I mean at this point, why is anyone buying direct?

[tom1944]

There are plenty of us who bought and did not use resale value as part of the decision. It was still worth it even if that value fell.

For us, direct has been worth it because we want what it has to offer that resale can not. It’s not right for everyone, but we were fine with the potential loss we could suffer if an emergency happened and we had to sell

If that ever happens, it means we have more important things going on.

Now, I do think that things will consider to fall as long as DVD continues to stop the ROFR process. It hasn’t taken long.

I don’t know if we will see BLT go that low, but I do see us getting down to the $120 mark because if we start seeing that, I think buyers will buy hem quicker to stop the fall.

We shall see!

I just had an offer accepted at Saratoga after having no luck at BLT. I wanted a contract under 200 points with at least 450 points available for 2023 and 2024. At least some of them had to come from 2022 while at the same time not driving the price significantly higher than a number I had set in my head.


My next step will be to evaluate after our 2023 trip to see if we are satisfied with a 1 bedroom. If we feel we want a 2 bedroom I will look to buy 50 points direct at Riviera and then a contract of about 150 points resale at Riviera.

I will use the combined points alternate years. The 50 direct points can be used anywhere, and we would stay at Riveria every other year.

It all depends on prices and what we want.



.

 

[Sandisw]

I just had an offer accepted at Saratoga after having no luck at BLT. I wanted a contract under 200 points with at least 450 points available for 2023 and 2024. At least some of them had to come from 2022 while at the same time not driving the price significantly higher than a number I had set in my head.



.

Congrats! If you are traveling outside of the very busy times, getting BLT LV is possible at 7 months...its the fall and into December it becomes extremely tough for those who don't own there.

But, that is true for all near park resorts in December!

 

[tom1944]

Congrats! If you are traveling outside of the very busy times, getting BLT LV is possible at 7 months...its the fall and into December it becomes extremely tough for those who don't own there.

But, that is true for all near park resorts in December!

Thank you

We have a cashed trip booked for a 1br lake view at BLT for the end of August but we can cancel if we get the points before July.

I want to book using our points and then cancel the cash reservation. I figure everything should be done by May so it should be okay. The question will be what is available when we get our points.

Is there any chance of converting my cash reservation to one using my points? I figure no but it is okay if we just cancel and rebook what is available at the time.

 

[CarolynFH]

Is there any chance of converting my cash reservation to one using my points? I figure no but it is okay if we just cancel and rebook what is available at the time.

Sorry, no, they’re two separate inventories. If your first purchase had been direct, it’s possible your guide/DVD could make it happen as your “Welcome Home” visit, but that’s not an option for those who buy resale first. The good news is that the end of August isn’t usually a difficult time to book, so you’ll likely be able to switch.

 

[Sandisw]

Thank you

We have a cashed trip booked for a 1br lake view at BLT for the end of August but we can cancel if we get the points before July.

I want to book using our points and then cancel the cash reservation. I figure everything should be done by May so it should be okay. The question will be what is available when we get our points.

Is there any chance of converting my cash reservation to one using my points? I figure no but it is okay if we just cancel and rebook what is available at the time.

As mentioned, cash inventory is different. It comes from a few sources. It’s there fbexause of the points DVD owns, from trades by owners who booked things like cruises, ABD, etc and rooms not booked at 60 days out as breakage.

That time is a less popular time so there is always the chance of something being available by the time you get your points and close!

 

[tom1944]

Sorry, no, they’re two separate inventories. If your first purchase had been direct, it’s possible your guide/DVD could make it happen as your “Welcome Home” visit, but that’s not an option for those who buy resale first. The good news is that the end of August isn’t usually a difficult time to book, so you’ll likely be able to switch.

Thanks for confirming. I thought that would be the policy.

I will make it work.

