RESALE POLICY CHANGE!

[southerngirl528]

What does that have to do with renting?

My take on those comments is how often one can try to book a longer rez (say, longer than 5 or 6 nights) and have a "hole" in the middle. I daresay many of us members here have had that happen. I have a W/L right now that has been in place for months because I have a "hole" in the middle of my November rez. Whether it is because members have booked shorter stays or not, I do not know. But because DVC is a points based TS with no minimum nights, this kind of problem is far more common than any traditional TS that has full week stays ONLY with only weekend day check-in days. I own a few traditional TS and that is how they work. You can only check in on Fri, Sat or Sunday and your rez is automatically 7 nights.

 

[hayesdvc]

On the NOTIFICATION section of the web site, they are two new links appearing on my screen. The one for the policy change letter from Potrock, however, the other one is blank (except the link Mark as Read). Is this the view everyone is seeing? I am nervous what another notification might say.

 

[DisDadDVC]

I have no idea what you're trying to say.

I don't think anyone does.

 

[Coamfo]

I wish that Disney would make the new policy changes as clear as clear can be when posting them. My parents just signed a resale for BWV on 4/2 (on my recommendation) and it was just sent to ROFR this morning. Upon reading these comments, it appears they will not be grandfathered in. However, after calling MS, speaking to a supervisor, and then calling our original DVC guide we were assured that they are going by the contract SIGNED date. So going by that, they should be fine. I just wish I was confident in what they were told, as I will feel awful for recommending this to them when they won't get the AP or TIW discount that is so appealing to their vacation needs.

 

[Jfine]

This is DVD and Disney's huge mistake here: resale buyers aren't competition, they're new customers.

1. As new DVC members, resale buyers are probably far more enthusiastic about coming and spending money than the person they bought from.

2. They're far less likely to rent out their points than the former owners, and that means less competition in that market.

3. Many owners end up buying add on points, and many do that direct. I did.

I bought BCV resale. I would not have justified buying direct. But. After being a member and using and enjoying the product, I DID buy direct, a fixed week at Poly. I almost certainly wouldn't have bought resale with these restrictions in place.

So, had these restrictions applied to me, they would have cost Disney/DVC years of APs and TIW, 8 trips and counting to WDW, a 168 point direct contract, dozens of meals and other expenses, etc etc.

I wasn't their competition when I bought resale. As a direct result, I've been their customer to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars. That's just me.

Disney/DVC has this backwards, and it's a damned shame. It's a shame for us. It's a shame for future DVC members. It's a shame on Disney/DVC.

I wish I could like this more than once.

 

[DisDadDVC]

Take a real simple look..
Let's say one room has a total of 52 owners and 52 weeks, 10 people book 3 day stays and the other 42 want a full week, How many people are going to be without a room in that year if all are vacationing one week each

btw, the answer to your "simple look" is 0. You might want to brush up on your "statistics" at "google".

 

[mab2012]

Are you serious,?! So if you take up two days in a week via a short term rental and then I make a reservation for a week at another resort due to not having a full week then 5 days are potentially dead now multiply that times 100 short terms, Get it now?

Wow, such a dramatic tone.

a. If I have 100 points, it doesn't matter whether I use them for a 3-night 1BD stay, or rent them to someone else who does. It's still a 3-night stay.
b. You're assuming that more people want full week stays than partial week stays. I have no idea why you believe that.
c. Have you looked at availability? Most of the resorts are fully booked within a month or so of any given arrival date. So these "dead days" that you're assuming to exist simply don't. Even the one or two night openings get snapped up, either by people who are doing split stays (and that's not always forced - some people *like* them, for a variety of reasons), or by people who are just taking a short trip, or by people who are travelling last minute and will take whatever they can get, or by people who can only afford a few days onsite, even with DVC. Maybe this doesn't work well with your personal travel preferences. If that's the case, I would suggest that perhaps DVC was not the best choice for you. It's the nature of timeshares - you trade flexibility for affordability.

If DVC was concerned about "short-term" stays, they'd simply enforce a minimum reservation length. Lots of other timeshare systems do it.

