After months of research, last week we finally became first time DVC members! We are now proud owners at Saratoga Springs Resort and couldn’t be more excited! In this post we’re going to explain why we chose resale, how much it cost us & our experience from start to finish. Here is our resale DVC journey….
What is DVC?
To put it simply, Disney Vacation Club is Disney’s version of a timeshare. But instead of purchasing week X at a certain unit, you purchase points which can be used at any time through the year at 15 Disney properties. These are:
Animal Kingdom Lodge Villas
Bay Lake Tower
Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge
Disney’s Beach Club Villas
Disney’s Boardwalk Villas Resort
The Villas at Disney’s Grand Floridian Resort & Spa
Disney’s Old Key West Resort
Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
Disney’s Riviera Resort
Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa
Disney’s Grand Californian
Disney’s Hilton Head Island Resort
Disney’s Vero Beach Resort
Disney’s Aulani Resort & Spa
Most are at Walt Disney World in Orlando, but there are DVC properties in Hawaii, South Carolina and Disneyland California.
Resale or direct?
Initially, we were set on buying direct with Disney. Although it’s significantly more expensive, it’s faster, easier and gets you more perks compared to buying resale. Those who purchase at least 100 points direct from Disney will receive a blue membership card, whereas anyone who purchases resale will receive a white digital membership card. Blue card benefits include:
Discounts on annual passes
Moonlight Magic events
Top of the World Lounge/Imagination Lounge
Shopping and dining discounts
Discounts on tickets
The use of all future DVC resorts
These are pretty cool benefits… but are they worth thousands of extra dollars? That depends. Is the ability to stay in future DVC resorts important to you? Will you be taking more than one trip per year to take advantage of the annual pass discount? Do you spend a lot on food & merch? If the answer to those is yes, consider buying direct.
For us, the answer was also yes. Wait, what?! Didn’t we just purchase a resale contract? Yes, we did. Since the start, we have planned to buy 160 points. After some thorough research we decided the best course of action would be to purchase the minimum 100 points from Disney, and the rest resale. This means we get the best of both worlds…. The benefits from purchasing direct AND a much cheaper price per point for the remaining 60 points.
As we mentioned previously, our home resort is Saratoga Springs Resort. Direct with Disney this costs $165 per point. We have paid $105 per point (note: we have purchased a small point contract – these come at a premium. If you’re buying 100+ points expect to pay less than $100 per point for SSR). On these 60 points we have saved $3600 dollars compared to buying direct. If we had decided the direct perks weren’t important to us and bought all 160 points resale, the savings would have been over $10,000!
So for anyone undecided on whether direct or resale is best for them, I’d definitely consider a split purchase like this. There really is no benefit in buying more than 100 points from Disney. If you are thinking of doing this, I’d advise buying the resale contract first. This is simply because it is easier to get Disney to match your current use year, than it is finding a good contract with a specific use year.
Our journey
We knew we wanted around 60 points, and we knew we wanted a contract with 2020 points available. We don’t tend to travel at exactly the same time of year, so use year wasn’t overly important to us. If you do tend to visit Walt Disney World at the same time every year it is advisable to do some research about which month you should choose as your use year. The contract we ultimately decided on was listed with DVC Resale Market. The asking price was $119pp and we offered $105pp, which was accepted without a counter offer. For anyone interested, here is our timeline.
22nd April: Offer accepted We found a listing we liked and emailed a broker we had previously spoken to. She passed along our offer to the sellers, and got back to us in less than an hour advising us that our offer had been accepted.
23rd April: Received & returned contract We received our contract promptly, signed it & returned it on the same day.
24th April: Contract sent to Disney for ROFR Disney get the right of first refusal on all resale contracts. This means that they can buy the contract for the price you have agreed with the seller.
19th May: Passed RORF After 25 days we heard back from our broker that we had passed ROFR.
8th June: Received closing documents We received our documents from the title company, along with an invoice for the total cost.
9th June: Returned closing documents & sent funds After signing the documents and sending them back we needed to arrange sending the remaining funds. We’re in the UK and it was a little tricky to find an easy way to do this with a good exchange rate. The title company could only accept a wire transfer and most places we found used an ACH. In the end we used Travelex Wire and had no issues.
16th June: Closing date Almost there! The purchased was closed and the deed was send to the county for recording.
18th June: Deed recorded You can check yourself to see when the deed is recorded at https://www.occompt.com/
So far we’re on day 66 since our offer was accepted. We don’t have our membership information just yet; this will probably take another week or two to arrive. It’s a long process… especially considering you get your points pretty much instantly when buying direct. But the savings make the wait worth it.
Cost
We purchased 60 points at $105 per point, or $6300. However we ended up paying more than this as there were various fees and extra costs which needed paying. Once your offer is accepted and you sign the contract, you must send a deposit to secure the purchase. The amount varies depending on which broker you use. We had to pay a minimum of 10% of the total price. We opted to send $2000 as the down payment, as this was the maximum credit card payment that was accepted. As we are from the UK, the best exchange rate available to us was our Halifax clarity credit card so it made sense to do it this way. There was a $45 credit card fee.
As our contract had 2020 points available to use, we the buyers were therefore responsible for paying the 2020 annual dues. Annual dues are to be paid every year throughout the length of the contract, and are used to maintain the property. For Saratoga Springs Resort, the dues are $6.77 per point in 2020. The cost to us for our 60 points was $406.20. Closing costs are also generally paid by the buyer, although this can be negotiated. Our closing fee was $352.40. Other charges listed on our final invoice were owner’s title insurance at $60, recording charges at $18.50, state tax at $44.10 and wire transfer fee at $45. So the total price we paid was $7271.20 (£5808.22)
Final thoughts
Although the resale process is long, it’s very straightforward and both our broker and title company couldn’t have been more helpful. We’re thrilled with our resort choice and can’t wait for our first DVC trip in February 2021. Our contract runs until 2054, so we now have 34 years of Disney holidays to look forward to!
Are you considering becoming a DVC member? If you have any comments or questions leave them below or message us on Twitter/Instagram at EarsToWalt.
See you real soon,
Josh & Becky
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