 

[Cfabar1]

Totally agree with you…. We began our journey thinking we would be “Direct“ buyers. But the more and more we looked into it we couldn’t justify the Direct premium. Now with ROFR receding, the prices have really plummeted. Think about the active resorts selling differences:

For a 150 point initial contract:
Aulani - $110 (or less) resale vs. $206 direct (maybe less with incentives, depending on size of contract, etc.)
VGF - $165ish resale vs. $215 direct
Riviera - (admittedly with restrictions) $135ish resale vs. $216 direct

It’s really tough to not buy those resorts resale, especially if you LOVE your home resort, and don’t care too much about staying elsewhere. Or, maybe you take the savings and buy RIV resale AND points somewhere else.

I would be surprised if ROFR Comes back soon given Disney’s need to have cash right now…. We shall see…

 

[Stank]

No, it doesn't, but in a truly depressed economy, even poor quality jobs tend to fall off as well, Food service and other historically low wage / low skill set jobs tend to suffer as disposable income declines and wallets tighten.

Yet we have fewer full time workers today vs. last year and part time jobs are higher. Sounds like people are working multiple jobs to make ends meet. Credit card usage is skyrocketing.

Looking at DVC prices. Looking at used car prices. Looking at venture capital drying up. It doesn’t seem like we’re adding part time jobs and spending more on credit cards because we’re booming. Looks more like desperation and economic strain.

And why wouldn’t a recession follow Bitcoin at $70k and NFTs, the equivalent of clipart, selling for millions of dollars? And why would DVC do well in a recession?

 

[we"reofftoneverland]

517,000 new jobs, and unemployment at its lowest level since 1969...

You do realize that the cost of living on basics has almost doubled in a lot of cases in the last two years. We purchased a car in 2021 for 24k. Same exact car today is selling for almost 40k. Insane. Even if people have jobs they are cutting back anywhere they can.

 

[disneyfan123]

I was able to get VGF for $186/pt direct when they went on sale last year, vs $165 resale, so it cost me around 4k more direct. If I save $100/yr on discounts I'll make up the difference over the life of the contract, plus all the extra benefits of direct ownership, so it made sense to me.

Now, those discounts may go away, and I understand that, but the value of having unrestricted points plus blue card perks made it worthwhile. Not every situation is the same, and there are certainly advantages to going resale (my first contract was), especially when the price per point is a lot larger than what I was looking at, but there are sound reasons why buying direct makes sense, too.

 

[AnnaKristoff2013]

I don’t know if we will see BLT go that low, but I do see us getting down to the $120 mark because if we start seeing that, I think buyers will buy hem quicker to stop the fall.

I don’t see BLT dropping much below $120 either. It’s the hotel next to the Magic Kingdom, and it’s still got 40 years left on its’ life. I’ll certainly pick some up if it dips that low.

 

[NVDISFamily]

Sorry, no, they’re two separate inventories. If your first purchase had been direct, it’s possible your guide/DVD could make it happen as your “Welcome Home” visit, but that’s not an option for those who buy resale first. The good news is that the end of August isn’t usually a difficult time to book, so you’ll likely be able to switch.

Not sure if my guide was giving me false hope but I bought in direct almost immediately after passing ROFR and becoming a "resale member" and I was told I could get assistance booking a welcome home trip with my direct points as long as I had not yet maid a reservation for anything DVC on either membership. I ended up not needing to use the service as the trip we wanted to book was easy to do so on the site with plenty of rooms available...

 

[AstroBlasters]

So, I need to come back into this thread to make a bit of a confession …. I ended up buying some direct points this week.

One of my Aulani resale contracts fell through after the seller didn’t return the documents a month after I signed docs and wired money. Apparently the seller couldn’t come up with the cash they needed to close. They were planning on selling two contracts, but Disney foreclosed on the first one and so they are in a bad financial spot (the most important thing on a human level) and I am out months of waiting for a contract we needed to finalize our August Aulani trip.

We already have the flights for my family and my in-laws booked , excursions reserved, and day dreams of a Grand Vila Ocean View for a week in our heads. We also want to have enough points (outside of VGC) to go to WDW next year and go back to a GV OV with my Mom in 2025.