 

[DVCMinnie2532]

On the NOTIFICATION section of the web site, they are two new links appearing on my screen. The one for the policy change letter from Potrock, however, the other one is blank (except the link Mark as Read). Is this the view everyone is seeing? I am nervous what another notification might say.

 

[DVCMinnie2532]

I have the same thing!

 

[Eric Topp]

Keep in mind that their entire business model just absorbed a body blow. Of course they're going to make it sound as minimal as possible.

"Body Blow"? Doubtful. We need to let this play out and see what the real impact is despite all the "what if reviews". This change is minimal as anything that would really reduce the value or go against the law would go to court. My person told me that changes were coming a while ago (~8 months). I posted to a few sites and everyone said it was just gossip. Regardless, this will have little impact except to/for the uninformed buyer. Last time I checked, most of the other resorts were also closed (wait list) so how do you buy at Beach Club except for the secondary market?

 

[msjprincess]

And? What does this have to do with renting? Are you making the completely incorrect assumption that owners only want full weeks?

I don't even remember the last time I went for exactly a week. I have 2 trips planned for next year. One for 3 nights and a 10 night trip.

 

[_auroraborealis_]

My take on those comments is how often one can try to book a longer rez (say, longer than 5 or 6 nights) and have a "hole" in the middle. I daresay many of us members here have had that happen. I have a W/L right now that has been in place for months because I have a "hole" in the middle of my November rez. Whether it is because members have booked shorter stays or not, I do not know. But because DVC is a points based TS with no minimum nights, this kind of problem is far more common than any traditional TS that has full week stays ONLY with only weekend day check-in days.

DVC was built to allow that, though. It's quite frequently mentioned by guides as a feature of the points system. It's not really a problem to be solved, by this point, as that tendency has certainly been seen repeatedly since they added the second resort.

 

[southerngirl528]

Last time I checked, most of the other resorts were also closed so how do you buy at Beach Club except for the secondary market?

There are wait lists for some of the sold-out resorts. One would have to check with their DVC guide to see what/if is available. DVC can pick up sold-out inventory anytime they choose through ROFR. I don't know why they don't do it more often.

 

[southerngirl528]

DVC was built to allow that, though.

And the points system and flexibility is one of the main reasons I purchased and have added on. But like anything else there are always ups and downs. For example, in hindsight I would have bought fixed week at one of my other TS if I knew then what I know now. There IS no perfect TS.

 

[quinnc19]

Perhaps, but they certainly didn't go down after the first series of resale restrictions.

Well this sucks. I have been waiting on my last rental to clear in May before selling my DVC this is going to make the resale prices go down I assume...

 

[skier_pete]

OK - I read through the whole thread and compiled my thoughts:

1) The main reason is to FAVOR buying from Disney. Disney doesn't really give a poop about a contract once it's sold it, so they don't really care about resale that much. Buy raising the direct buy prices so high so fast, they are certainly having a harder and harder time selling, and that's with a prime property like the Poly. Wait until they try and sell Wilderness Lodge at $180 a point.

2) The only piece that could be favorable to Disney is that IF it drives down resale contracts, it COULD rebuy these contracts for less, and then resell. They could be looking at pumping up demand for the other resorts Direct buy contracts.

3) The lack of a discount AP on the resale contracts could be HUGE. If you think about that you can save $200 per person up to 8 people - that's $1600 a year in lost savings. That's a LOT. Also, this loss is a lot WORSE than the 2011 cutbacks, where they pulled something that most people had probably figured out wasn't a good benefit anyways.

4) I do believe this will adversely affect the pricing of resale contracts, particularly those for the more popular/expensive resorts. Whose going to pay $130 / point for a contract at BLT when they don't get many of the member perks. It'll probably affect the cheaper contracts less, but again I think you'll see some affect. There's probably a good % of people buying into resale deals after seeing the Direct presentation. Those on the fence may be pushed back to Disney when they see this loss of benefits. I could see a $10-20 drop in contract values over the next year. Of course, that could happen in a soft economy market. Most people won't think of the "trick" of adding on 25 points through Disney because coming in as new members they won't know enough to do it. (Selfishly I sort of hope prices are driven down. I'd really like to add a small contract but at current prices won't do it.)

