UPDATE in post #34: "Time Sensitive Information about Your Disney Vacation Club Membership"

[Sandisw]

Why wouldn't they want the 2042s to just hold? They get a free foreclosure in 2042. The best explanation I can come up with is that this is short term thinking because they mark it up and sell it as extended, and RIV is going so badly they need to go get some of that great OKW.

This email seems pretty desperate, when they have millions of Aulani and RIV points just sitting around. The more I think about it the less it makes sense. Unless they are targeting people with paperwork issues on the quitclaim...

I don’t think we know if they can legally foreclose in 2042. When the ground lease was extended, the notion is it extended for all and thus a quit claim was offered for those to sign. And why they make owners sign to sell.

To me, it’s the start of getting thing back to end up with less owners getting to extend 2057 for no more than cost of dues.

 

[DebbieB]

Why not? It would be like repossessing half of BR or BC right now. Mark it up and sell it. Or rent it. Get rid of that chart and all those cheap legacy buyers.

i don’t know how easy it would be to sell a 50 year old resort with 15 years left.

 

[AaronEuth]

Why not? It would be like repossessing half of BR or BC right now. Mark it up and sell it. Or rent it. Get rid of that chart and all those cheap legacy buyers.

Well they can't get rid of the chart, because the 2057 owners are still there, owning small percents of every unit. Now if they could manage to acquire an entire section, without a single 2057 owner having any part of a unit, then they maybe can rebrand and do that.

Disney has demonstrated that they consider it financially better to build time share deluxe resorts, and get us to pay for all the upkeep. That's why they have only built one new non DVC resort in almost a decade (Destino) and keep converting existing cash hotels to DVC. Their goal has been not not own as much of their resorts as possible. So I think it's logical they don't want to own a huge chunk of OKW at once. The whole thing in 2057, absolutely, but not pieces in 2042.

OKW is also very different than BC, BW, and Wilderness. Those are extremely proximate to the parks, so they are easy to market. While I own and love OKW, it is definitely a harder sell than having a backdoor to Epcot, boat to MK, or a boat to Hollywood.

 

[AdamsMum]

Doc, are you a 2042 expiration date owner? I am just wondering if this is brought about mainly because of a shortage of points for DVD to sell at OKW, or if it is also something being done with the hope of further reducing the number of 2042 owners, in which case it may have been sent only to 2042 owners.

I think this is more likely than them having any interest in relieving a member of their liability. In addition to that, if people do sell directly back to them, they get cheap points to resell at 3 x their cost. Two birds, one stone!

 

[AdamsMum]

Why not? It would be like repossessing half of BR or BC right now. Mark it up and sell it. Or rent it. Get rid of that chart and all those cheap legacy buyers.

But it isn't BW/BC or BRV. Nowhere near as poplular.

 

[Lee Matthews]

Surprised Disney doesn’t do Resale themselves too? Strip the direct perks still but allow the process to be as quick as buying direct?

 

[Sandisw]

Surprised Disney doesn’t do Resale themselves too? Strip the direct perks still but allow the process to be as quick as buying direct?

They would basically have to lower direct prices overall which is not what they want or they would have not made choices they have made.

Personally, I believe the pandemic threw a wrench in the long term plan and why we are seeing VGF conversion vs building of Reflections.

I think the big wrench is to the resale restrictions since it will be so much longer now to have one of those “future” resorts with them at WDW.

It will be interesting to see if we can gather data on whether those with 2042 who bought resale get the offer as those owners bought one with a quit claim deed already signed…or if it is those who bought originally.

 

[com_op_2000]

I have both original bought OKW points from "93 and '98 and a resale I bought in '09.
I they are not extended, If I am still standing in '42, I believe by that time I will have had my fill of Disney.
If not my daughters will take them over and use them until that time.
I have not received the letter/e-mail from DVC.

 

[CraigInPA]

Lots of interesting conjecture, so I'll add mine...

Some DVC executive has realized that they aren't able to get enough OKW through ROFR to meet demand and decided that they might be able to obtain some by sending out a letter. He may have even pitched the idea on the basis of paying less than market rate for those contracts to his colleagues, and done a nifty power point showing the tons of money to be made in arbitrage.

 

[Brian Noble]

Basically, I read this as they might go 10% over whatever their ROFR level is at any given time to purchase your contracts from them.

I think this is optimistic. I think this is instead in reference to whatever program they might (or might not) have if someone calls them and wants to dispose of their membership. I further suspect this will be well below market rates.

This is likely a combination of (a) wanting to turn over 2042 OKW deeds and (b) trying to head off the Viking Ship post-card companies. These companies prey on uninformed timeshare owners to pressure them into paying to divest themselves from a timeshare they don't use--much as the original sales process pressured them into buying something. The more "ethical" ones then transfer the timeshare (for an exorbitant fee) into a shell company that only holds the deeds, but never pays fees on them. Eventually, that company declares bankruptcy, and they do it all over again, leaving the management company holding the bag for those deeds in the process. OKW is the oldest resort, so probably has the largest fraction of "vulnerable" owners.

Before any of you say that no DVC owner would ever do this, because of course they understand the resale market exists and is fluid, think back to some of the conversations you've had with other Members in the hot tub.