So…. I called up DVC and told them I was willing to buy 200 points (which got a $33pp incentive down to $184pp) if they would split it into 2 100 point contacts, match my March UY, and give me 2022 points that could be banked into 2023….

It was so fast and so easy. I clicked on some DocuSign documents, we got the points loaded, and I called member services to bank the 2022 March UY points and book the last nights of our trip. We put the purchase on our Disney card so we can get points that we’ll
use to pay dues and pay it off with some bonuses that hit later in the year.

Now we have the blue card benefits and can use the points to supplement our VGC points to stay at VDH when it opens. We can also go to TOTWL, all the little Aulani direct extras, park lounges…. I was 100% OK not getting those things as a resale only owner, but I am absolutely going to take advantage of them now.

I know it cost more and I could have just paid cash ($6280) for the room for two nights and picked up a resale contract for the future, but I just wanted it done and didn’t want the drawn out months of anxiety that resale causes.

So, let the record show that I now have 800 points total. 400 resale at Aulani, 200 direct at Aulani, and 200 resale at VGC.

Go figure….

 

[carli_h]

We thought we’d be resale and ended up direct with our contracts. We tried to get resale points in Jan 2019 before they put in the restrictions but ended up losing the points in RoFR. Tried again later same things happened.

Ended up falling for the Riviera walkthrough and ended up buying direct points when they were first released. Bought GFV2 when first released as we were shocked at the price point and developer discount. At this point as we have Riviera it was easier to have both direct points.

We wouldn’t buy at a sold out resort direct but if you get in early to new resorts/builds and buy small point contracts there isn’t a huge difference in cost - particularly at VGF as resale points are already listed at the same amount as we paid for our small point contracts.

Sometimes direct does make sense from a cost perspective. I’ll admit it isn’t often.

 

[Jayunit09]

Ive always wanted to add another 50 points to our direct contract (150) so we would have enough points to stay in pretty much any two bedroom every other year for school vacation week (2nd highest tier for both feb/april weeks). We could make it work with the 150 points but would have to do a 1 bedroom every now and then.

I watched for almost a year and tried to convince DW to get 50 more points. Finally a 50 point resale came up with our use year. Waiting for ROFR now and if it doesnt go through we will just buy direct at that point. Only a difference of 4k.

Also, if passing in time I have 27 points from 2021, 40 from 2022 (asked seller to bank) and 17 from 2023 all to rent out.

 

[Stank]

I don’t see BLT dropping much below $120 either. It’s the hotel next to the Magic Kingdom, and it’s still got 40 years left on its’ life. I’ll certainly pick some up if it dips that low.

You got a lot of people underwater on DVC contracts in the past 2 years. Buying at $200 only to see $120. That’s a decade worth of dues lost. If DVC Direct has heartburn cutting prices because recent buyers feel ripped off by $10pp, imagine what being underwater $50-80pp resale is like for a 2021 buyer. It’s a much different dynamic from buying in at $100, watching it double, only to drop to $120 and be like, “What a deal—that’s close to what I paid 10 years ago!”

It’s going to be very difficult for DVC market to rebound. Macroeconomic issues aside—the fact that credit card balances are up 20% from last year and the consumer is absolutely strained—many new buyers feel like they are “stuck.” It’s like housing—people buy and sell their primary residence no problem every 2-3 years as prices climb, which makes for poor community stability when neighbors come and go like it’s a rental complex. But as prices fall in housing, people aren’t anxious to transact. You’re left with sellers who have to sell for genuine purposes (moving to a new city, not hopping from one block to the next to trade up in home value). You then need to match a buyer who is likely the same circumstance—buying out of necessity, not luxury.

Same with DVC. The buy-side interest won’t be the same dynamic as before. It’s easy to add-on when your existing purchase “made you money” on paper. It’s the strange element of investments (or perceived investments). As the price of something you invest in goes up, you’re actually MORE eager to buy more at a higher price. It’s a greed element chasing investments higher. It’s tough to add-on when the dynamic is “Yes, my dues save me money on that hotel room….but my contract I bought last year is worth $15k less.” That’s a sour taste.

