We are in our mid 30's and see ourselves visiting Hawaii every other year as we live on the west coast (Oh Canada)
One bedroom cost lower than a 2 bedroom at GW.
One bedroom MF lower than 2 bedroom.
With having around 7200 pts, gives us flexibility to use points at BI for a 2 bedroom if we take the kids or a 1 bedroom in Oahu.
I looked at some resale sites and seeing a few in Las Vegas but not seeing a huge difference, maybe a big difference between list price vs actual sold price?
I am hesitant to buy in Florida as I don't see us ever going there.
Thoughts or suggestions?
There seems to be two camps: buy where you want to stay -OR- buy lowest maintenance fee per point.
In the first category, if you want to stay in a two bedroom at Lagoon, then you should buy a two bedroom at Lagoon.
In the second category, you should buy at Vegas (or possibly in Scottland, not sure if being part of the commonwealth means anything regarding ownership, but the exchange rates are currently favorable.. which may change). When you are looking for cheap points, you can go even cheaper and buy a smaller contract and just borrow the point difference every year from the following year.
There are pluses and minuses to each. The first will cost more, both up front and every year in maintenance fees. HOWEVER, you are significantly more likely to get the unit when you want it. The second will be significantly lower cost, but you may not be able to get what you want when you want.
We just (last week) bought at Valdoro specifically because we wanted a ski week. We paid more than I would have liked, possibly more than a Vegas unit, and our maintenance fees will be a lot more than a Vegas week. However, we have a little guy starting school next spring, and so being able to use on a specific calendar week will be important for schedules for the next decade and a half.
There is one other reason to buy where you want to go. Look at what is going on with the mega Marriott ILG merger. We also own a Hyatt, which becomes involved in that mess through ILG. There is no way of knowing how things will shake out, and it is possible the rules will change to make things less desirable for trading our Hyatt week. However, no matter what happens, they cannot take our deed to the unit we own, so we will always be able to use our unit week. If we owned something that was just a points trader, we might be really disappointed with the outcome of the merger / possible rules change. Not saying this will ever happen to HGVC, but no one knows the future... In a decade, things will probably look different.