5) I have to be at least a LITTLE thankful that they are grandfathering everyone in. Seems to me they could easily say "everyone that ever bought resale doesn't get it". To me the fact that they didn't go that route tells me it's more about future sales then screwing the resale buyer. If they didn't grandfather and just pulled it from everyone, that would totally CRUSH resale sales - knowing that Disney was pulling perks from a certain portion of owners.

 

[MaryLovesPoohBear]

"Body Blow"? Doubtful. We need to let this play out and see what the real impact is but despite all the "what if reviews". This change is minimal as anything that would really reduce the value or go against the law would go to court. My person told me that changes were coming a while ago (~8 months). I posted to a few sites and everyone said it was just gossip. Regardless, this will have little impact except to/for the uninformed buyer. Last time I checked, most of the other resorts were also closed so how do you buy at Beach Club except for the secondary market?

I heard the same thing. But everyone seemed so sure that it was just a rumor.

Guess it wasn't.

 

[ColonialMouse]

While I understand folks are upset, truth is almost everyone on these forums is grandfathered in so they are not impacted at all by the new changes. And this is a business not a benevolent organization. If DVC did not stay solvent, where would we as members be? And as I mentioned earlier, most other TS have restrictions for their owners that bought resale. DVC is not doing some dastardly, unheard of deed. And everyone can still use their membership for what is touted here so often: use it to stay at DVC resorts. That has not changed.

It impacts in terms of the resale value of the contracts. I wouldn't buy a contract with the plan of selling it, but I literally had a contract sent for ROFR today. So now in addition to wondering if the value of the points just dropped 20%, I have to wonder if 10 years from now all we need are studios, will I be able to sell one of our contracts for a decent amount of money, or will I have to rent most of the points to get my money back, or will that be restricted more? I'd like to believe owning DVC isn't a risky investment---and while we've all been aware DVD could eliminate a lot of benefits, I guess I hadn't expected them to eliminate the DVC benefit category entirely, and I don't know what that means yet.

Bruce

 

[DisDadDVC]

I heard the same thing. But everyone seemed so sure that it was just a rumor.

Guess it wasn't.

The thing is with all these "rumors" are that even a broken clock is right twice a day. I highly doubt this decision was made 8 months ago.

 

[ziravan]

Yes, DVC is still selling sold out resorts. And they could readily do a lot more of it. There are waitlists for many of the sold-out resorts. I know of brand new members that bought sold-out resorts direct from DVC. I think DVC has let the resale market be too soft. JMHO.




Tons of other TS do charge for things like locking off a 2 bedroom. I have to pay almost a $100 just for the privilege to lock off the 2 bdrm villas I own with Marriott. DVC does not have a lot of the charges that other TS do. No fees to bank either.

It is becoming almost amusing that there's so much gnashing of teeth here when virtually everyone howling is NOT impacted by the new rules for resales going forward. If you already own, you are NOT impacted by the new stuff.

I was a huge skeptic when I did our DVC tour way back when. DVC was in its infancy. I have more than the "typical" 2 kids so we needed either 2 rooms or cabin/villa type accommodations. I did the math with all sorts of projections and after days of number crunching bought it with well over 200 points. Quickly added on more. And I've added on multiple times. I get to stay in Grand Villas I could never afford. I've been to Aulani multiple times in Ocean View accommodations that I would not be able to afford if I was not a member. Yes. I have done the math of what my dues are costing me as compared to cash rates with my initial investment factored in. I broke even over 15 years ago. I don't love everything about DVC and I don't always love the changes but I love my membership and what I have been able to do because of it. And even though my membership ends in 2042, that is a heck of a lot of years remaining to keep enjoying truly outstanding accommodations with my family. If I was not happy, I would sell. As it stands, I am among many very happy DVC campers.

The issue isn't whether it impacts us. It might, but that's not the point.

The point is what this says about how DVC sees us.

I understand that business is business. But. It's also good business to treat your customers like you value them. That's especially true with Disney, a brand associated with treating its customers magically. I suppose that's just legacy now.