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Going for a DVC... Change my mind?!

bnoble

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From where I sit, arguing about the "value" of DVC is pointless, because the "value" of being onsite in the first place is neither easily quantifiable nor objective.

If the cost of owning DVC is justified by the value you might get from it, buy it. If it doesn't, don't.
 

varatpack

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We were SS owners in past (2002-2012) and sold , we just purchased Bay Lake in 2019 , resale. Love it. Walking distance to MK, monorail route and low(er) maintenance fee than most of the others. I thought it will always be an attractive property on rental market, too--if we tired of it yr after yr.
 

rickandcindy23

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Wyndham Founder; Disney OKW & SSR; Marriott's Willow Ridge,Shadow Ridge,Grand Chateau;Val Chatelle; Hono Koa OF (3); SBR(LOTS), SDO a few; Grand Palms; WKORV-OF (2),Westin Desert Willow.
@SunsetMaven let me be the first to send you apologies for having to deal with @travelhacker i can only imagine the advice he gave you. How they still allow him to log on here is mind boggling. Haha, just kidding just kidding! He’s been a huge help to many here.

Now that the jokes are out of the way, my knee jerk reaction is to say BUY DVC! But my logical mind says maybe not. I’ve also been looking to buy DVC and have had the same thought process about which home resort to purchase into or of it even makes any sense to buy. While bay lake is great, I don’t require close proximity to MK at this point, so for me it’s not appealing (yet you make great points about buying there as a home resort). In the short term, being in the “bubble” has no advantages. The buy in is expensive and you need to book well in advance or it won’t work. I prefer a bit more flexibility. Is the high cost really worth it?

Being in cahoots with travelH, we both purchased RCI point contracts around the same time. While it is covid, we have both been able to book DVC using RCI points this year. RCI points could be an option for future once in a while DVC trips. I noticed before covid that there was consistent availability in RCI around school breaks (winter/spring/summer breaks). This is usually when DVC point bookings are the most expensive and Many DVC members tend to book lower seasons to stretch their points. Granted, SSR and OKW are the more popular resorts that show up, it is better than nothing.

Proximity to MK is nice, personally I prefer quiet! Once I found out about those tree houses in SSR, I’d be leaning to buy there. Copper creek also has great villas but the point value is nearly 700 points for a week. Too rich for my blood. Truthfully, between the cost of DVC and the looming contract expiration dates, my thoughts have shifted away from DVC and more into buying a condo or house in Orlando to act as a vacation rental.

However, If you decide to buy DVC and were planning on buying more points than you need, I’d look to split it up into different contacts (same use year/same resort). This way you can cut down without having to sell all of it. You can always start with what you need then add smaller contracts later. Maybe a 200 point contact now then add another 100 points. You can always sell off the 100 points later if you don’t want the excess.
Such great advice.
 

tomandrobin

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I like to know what the OP actually do or not do.

DVC is not like any other timeshare. It has a captive audience and an exclusive location for most of their properties. Those that have owned for a long period of time, have seen values rise like I have never seen for a timeshare. Sure there have been bumps in the road, but not a single contract I own is valued less now then when I originally purchased it. I can't say that for any of my Vistana Signature units I have bought over the years. Even the rental of your points is a great fall back, most renting in a week. Try that with almost any other timeshare. Most you are lucky to rent over MF, whereas DVC rentals average 2.5 time maintenance fees.
 

cbyrne1174

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100% resale!!
Lol I just backed out of a DVC resale purchase and went with a resale Legacy Marriott week instead, saving myself THOUSANDS. I think I will stick with SSR via RCI if I reallllyyyyy care to be on Disney property. I own mainly Wyndham and couldn't rationalize in my head WHY ON EARTH would I spend 5x the price for DVC vs Bonnet Creek for the same accommodations. I'd pay 2x tops.
 

