At what ppp does HHI become a viable option despite the high annual dues?

[takemetomickey]

I really like HHI. The annual dues put me off as they are so high. But I’m seeing some really good resale prices per point. Has anyone done the math on this?

 

[jcolvin5]

I think it depends on how long you plan to own there. What's your goal with owning HHI? The annual dues will eat up any buy in savings pretty quickly.

There are several unknowns as well.

How much dues will increase over the remaining years? A lot, but what will that look like?

If you ever want an "out" and try and resale, when does that become nearly impossible? Will there be any buyers with 10 years left on the contract if you want/need to sell?

I love the Hilton Head area, especially Sea Pines! It's an amazing vacation destination. There are a lot of options at HH right on the water, unlike Disney's resort. It's a nice place, but we personally didn't feel like owning was/is necessary.

Good luck!

 

[geargrinder]

Depends on the duration of ownership. You could buy, strip, and flip and come out ahead before the high dues crush the ownership costs.

 

[Disdreaming479]

I think it depends on how long you plan to own there. What's your goal with owning HHI? The annual dues will eat up any buy in savings pretty quickly.

There are several unknowns as well.

How much dues will increase over the remaining years? A lot, but what will that look like?

If you ever want an "out" and try and resale, when does that become nearly impossible? Will there be any buyers with 10 years left on the contract if you want/need to sell?

I love the Hilton Head area, especially Sea Pines! It's an amazing vacation destination. There are a lot of options at HH right on the water, unlike Disney's resort. It's a nice place, but we personally didn't feel like owning was/is necessary.

Good luck!

I recently looked online at booking options on HHI and looked at some villas at Sea Pines. Is that a location where you can park the car for several days and have plenty of walkable beach options and dining?

 

[AwfulWaffle]

If you travel during peak season then owning here is your only option outside of pure luck. Too far out of our way for us or we would probably pick up a small contract here to break up the drive. In the 40’s is pretty tempting and if you find one with double points then that’s an extra year of ownership. I would just calculate the point total for when your family travels times the current annual dues times and see how much savings it is from other resorts you normally go too instead. If that value over the next x number of years is more then you paid for the contract then you win.

 

[jcolvin5]

I recently looked online at booking options on HHI and looked at some villas at Sea Pines. Is that a location where you can park the car for several days and have plenty of walkable beach options and dining?

We only use our rental to travel to Savannah for a day trip each time we go. The rest is walking and biking everywhere.

 

[kilik64]

$0

 

[skier_pete]

IMO opinion there's two reasons to buy at a resort - (1) you want to stay there specifically and (2) you want a good value on points that you can use anywhere.

In the cases of HHI #1 is a valid reason to buy a contract there, even if you are not going to use it exclusively at HHI, if it's your primary goal to stay there than go for it.

#2 its never going to work. Let's compare HHI to SSR. You buy HHI at $65 / point versus SSR at $105 / point. We'll make a nice round # of 100 points so it's $6,500 versus $10,500 so I save $4000 by buying HHI.

Let's say I keep the contracts for 10 years and that the difference in dues - which is roughly $3 - stays the same.

So in 2034 I've spent $3000 more on dues for HHI - so I have still "saved" $1000 on the deal over 10 years.

But what do I have left in each case. In one case I have a HHI contract that is 8 years left on it and is likely all but worthless. Or I have an SSR (on WDW) property with 22 years left on it - which is still more than current 2042 contracts have now. So you likely can sell your HHI points for maybe $30 a point at this point, but your SSR points are probably still going for in the $100 range. So you sell your contract and now you make $3000 versus $10000, and you are now $6000 in the hole overall for buying HHI.

Or let's say we go all the way to 2042. It's even worse, you've now spent $5400 more in dues for HHI and you have a big zero to show for it. Your SSR contract you still have another 12 years to go, so probably selling around $60 a point at that point, and you either keep going, or you sell it and get $6000, and now you are looking at a $7400 loss over 18 years.

And this is all assuming no major assessment and/or hurricane hits HHI in the upcoming years creating a bigger gap in maintenance fees.

As others have said, the only "logical" way that it is better is if you are looking at a short term buy - buy the HHI contract cheap, use it for a couple years, and then resell for close to what you paid. It MIGHT work out for you that way versus say SSR., but the longer you keep it the worse it looks.

 

[takemetomickey]

Thank you very much for this post!!!!

 

[Wendysofftoneverland]

Depends on if you really want to stay there. I've considered some resale contracts that end up being about like owning the new Fort Wilderness cabins (fewer years on the HHI contract but it evens out since the Ft W buy-in is so high), so I'd say if it is somewhere you want to stay during the summer, buy HHI points just to use at HHI. We are still trying to figure out if we love HHI enough to commit to going there frequently enough to own.

 

[CarolynFH]

If you really want to vacation at HHI, on the island in general as opposed to specifically the DVC resort, you should investigate the other timeshares there too. There are several that are direct beachfront and very nice, like Marriott nice, and ownership there allows you to exchange into Marriott resorts elsewhere as well as possibly into DVC at WDW via Interval International. However, if you want to use your ownership at HHI to stay at WDW DVC resorts occasionally, then DVC might be the better choice. Although the Marriott resorts in Orlando are very nice too, and buyin to Marriott is likely less expensive than buyin to DVC.

