My take on Riv’s resale relatively holding so far despite restrictions is:
-The restrictions don’t directly impact the direct buyers, so they’re not feeling any pain so to speak
-Relatively low resale supply, as the people who just bought it and can book 11mo Spaceship Earth / fireworks view “standard” Studios or 7mo sleep around at other resorts don’t perceive a disadvantage
-The listings that do happen are partly buoyed by low supply, and also by currently having the longest expiry at WDW. If you want to have a home resort near Epcot for F&W or whatever, people can cross-shop resale at BWV or BCV and see Riv gets a lot more than 18 years longevity for not much more
-Finally, but crucially, I think the restrictions cut both ways. Because any new (& in the last 4 years) resale buyer of the other resorts can’t use those points to book at Riv at all, there’s always going to be people seeking points that will let them stay there, either in addition to or instead of other resale contracts
I want to say VDH shares many of these traits that could keep resale from dropping like a rock. Yes, eventual resale points are restricted to VDH only. So? VGC demand & booking shows there’s not a lot of rooms available for the interest in staying at DLR. Many existing DVC owners would be interested in VDH resale at the right price, just to visit DLR, which they don’t get at 7mo from VGC. In other words, if the restricted resort is sufficiently desirable, restricting people from transferring their SAPs in means the resale points will be useful & desirable, and not just for the home resort booking window either.
I think that VDH and RIV are two completely different animals.
RIV is competing with all of the other non-restricted WDW resorts. Why would anyone want to buy RIV resale unless they absolutely 100% are sure that they only want to use points there. And to that end, you never know what may happen in the future. For instance, we bought VGF1 "knowing" that we would only 100% use our points there, however, DVD flipped the script and added the hotel rooms to the association, making our ownership there much more complicated to book (as we only like the original building). We actually thought about selling those points, except for...
When Aulani came on the scene, that has been a game-changer, for at least us. We have been on 6 "once-in-a-lifetime" trips to Hawaii, mainly due to having points that we can use at Aulani (and the factor of Southwest starting to fly to Hawaii...). If I purchase RIV resale, then I am shut out of using my points at Aulani, or anywhere else. I have zero flexibility. I have to book RIV.
VDH on the other hand is unique in that it is the only game in town (since VGC is so hard to get into), so if you want to stay on property, this is what you have. That said, it has a different competition than the WDW resorts in that off-site is so much more convenient than at WDW. Before the details came out for VDH, we were pretty sure that we would be in for a 50 point add on to get a studio for 4ish nights every 3 years. However, when they announced the dues and the TAT, those plans went out the window. We were there last month and stayed at the Element Anaheim, which was very nice, had a kitchenette, free breakfast, and a 12-minute walk to DL - all for under $200 per night. You just don't have that offsite in Orlando. It actually made us reassess our plans. Not only are we not buying VDH, we don't plan to use any of our points to stay there as we feel that it is not a great use of points (full clarification - that is how we feel, fully understand that there can be differing opinions on that and that is 100% OK!) as we for a 4 night studio stay would have around a $200 bill when we left. For us, we'll keep our points for WDW, Aulani, VB, and HHI use and just stay offsite in Anaheim. YMMV.
Not to beat a dead horse, but I also think that not having access to Aulani is going to be what hurts VDH resale. If I were on the West Coast and looking to buy in, I would definitely also want access to Aulani (since it is much easier to access from the West Coast). For direct buyers, of course that's not an issue, but for resale, I think it's going to be a bigger issue.