elaine

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not OP, but here's my update from March--Mickey won:
We owned DVC, but also traded in via RCI 5X-gotta love it! We sold our larger DVC contract in 2020 (still have a 35 point DVC) to free up case for renos (recouping capital +20%). My heart (which still has that pixie dust in it) was thinking of rebuying as we envision using for weekend studio stays in retirement to enjoy resorts. Put in 2 sorta low ball offers--rejected. It's a sellers market--pricing is $5-15/point more for AKV than when we sold! So, my head decided to pause on repurchasing and just do longer trips via RCI 1BR, stay at a HGVC or Marriott, or get a DVC points transfer if needed, and re-evaluate in a year or two. Plus, with annual passes paused, we'd likely swap to EOY one week trip with family anyway.
We are about to close on another DVC AKV contact at $20 per point more than I sold last year! When we sold, it was to get instant cash for a home reno. DVC was a great easily liquidated asset for us during Covid. But, after 6 months, our finances had changed and DH and I realized that we like going to DVC for 2-4 days and that booking DVc studios is very cost effective for us. We like the ambiance, amenities, and even a very nice Marriott hotel doesn't give us the same vacation vibe--it's very intangible for sure. Covid also changed our travel patterns as we see ourselves doing more FL trips and tagging on days at DVC and popping down to DVC HHI or Vero more as a couple as opposed to longer family trips.
On the practical side, my intended plan of transferring points made me nervous when I got down to details, paying upfront for 1/2 the points (which would be $1K+), and having to do a 3 way call with member services is a pain. Like 45 minutes on hold yesterday just to get through. Plus, at $18/PP transfer rate, that's $10/PP over annual fees for each transfer. I got a semi-loaded contract which effectively took off $5/PP based upon transfer pricing and we'd have transferred points in the next 2 years, so that took another $10 off (mentally), as it would've been real out the door cash for us. We've had DVC and can estimate our usage fairly well.
I've bought/sold DVC 4X now, so I'd plan to sell this contract in 7-10 years with plenty of time left until 2057. I know it can change, but, if Covid didn't tank DVC, I think it's pretty solid for at least the next 5-10 years, esp. with all the new WDW stuff. Even with the 2008 crash, if one held another year or so, I think that pricing had started to recover.
This works for us, but IMHO, if one takes out the intangibles, there's still really no practical reason to buy DVC currently. We just stayed at BC in May and it was fantastic for our family of 5 and we've traded via RCI for 1 BR SSR later this year, which "all in" was about equivalent to DVC annual fees. If we envisioned mainly weeklong stays, I'd just do RCI/SSR (esp with the new reno and extra bed) or BC without any more capital outlay. But, for multiple short trips, DVC is still best for us.
 
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tomandrobin

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The one thing elaine touched on, that is attractive for us owning DVC is the flexibility. Almost all of my trips to Disney world are 3-5 days, and most seem to be on holidays or holiday weekends. Hard to get those Thurs-Monday RCI trades or make that NYE or Easter week reservation.
 

elaine

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The one thing elaine touched on, that is attractive for us owning DVC is the flexibility
For our weeklong family trips, it's getting just too hard to commit at a year or even 6 months out with 3 college kids. With DVC we can book and then canx 31 days out, reschedule, get a bigger/smaller space (if available) etc. I've done this 5X before with DVC. With RCI, I'm out the trade fee each time even if I could find another unit. We confirmed a into trade into BC last fall for a May 2021 trip. It later turned out not to be the best week for us--but we made it work. If it'd been DVC, I could have easily just changed dates.
 

RookWDW

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DVC owner at Poly here. When we purchased we stayed on property at Port Orleans Riverside. We love the ease and immersion of being on site. Joining DVC was as much about being in the bubble (and we really like the bubble, the attentiveness, the insanely active lifeguards, the cleanliness, etc) but it was also about being able to stay in better accommodations for roughly what we paid for Riverside (a moderate resort by Disney standards). We are in process of buying an add on somewhere, likely SSR.

I know OP already went for a BLT contract, but I'd suggest Poly. 1. it's just a far superior property by almost any standard. The only upside to BLT is if you need 1 bedrooms Poly does not have those (studio only) and BLT is short walk to MK. Poly has the monorail, boat, long walk to MK, plus a short walk to TTC to go to Epcot for Food and Wine. Prices are insane right now so I would not pay more than $140/145 for Poly points personally.

