Dvc resales- best time to buy

Walt Disney World
1

Hi all,
I’m just exploring and possibly thinking about buying a small points contract through dvc resale in the next year or so. I like the idea of being able to stay at a deluxe resort every other year or possibly every year depending on the time and cost.
Background:
We currently have a 6 year old daughter and lately have been visiting Disney once or twice a year for the past few years. (no plans to add other kids!)
We have always stayed at value resorts, however the past few trips have been at the suites at AOA. I can’t imagine us needing more than a studio or possibly a one bedroom when she gets older.
Anyways, Buying direct through disney seems quite out of our reach, so I’ve been looking at resale. I guess my question is, do you know of a better time of the year to find a good price on a lower point contract?
The resorts I would be interested in would be WL, BC, or GF.
Also, in your experience, how easy is it to book a studio at your home resort at the 11 month mark (we tend to travel more on the “off season” times when flights are a bit cheaper and crowds are less)
also, do you feel its worth it to buy a small contract? I would be looking at probably 15K or less for price.
Also as far as our financials go, we don’t have much debt at all except for the mortgage on our house and a small car loan. We are both in healthcare so our jobs are pretty secure.

Any and all experiences and advice would be welcome. Thanks!

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My suggestion is to sit down and actually write out the numbers. I’m a huge Disney fan. I actually own a timeshare in CA that is not DVC simply because I knew I’d be going there every year (and over the past 20 years, I’ve only missed twice due to pregnancies. :slight_smile: )
However, this IS a timeshare and that makes it a huge cost-notice I don’t use the word investment. While I will admit you can potentially rent our your point to get some money back and you can resell your contract, the fact is that you will never make a profit. The best you can hope for is a discount overall to your trip prices.
Keep in mind you are not just paying for the contract-you will have yearly fees and these range based on the location. $7-11/point doesn’t seem like much, until you realize that is every year…and it always goes up. That needs to be figured into the overall cost of your vacation.

I have stayed at CR once with my kids. However, I usually stay at values, so I price the value of DVC against the value resort prices. If you are looking for studios, the value resorts will likely cover your needs…and then some.

Step 1: Compare the type of resort where you would actually pay out of pocket. Determine all the time(s) of year when you travel and the length of stay(s) over the course of one year. Go to the WDW website and price a vacation at that location for those dates (or similar ones if not online right now) with the number of people who would travel in your group.

Step 2: Then, take the price you are paying for the contract and divide that by the number of years left on the contract.

Step 3: Next, find your likely cost of maintenance fees. Look at the DVC fee charts to determine the amount you pay each year per point and multiply that by $1.7, which is an average guesstimate of the overall maintenance fees over the course of the contract. If it has several decades left, you might want to increase that to $2 or more. Then, Take that amount and multiply it by the number of years left on your contract.

Step 4: Add Steps 2 + 3 --this is your total DVC cost over the life of your contract. Divide this by the number of years of your contract and you have the amount you are paying for one year. If you are banking DVC points to use every other year, you would then multiply that 1 year amount by 2 since that is really what your vacations are costing you.

Now, compare the cost of the trip from WDW’s site to the cost after Step 4. If they are close, or Step 4 is less, by all means look into a DVC purchase. For most value resort guests, though, you may be shocked to see just how much you save by booking direct - and that does not take into account the discounts Disney offers online, as well as the AP discount many people could use since they are pass holders. As a result, I book direct every time,. The one time trip to CR actually got discounted so much that it was about the same level in price as a moderate - and we got food. Those discounts often make it more useful NOT to buy DVC, especially on the resale market where you won’t get any of the DVC owner perks.

That being said, if you intend to buy resale, you can start looking now as owners who can’t afford the yearly maintenance fees are starting to sell and I already see prices starting to fall. I predict this pattern will continue as long as our current situation continues. :frowning:

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I absolutely love owning DVC but it is not for everyone. I would first decide where you would like to buy. I love to check out how many points I would need for different vacations. There are a couple of apps I use for that. This is my new toy:

https://apps.apple.com/us/app/my-dvc-points/id1463317921

I also use DVC by D Point, but there is a small cost for next year’s point charts.

Then I would decide where you want to buy. Two things: slower times of the year can be lower points, but can be very hard to book studios (especially early December). There is a big difference in how many points you would need every year for a studio at GF, and one at WL or BW.

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I have bid on my first contract, but did not get here without a lot of research and breaking open an excel spreadsheet. If you are serious about buying, then one of the key things to do is figure out how many points you need for 1) the number of nights you need, during 2) the time of year you will most likely visit 3) for the type of room you want 4) at the different resorts you want. This helped me greatly. BLT was at the top of my list until I realized I would need significantly more points to stay there.

I don’t yet know how easy it is to get studios at 11 months, but I also decided I needed to plan for 1 bedrooms, for my non-home resort, at the 7 months mark.

Doing this really helped me get the feel of the resorts, the points, etc. I decided I did not want a contract that expired in 2042 because the significantly impacts the value of the contract over its life. Of course my husband pointed out he’ll be 89 when our AKV expires! (And if I end up with add-onitis it will be BWV)

There are some great Boulder Ridge contracts available right now. Good luck with your research!

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AKV was our first purchase too! And unless BC blows us away when we stay there next year, BWV will be our second :heart_eyes:

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Funny home some resorts just feel like home!

I have never stayed at BLT and I think I would love those 1 bedrooms. But those rooms cost so many points!

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I think our third contract will be one of the MK resorts, I’m leaning toward Copper Creek. Those cabins look amazing! I will wait for Reflections to open before I make any decisions though.

I haven’t stayed at BLT either, but I know when we went to the Contemporary at Christmas I was underwhelmed by the theming. Maybe that view of the castle from my room would change my mind though!!

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I stayed at BLT last August. I was surprised by how much I loved it .

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This is a website that shows all listings from a few companies:

https://www.disneydvcresale.com/post-dvc-resale.php

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Thank you all for all the great information!
Yes I really do need to crunch the numbers and do some research, I’m going to look further. I do know that while I don’t mind staying at values, I love the idea of being able to go Deluxe once a year or so, for the amenities and to feel like treating myself and knowing that for the most part, it is being paid for up front (in a different way I suppose). Even as an AP, I can’t ever see being able to afford a week at GF every two years if paying upfront. I also see that every year the cost of the hotels goes up more and more.
I love Disney, and we’ve gone probably 10 times over the past 4 years, so I don’t see that changing.
I literally go back and forth on what to do. For the most part I’m a totally frugal person which is why we don’t keep alot of debt as a family, and why I’m only thinking about doing a 15K or less contract. Ideally I’d like to put some $ upfront and have a small loan that can be paid off fairly quickly.
Its a really hard decision and commitment and I can see both the pros and the cons… Its also hard to look at those sights and see places being reduced to affordable contracts!

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One thing that we did not fully consider when buying into DVC was the cost of the annual dues and the cost of taking an annual vacation (or more). While we don’t “pay” cash money out of pocket for the room, we are not eligible for discounts / promotions either. We pay full price for the dining plan if we want to participate and park tickets. We can get a pretty sweet DVC discount on annual passes, but typically only do that for DH and myself. Which we then use to go more than once a year. Bottom line is that our vacation budget increased significantly since becoming members.

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