As you may or may not know (if you follow me on instagram you probably saw!) my husband and I have recently become DVC owners! After a lot of research and saving we finally purchased a resale contract at Animal Kingdom Lodge for 180 points.
We knew we wanted to buy DVC for a long time, and we saved up for awhile for it. Resale was 100% the right choice for us, and I started monitoring different companies that sold it. But I had no idea what to expect once we actually made an offer! You’re buying real estate so it’s a whole process, but how long would it take? What should I expect? I didn’t know at the time, but now that I’ve been through it I thought I would write up our experience for anyone else wondering the same thing!
Note: This article is not about whether you should buy resale or direct. That’s a totally different article (and honestly, one that many people have already written!). This is intended for people who think they want to buy resale and are curious about how the process actually works. Even with the new DVC rules going into effect on January 19th I still personally think buying resale is your better option – but if you want me to write a post on that just let me know!
So here’s what will most likely happen if you’re curious about the process of buying DVC resale…
Follow and Research prices
There are a ton of websites that sell DVC contracts resale. I asked around from friends who had purchased before and got a list of which ones were reputable. I then subscribed to their email alerts of new contacts and tracked these for probably close to a year. The ones I followed were:
We ended up purchasing from The Timeshare Store, so I can recommend them first hand. The other ones I’ve also heard very good things about. I knew I was looking for Animal Kingdom Lodge, and somewhere between 125-200 points depending on price. Because I was monitoring the price per point for so long, I knew about how much I was willing to pay and jumped on it when I found the opportunity.
Make an Offer
The contract that we purchased was $100 per point for 180 points at Animal Kingdom Lodge. The resale contract was posted on July 8th and I emailed with the offer on July 10th. I got the response that it was accepted on July 11th. Because the offer I made was at asking price we didn’t need to do any negotiations or wait for other offers.
Pay for It
Yes, we’re talking about a lot of money here. We saved for about 5 years with part of our savings specifically allotted to DVC, so we had all of the money for it. There are financing options available, but I personally do not recommend financing DVC. You’re then paying interest on top of everything else. There are certain things in our life that may require taking out loans, like higher education and mortgages, but I do not believe vacation travels are one of them.
Bottom line: if you make an offer, be prepared to have the money pretty quickly.
Fill out initial paperwork
The Timeshare Store sent me a contract on July 11th when they accepted the offer. I had everything filled out and returned by July 13th. At this time we also paid a deposit of $1800 (10%). Everything was then sent off to Disney for Right of First Refusal.
Right of First Refusal (RoFR) means that Disney has the opportunity to buy back the contract themselves. If they think it is being sold for too low of a price, they’ll buy it back and sell it themselves. So we had to wait for Disney, and they have 30 days.
On August 21st we got a notice that a new contract number was needed and we had to fill out an updated contract. I have no idea why this happened, but it meant we had to start the whole RoFR process again, which added about a month to our timeline of buying DVC (and kept us in suspense!)
Finally, on September 17th we were told Disney waived their RoFR – meaning the sale could officially go through!
Final Documents
Guess what – more paperwork! Once the sale was ready to go through we had more documents to fill out. Both the seller and the buyer are asked to return their documents ASAP so they can be sent to Disney, who then usually takes about 14-21 days for the transfer to go through.
On September 26th we received our documents from the Mason Title and Escrow Company. This was also when we had to give the remainder or our payment (wire transfer or cashier’s check).
I returned all documents and the check on September 27th. We were informed closing was scheduled to take place between 10/26-11/16.
Waiting
Turns out the seller wasn’t as on the ball as we were, because on November 2nd we got an email from our liason at The Timeshare Store that the seller still had not returned their final documents. They dropped every excuse in the book – they couldn’t find a notary, they were having bad weather and couldn’t send the documents out. Note that it took them a month and a half. Finally, on November 14th, the seller returned their documents and everything could be sent to Disney.
It Becomes Official
On December 10th we received an email with the official owner’s policy. Around that time we also received documents in the mail for setting up our DVC account online. We had to call to activate it, but then we were on and it was real! We also got our DVC car magnets in the mail – that certainly makes it feel a bit more real!
Book your Stay!
Once you’ve got the points, you can start using them! We booked our first stay with our DVC points just last week. We’ll be at Animal Kingdom Lodge the first week of December. Though we’ve stayed there before, it will be extra special this time now that we’re actually owners. When they say “Welcome Home,” it’s really true!
Have you thought about buying DVC? Which DVC resort is your favorite?
I don’t think I fully know what DVC is.
Hi Becky!
I have two questions and thank you for sharing your experience- so helpful!
Do I have to have most of my points planned out at the 11 month window? Like if my start month was October, then this November, I would need to plan where and when to use my points for that year? And does it have to be 11 months away?
Second question is, we are also looking at AKL md heard the annual dues are much higher? Would you mind sharing yours? Do you know others?
Hi Kelli!
If the start of your use year is October, then Oct 1st is when the points would get added to your account for that year. So if you bought 100 points with an October use year, 100 points would be added to your account on October 1st for 2023. You have 1 year to use them (or bank them, which you have to do I believe 4 months before your use year – so with October you’d need to bank before I think June 1st).
You definitely don’t have to book 11 months away. If there’s availability somewhere you could theoretically use your points for a stay in October 2023. The tricky part is just that a lot of stuff will book up closer to the travel date. So basically on October 1st once you have the points, you could book anything available from that moment on until 11 months from then (until September 2024 in our example) for your home resort, or until 7 months from then for all other resorts (May 2024). So it’s not that you have to wait until your trip is 11 months away, just that 11 months is the earliest you can start booking.
Sure – so I have 180 points at AKL, and this past year our dues were around $1600 – so I think it works out to be about $8.80 per point. I’ve looked around and all the Disney resorts seem to range between $7.50-$9.50 per point. Depending on what else you’re looking at, there’s not usually a big difference. And from what I’ve heard, AKL’s dues are slightly higher because maintenance costs are higher there to take care of the animals. So I figure at least for me, if I’m paying $100 or so more to help the animals I’m okay with that.
I know it’s confusing so I hope that helps a little!