Why wouldn't they want the 2042s to just hold? They get a free foreclosure in 2042.

I'd rather spread my sales effort for an older resort that isn't particularly flashy across earlier years farther away from its expiration date. I'd especially want to do that in a market where I've been converting cash hotel rooms into DVC ownerships. I definitely don't want to reverse that trend!

 

[zavandor]

I agree with PP, I think Webmasterdoc will laugh at the offer they'll give him, it will be way under market price.

 

[cedricandsophie]

Question: Has anyone who bought resale received this email? We are resale (2042) owners, so quitclaim would have been resolved when we purchased, and we did not receive the email.

We bought over 200 OKW points resale two years ago that have the extended date. And we got the note but we also have points at many other resorts,none of which have been extended.

 

[RoseGold]

Surprised Disney doesn’t do Resale themselves too? Strip the direct perks still but allow the process to be as quick as buying direct?

I'm surprised they didn't do the reverse and let you pay to change them back into developer points. This can be done in other timeshare systems.

If it were going to happen in DVC, I'd think it would be now, when they desperately need money and Blue Card costs them nothing anyway.

 

[WebmasterDoc]

Just off the phone with DVC Quailty Assurance.

After establishing that we are DVC owners it was an interesting conversation.

In spite of my speculation about what the offer might be, it was considerably lower. They are current offering $80 - 88 per point for OKW. They mentioned that we could likely do better using a third party broker and suggested that if we have any interest they will provide a non-binding offer (good for 7 days) to give us an opportunity to "test the market".

I was surprised to learn that they will re-purchase contracts from "most" DVC Resorts except what they are actively selling. The currently will NOT repurchase Aulani or Riviera contracts - and presently have a "hold" on repurchasing Poly, VB, VGF and BCV. There are some Use Years they are not looking for currently (although none at OKW).

He offered no suggestion that they were interested in OKW to minimize the # of 2042 contracts.

Interesting and pleasant conversation. This "active" repurchase program just began yesterday.

 

[The Jackal]

Wow. So they are just trying to buy back points cheap, instead of the higher priced resale ROFR process. Did they forget DVC is the reason why resale prices are getting higher. Keep raising direct prices, resale goes up.

 

[hhisc16]

Just off the phone with DVC Quailty Assurance.

After establishing that we are DVC owners it was an interesting conversation.

In spite of my speculation about what the offer might be, it was considerably lower. They are current offering $80 - 88 per point for OKW. They mentioned that we could likely do better using a third party broker and suggested that if we have any interest they will provide a non-binding offer (good for 7 days) to give us an opportunity to "test the market".

I was surprised to learn that they will re-purchase contracts from "most" DVC Resorts except what they are actively selling. The currently will NOT repurchase Aulani or Riviera contracts - and presently have a "hold" on repurchasing Poly, VB, VGF and BCV. There are some Use Years they are not looking for currently (although none at OKW).

He offered no suggestion that they were interested in OKW to minimize the # of 2042 contracts.

Interesting and pleasant conversation. This "active" repurchase program just began yesterday.

Did they mention willing to purchase back HHI?

Just curious since I have seen an increase in HHI resale on the site sponsor page.

 

[jhglassman]

So it seems like they don’t care about those members threatening to sell DVC with all the lack of perks, changes going on. They are more than happy to buy contracts back.

To be fair, you would be selling it to some other person that is going to go and spend $.

 

[Brian Noble]

They are current offering $80 - 88 per point for OKW.

That's a little higher than what I thought it would be. I was thinking about 1/3 of the retail sales price, so more like $55ish.

I was surprised to learn that they will re-purchase contracts from "most" DVC Resorts except what they are actively selling.

This seems to lend credence to the Viking Ship hypothesis rather than the recycle-OKW-expirations idea.

Did they forget DVC is the reason why resale prices are getting higher. Keep raising direct prices, resale goes up.

Demand is not inelastic.

 

[WebmasterDoc]

Did they mention willing to purchase back HHI?

Just curious since I have seen an increase in HHI resale on the site sponsor page.

They made no specific mention about HH, but did not include that in the resorts they are currently NOT repurchasing (Poly, VB, VGF, and BCV).

 

[zavandor]

Just off the phone with DVC Quailty Assurance.

After establishing that we are DVC owners it was an interesting conversation.

In spite of my speculation about what the offer might be, it was considerably lower. They are current offering $80 - 88 per point for OKW. They mentioned that we could likely do better using a third party broker and suggested that if we have any interest they will provide a non-binding offer (good for 7 days) to give us an opportunity to "test the market".

I was surprised to learn that they will re-purchase contracts from "most" DVC Resorts except what they are actively selling. The currently will NOT repurchase Aulani or Riviera contracts - and presently have a "hold" on repurchasing Poly, VB, VGF and BCV. There are some Use Years they are not looking for currently (although none at OKW).

He offered no suggestion that they were interested in OKW to minimize the # of 2042 contracts.

Interesting and pleasant conversation. This "active" repurchase program just began yesterday.

It's actually more than I though. If market value is currently just over $100, once you factor broker fees, $88 is only 10-15% less. I can see someone with a very large contract, so difficult to sell on the market, thinking about this.