IOW, what is your overall plan for using a timeshare on HHI?

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

I have been thinking of adding on points there for a while and have another thread on this forum about it. Everyone has me scared about the annual dues! We have 100 HHI points and will likely keep them. We do want to stay at HHI twice a year from here on out, but we mainly travel in the off-season and plan to get lots of 2-BRs which are easier to get at 7 months out. We may either keep our AKV contract and use it for 2-BRs in October or we may pay cash (which we just did for our trip this year and it was cheaper than what my points are worth). I’m planning on really watching the cash rates and availability to see what spring looks like. If it looks good we probably won’t add on or if we do it will be a small contract.

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

The dues will compound in a way that will make you wish you hadn’t purchased it.

 

[kilik64]

The dues will compound in a way that will make you wish you hadn’t purchased it.

Exactly. If you really want to stay there, better off trying to get in with sap or just rent. At some point in the not too distant future rentals will be below dues cost…

Apparently that time is now. Cost just in dues to stay during our fall break 10/6 to 10/12 is 2500 for 2br (11.314 x 221 points) vs getting a 2br direct from Disney for 2212.10.

Too lazy to look up what a dvc rental would be but probably less than Disney direct otherwise why rent?

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

Exactly. If you really want to stay there, better off trying to get in with sap or just rent. At some point in the not too distant future rentals will be below dues cost…

Apparently that time is now. Cost just in dues to stay during our fall break 10/6 to 10/12 is 2500 for 2br (11.314 x 221 points) vs getting a 2br direct from Disney for 2212.10.

Too lazy to look up what a dvc rental would be but probably less than Disney direct otherwise why rent?

I wonder if that is just an off-season thing. I haven't checked rates for the summer since we don't go then, but once we start dealing with school schedules with future grandkids we may have to. I know points are higher in the summer, but I'm sure cash rates are, too. It may be the same scenario.

 

[hhisc16]

I really like HHI. The annual dues put me off as they are so high. But I’m seeing some really good resale prices per point. Has anyone done the math on this?

If you like dhhir, buy hhi points to use there only.

We use our hhi points for tough 11 month window dates.

We also check the cash prices at hhi for when we run out of hhi points

 

[hhisc16]

I wonder if that is just an off-season thing. I haven't checked rates for the summer since we don't go then, but once we start dealing with school schedules with future grandkids we may have to. I know points are higher in the summer, but I'm sure cash rates are, too. It may be the same scenario.

You may be able to find a 2 bedroom for a night or two on cash. Studio/1 bed are tough to find. Gv are never available on cash at hhi.

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

If you like dhhir, buy hhi points to use there only.

We use our hhi points for tough 11 month window dates.

We also check the cash prices at hhi for when we run out of hhi points

You may be able to find a 2 bedroom for a night or two on cash. Studio/1 bed are tough to find. Gv are never available on cash at hhi.

I was able to get a 1-BR for four nights in October on cash, and there were several nights around my dates that I could have booked. Maybe I just lucked out. Now when I look, 2-BRs are the only thing available. The GV was never available.

I'm thinking we will want to keep our 100 HHI points for times that we might have to go in the summer or for banking and borrowing to get a GV and then booking on cash during the off-season. 100 points won't get us far though, so whether to add a small resale is what I'm trying to decide.

 

[Cfabar1]

To me HHI is tough to justify. Around $40 sounds right - which is very hard to get.

Also, HHI has some clear minuses to me:
1. Not directly on the beach
2. No sit-down dining in the building - takes away that “easy resort” feel.
3. Not possible to do a WDW excursion easily

To me, VB wins out over HHI on all these fronts. Now that said, HHI is a more touristy place than VB, so as a place to vacation, HHI might be preferable to VB, but as others have pointed out - why not consider booking through Interval Getaways a week at the Marriott or if you just need a normal hotel room go to the Westin. The accommodations are likely to be a cut above what you’d otherwise get at Disney - more pools, on the beach, better dining options, better mattresses, etc. And you won’t be stuck “owning” this thing.

In the part of town it is in, Disney VB has no direct competition, but I’d be cautious about owning there too.. Maybe just buy SSR points and gamble on the 7 month window.

 

[DisneyStarWisher]

To me HHI is tough to justify. Around $40 sounds right - which is very hard to get.

Also, HHI has some clear minuses to me:
1. Not directly on the beach
2. No sit-down dining in the building - takes away that “easy resort” feel.
3. Not possible to do a WDW excursion easily

To me, VB wins out over HHI on all these fronts. Now that said, HHI is a more touristy place than VB, so as a place to vacation, HHI might be preferable to VB, but as others have pointed out - why not consider booking through Interval Getaways a week at the Marriott or if you just need a normal hotel room go to the Westin. The accommodations are likely to be a cut above what you’d otherwise get at Disney - more pools, on the beach, better dining options, better mattresses, etc. And you won’t be stuck “owning” this thing.

In the part of town it is in, Disney VB has no direct competition, but I’d be cautious about owning there too.. Maybe just buy SSR points and gamble on the 7 month window.

Have you been to Disney’s HHI resort?

Not meaning to get into a debate, but OP has expressed liking it so I’m not sure why you seem to want to push VB. OP might be like me—wants to vacation at HHI often and has no interest in VB (one and done for us). OP’s question is if it’s worth it to buy HHI points, not should we buy HHI or VB.