# VGC - Considering Purchase, Advice Needed



## duck_widow (Oct 18, 2009)

Hi,

I haven't posted in a long time, but as usual we have returned from vacation and I'm once again considering a timeshare purchase. This time VGC. I was actually really surprised that it didn't sell out shortly after coming in the market since there are so few units and the only thing going in CA.

So I assume there's really no resale market for this right? I'm also assuming that renting from an owner there would be really hard too. I assume this has super high demand since it's the best place to stay at Disneyland. Would it be easy to rent if we weren't going to use it? What might a one-bedroom rent for? $10-12 per point seems like what I've seen for the Florida resorts, but maybe CA would be more?

The current offer is $112 per point with a $15 per point incentive. Is there anything better? I saw there was a referral offer for up to an additional $8 per point. Am I too late for that? Can I still get a referral if we've already been to the presentation?

I assume CA as the home resort would be a necessity if I wanted to stay at CA every year right? (again since there are so few units)

I am tempted to buy as I would love to stay in a nice condo right at Disneyland. Last year we stayed at Marriott Newport and it was super nice, but the drive and more so the parking at Disneyland sucks. This year we stayed at a suite hotel near the park and used the shuttle. It was better than parking, but still sucked as it was always late.

I've read that the best use of Disney points is at Disney properties so we'd be stuck with either using it or renting it. We'll probably do one trip to Disneyworld and a Disney cruise at some point. Though it seems using points for the cruise isn't a good idea either. Too bad Disney points don't seem to trade well.

Anyway, rambling now. Any insights or advice, or personal experience would be much appreciated. I know I could also post on mouseowners, but feel more comfortable here.

Thanks,
-Kathy


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## DVC Mike (Oct 18, 2009)

duck_widow said:


> The current offer is $112 per point with a $15 per point incentive. Is there anything better?


 
I thought the current incentives were:

160 points - $22 off = $90/pt
200+ points - $24 off = $88/pt



duck_widow said:


> I know I could also post on mouseowners, but feel more comfortable here.


 
I'd also post on MO to get a broader opinion.


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## luvsvacation22 (Oct 19, 2009)

DVC Mike said:


> I thought the current incentives were:
> 
> 160 points - $22 off = $90/pt
> 200+ points - $24 off = $88/pt
> ...



Not anymore! For 160 points at VGC it is $97.00. I just verified this with my guide last week.


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## chriskre (Oct 19, 2009)

Kathy,

If you are not in a huge hurry I'd wait and see if the prices come back down or until some resales start hitting the market.  

I agree that if you want to go to GC every year then you will need to own points there since it's so small.  That said if you decided to purchase now and you don't need or want to use it yet, you could always use someone who specializes in rentals to help you rent it out and cover your fees and recoup your investment.  

I'm sure you'd make your money back and then it would be like vacationing for free when you do decide to use it.


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## duck_widow (Oct 20, 2009)

chriskre said:


> Kathy,
> 
> If you are not in a huge hurry I'd wait and see if the prices come back down or until some resales start hitting the market.
> 
> ...



Thanks chriskre and to the others who have responded,

I'm wondering if you or others could help me with the numbers. I want to buy, but can't seem to get comfortable with the numbers, and also need some good data to try to convince DH.

I'm looking at 230 points and today's price is $97, so $22,310 for the purchase and approx. $900 per year in maint.

This will get me 5 nights in a 1-bd in Choice season (170 sun-thurs) with some left over that I could borrow\bank\rent out for future trips in larger units etc. Plus it seems most owners would like more points to work with anyway. I'm not stuck on that point amount, and could adjust up or down if it makes more sense. At some future point it would be nice to have 100 or so points a year to rent out to help cover maint. Is that silly to plan for? My thinking is that once I break even on the purchase, it would be nice to be able to rent some to cover maint and vac for free. How hard\easy is it to rent out points?

I could rent those same 170 points (if available of course, and that's a big if) from an owner for approx $2040 (@ $12 per, and I realize this will likely increase over time). So based on a rental cost to me of $2040, it would take me 10 years just to re-coup the purchase price and I would have paid $10k in maint. So another 9 years to re-coup all that maint, so that would be 19 years before I'm vacationing for free right? That seems soooo long to me, and I realize that there will likely be some value left if I decided to sell much later on (one would hope), but that number is a total unknown.