There will always be buyers of DVC, no doubt, and if BLT continues to drop I’ll be more interested. I just think the buyer’s market will continue. We already have record DVC contract listings and the biggest drop in DVC prices in history in the past 8 months. And the economy is only weakening.

 

[CarolynFH]

Not sure if my guide was giving me false hope but I bought in direct almost immediately after passing ROFR and becoming a "resale member" and I was told I could get assistance booking a welcome home trip with my direct points as long as I had not yet maid a reservation for anything DVC on either membership. I ended up not needing to use the service as the trip we wanted to book was easy to do so on the site with plenty of rooms available...

I guess we’ll never know! AFAIK, that’s not how it usually works, but again AFAIK the “welcome home visit” isn’t written down in policy anywhere so I wouldn’t be surprised if it varied depending on different factors such as home resort, number of points purchased direct, or other factors.

 

[tidefan]

You got a lot of people underwater on DVC contracts in the past 2 years. Buying at $200 only to see $120. That’s a decade worth of dues lost. If DVC Direct has heartburn cutting prices because recent buyers feel ripped off by $10pp, imagine what being underwater $50-80pp resale is like for a 2021 buyer. It’s a much different dynamic from buying in at $100, watching it double, only to drop to $120 and be like, “What a deal—that’s close to what I paid 10 years ago!”

It’s going to be very difficult for DVC market to rebound. Macroeconomic issues aside—the fact that credit card balances are up 20% from last year and the consumer is absolutely strained—many new buyers feel like they are “stuck.” It’s like housing—people buy and sell their primary residence no problem every 2-3 years as prices climb, which makes for poor community stability when neighbors come and go like it’s a rental complex. But as prices fall in housing, people aren’t anxious to transact. You’re left with sellers who have to sell for genuine purposes (moving to a new city, not hopping from one block to the next to trade up in home value). You then need to match a buyer who is likely the same circumstance—buying out of necessity, not luxury.

Same with DVC. The buy-side interest won’t be the same dynamic as before. It’s easy to add-on when your existing purchase “made you money” on paper. It’s the strange element of investments (or perceived investments). As the price of something you invest in goes up, you’re actually MORE eager to buy more at a higher price. It’s a greed element chasing investments higher. It’s tough to add-on when the dynamic is “Yes, my dues save me money on that hotel room….but my contract I bought last year is worth $15k less.” That’s a sour taste.

There will always be buyers of DVC, no doubt, and if BLT continues to drop I’ll be more interested. I just think the buyer’s market will continue. We already have record DVC contract listings and the biggest drop in DVC prices in history in the past 8 months. And the economy is only weakening.

I agree with you, however, I think that you may be getting to the point where your only going to see sellers that have to get out. From a personal perspective, I have been tinkering with the idea of unloading our GFV contract as we are not happy about the new units being rolled into the existing association, making getting deluxe studios (our preferred unit) much more difficult to get, even at 11 months. However, we don't need to sell. Seeing all these comments about bottom barrel pricing expectations just has me thinking that I won't put that contract up and either use them elsewhere (Aulani, VB or HHI) or just rent them out.

So, I would say I am sort of a "marginal" seller. I think that as the market softens (which, I don't disagree with your assessment), you will start to see the "marginal" sellers either sit out or just not move off of their contract price. If it sells it sells and if not, just carry on. Markets are cyclical. So, for us, may be better just to hold for a few more years then revisit selling down the road.

 

[tom1944]

People sell things at a loss all the time.

If you are not financially able to use your points and have difficulty successfully renting them you may as they say cut your losses and move on.

 

[AstroBlasters]

People sell things at a loss all the time.

If you are not financially able to use your points and have difficulty successfully renting them you may as they say cut your losses and move on.

I think one issue is people who purchased within the last few years with high interest loans. They are potentially behind on their dues and are underwater on their loan without the potential to make it up in their current economic circumstances. They can’t sell and will have to be foreclosed on.