We were/are considering BWV as we love that area and the easy walk to Epcot and HS. But the 2042 date troubles me. We will likely get SSR as its the best value by far, and we like the resort and easy access to Disney Springs, but we would often try to stay elsewhere or do split stays at two resorts. A benefit of DVC is that they retain decent value so you can sell if after a few years circumstances change. Takes a bit of risk off the table. Also, DVC has several properties in various planning stages and WDW makes a lot of cash on new DVC resorts, so once those get going I think you will see more and more DVC benefits to make it easier to sell the new resorts.
 

dioxide45

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I know OP already went for a BLT contract, but I'd suggest Poly. 1. it's just a far superior property by almost any standard. The only upside to BLT is if you need 1 bedrooms Poly does not have those (studio only) and BLT is short walk to MK. Poly has the monorail, boat, long walk to MK, plus a short walk to TTC to go to Epcot for Food and Wine. Prices are insane right now so I would not pay more than $140/145 for Poly points personally.
I thought I had read that studios can be hard to book at Poly because they also clumped the bungalows into the same HOA? So a lot of people purchased points at Poly with the plan to book studios instead of bungalows. With the points at bungalows being so high, it means an imbalance of owners trying to book the studios?
 

Dean

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I thought I had read that studios can be hard to book at Poly because they also clumped the bungalows into the same HOA? So a lot of people purchased points at Poly with the plan to book studios instead of bungalows. With the points at bungalows being so high, it means an imbalance of owners trying to book the studios?
I think that applies to studios across all the resorts due to them being roughly half that of a 1 BR and generally sleeping the same capacity.
 

RookWDW

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Poly studios are not terrible to book. 11 month booking is easy. 7 mth starts getting hard. 5 or less is very hard.
 

TheHolleys87

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I thought I had read that studios can be hard to book at Poly because they also clumped the bungalows into the same HOA? So a lot of people purchased points at Poly with the plan to book studios instead of bungalows. With the points at bungalows being so high, it means an imbalance of owners trying to book the studios?
Prepandemic, Poly studios weren’t that hard to book because there are so many of them. Also, a lot of Poly owners try to trade out at 7 months for 1BR and larger villas elsewhere. I’m not sure what the situation is currently except that it looks like “book your home resort at 11 months and then hope to change at 7” for all the WDW DVC resorts.
 

tomandrobin

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Prepandemic, Poly studios weren’t that hard to book because there are so many of them. Also, a lot of Poly owners try to trade out at 7 months for 1BR and larger villas elsewhere. I’m not sure what the situation is currently except that it looks like “book your home resort at 11 months and then hope to change at 7” for all the WDW DVC resorts.
Yup.....Poly not having any 1-bedroom or 2-bedroom units means there is a lot of movement at the 7 month booking window. The bungalows are 2-bedrooms at "stupid" point costs.
 

djohn06

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I thought I had read that studios can be hard to book at Poly because they also clumped the bungalows into the same HOA? So a lot of people purchased points at Poly with the plan to book studios instead of bungalows. With the points at bungalows being so high, it means an imbalance of owners trying to book the studios?

That sounds more like Copper Creek. Poly has 360 studios. It's pretty easy to book there, except some fall dates when DVC demand is at it's highest. Even when booked, the waitlist works extremely well getting into Poly.

The bungalows points make up a sizable percent of points at Poly, but with so many people canceling in and out of Poly studios, you have a good chance of getting a reservation there.
 

chromeo

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I see OP went for BLT. There's an update here that is important. Disney has announced they will be adding theme park hours to "deluxe" hotels only starting in the Fall 2021. This includes DVC.

In the past pre-Covid, the Extra Magic Hours were for all Disney resort guests, and there's nothing wrong with the lower end (expensive!) Disney hotels on the Skyliner. But this is a big plus for me in the deluxe/DVC column. The EMH meant a lot to my family, and I'm glad to see that back. I've never spending 700+ for a deluxe Disney hotel room. The other argument to be made for DVC over other timeshare systems is LOCATION. If you can walk to a park (like BLT), that is a big plus in my book.
 
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