Am I missing something? Is there a different way to look at the numbers and come up with a sooner break-even point?

I really want to buy, but need to feel good about the numbers.

Any comment, insights, suggestions would be much appreciated.

Thanks again,
-Kathy


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## chriskre (Oct 20, 2009)

duck_widow said:


> Thanks chriskre and to the others who have responded,
> 
> I'm wondering if you or others could help me with the numbers. I want to buy, but can't seem to get comfortable with the numbers, and also need some good data to try to convince DH.
> 
> ...



Kathy, if you are not going to go every year why don't you consider just buying what you need for now.  170 points for $97 would be only $16,490.  Maintenance fees would probably be about $800.  That way you could use it one year and rent it out every other year instead of trying to rent out just a few left over points.  That way you could potentially make $1700 every other year which would pay off your $16,490 in 9-3/4  years.  Factor in the maintenance fees for every other year being subsidized by your tenants so $800 X 5 years would be $4,000 which would be repaid in another 2-1/3 years.  So you'd have an every other year use of your points with you paying $800 for your 5 days in a 1 bedroom for $160 per night that you would be paying out of pocket yourself.  Then after 13 years you'd be vacationing for free assuming that rental prices did not increase and MF don't increase much either for 10 years, but it's all proportional, I guess anyway.

Another way to get into DVC would be to purchase a small resale contract at maybe Orlando at maybe OKW for about $60 a point these days so for about 100 points you'd pay $6,000.  Buy a smaller contract and you can do the same thing even though your price per point would be higher, there are contracts out there for 25 points.  Then after you are a member of DVC you buy a small VGC contract for say 85 points and bank and borrow these points for your own use and rent out your OKW points to subsidize your VGC points.  Then you could always sell your OKW contract and recoup your investment and keep your VGC contract and keep your expenses down but yet be able to do an every other year trip for a reasonable fee.  

There are people who specialize in helping DVCers rent out their points and you will make about $10 a point if you let these experts do the rental for you which would probably be easier than trying to do it yourself.  Daddio on MO is a very active rental agent and he seems to be fair in his cut.  

If you do decide to buy 230 points direct from Disney, I suggest you buy them in several contracts.  Don't buy one contract for 230 points.   I'd buy them in 50 point intervals or even some 25 point intervals so that you could sell them off if needed much easier than trying to sell a big contract like 230 points.  You can buy them all with the same use year to cut down on confusion.   

Don't know if this helps or confuses you more but I'm hoping this will help you convince the DH that DVC is doable if you want to be creative.  I wish someone had told me to buy my contract in small denominations.  That way I would have purchased 50 points at the resorts that I like and bank and borrow to stay in each with the 11 month booking priority in several resorts.  

Hope to see you in Mickey's land soon.  :whoopie:


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## duck_widow (Oct 22, 2009)

Thanks again chriskre. That is hugely helpful.

One last question. If I bought fewer points, such as 170 and in some cases needed more points for a larger unit, aside from banking and borrowing, if I needed more is it easy to rent points from someone else and have the points transferred into my account? I assume I'd need VGC points if I wanted to book at 11 months.

Just trying to understand what would be involved if I needed to get additional points here and there above and beyond banking and borrowing.

Thanks,
-Kathy


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## chriskre (Oct 22, 2009)

I would think that it would be easier to transfer points from another VGC owner.  I know that I would be willing to transfer points if I owned any if I was not going to use them as it's easier for an owner to transfer to another DVC owner than deal with a non DVC member and having to rent, but Disney only allows one transfer in or out per year so you'd have to find an owner that had all you'd need.  Hope this helps.


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## tomandrobin (Oct 23, 2009)

I have had points transferred into my DVC account every year. The process is extremely simple. Just remember that you can only transfer in or out, once per year. Once a transfer is completed, it can not be reversed. You can bank transferred point points, but can not transfer banked points. If you are making reservations at the 7 month mark, the home resort does not matter. If making a reservation in the 11-7 month window, they have to be your home resort points. Use year does not matter for transferring into your account, just as long as the points are not expiring.


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