want to stay. The housing market is far from settled - you still have lots of time to buy at a great price. But if you are still spending money at Disney frequently - value or not - you can come out ahead with DVC. We diced and sliced every promo out there and worse case scenario was we were prepaying for value priced vacations at DVC resorts. It was a total win/win for us and we head to Disney 30-40 days a year.

 

[nickandlarisa]

Thanks again, lots of wonderful advice.

One thing no one has really mentioned is for those of you who bought directly from Disney, is there one way or the other (at the parks/on the cruise/calling form home) that offers better incentives for joining? I will have to double check our notes from the past info sessions we have attended, but I believe in the parks 2007 they would have given us double points the first year. On the cruise 2009 I seem to recall double points AND a free 3 night (maybe 4 night) cruise. Just wanted to see if/when we take the plunge and if we buy direct from Disney, there is any advantage to purchasing one way vs another.

Thanks again!
Larisa

 

[CrazyDuck]

Thanks again, lots of wonderful advice.

One thing no one has really mentioned is for those of you who bought directly from Disney, is there one way or the other (at the parks/on the cruise/calling form home) that offers better incentives for joining? I will have to double check our notes from the past info sessions we have attended, but I believe in the parks 2007 they would have given us double points the first year. On the cruise 2009 I seem to recall double points AND a free 3 night (maybe 4 night) cruise. Just wanted to see if/when we take the plunge and if we buy direct from Disney, there is any advantage to purchasing one way vs another.

Thanks again!
Larisa

It's not really double points rather just the current use years points... so if they were offering Dec use year you would get Dec 2009 points and then get the 2010 points in Decenber making it seem that you are getting double.

The cruises are being offered in lieu of discounted points. you can get like $12 off per point or a free cruise if you buy x number of points at full fare.

You may get some swag if you buy direct from disney and at the DVC sales center... we scored a bunch of DVC hats etc... nothing that great though...