For those of you that have added on recently do you do direct or resale?

[edk35]

Don't really have anything to add here.

Just wanted to say RTR!

Roll Tide!!!!

 

[edk35]

Started the purchase of a small Direct (35) because wanted an odd number and to be able to use direct points at Disneyland Hotel. Once had the points (which allowed us to see in real time when DLH had rooms open) realized just like Grand Californian it had terrible availability unless it was the Home Resort - was not willing to pay for DLH as a Home Resort due to high "effective" membership fees of ($9.53 plus 2.73 transient tax) per point per year compared to most of the other resorts. Went back to buying a few more Resale points and happily pocketed the difference instead. Just be patient, what you are looking for "should" turn up, and luckily, a few extra $/point to purchase is not much at 50 points lol.

Be aware direct might get you the current (ie: before next UY anniversary) points, which not all resale do... and that can change your calculations. I think you'd want to decide about Direct a month or so before your UY date to be safe?

Our UY is October. I saw a couple of small points contracts but stripped.

 

[edk35]

We are planning on adding 50 more Riviera points this summer and will do it direct. We’re specific about the number we want to add and are too impatient to wait for a resale. We’ll also buy before our UY to get those bonus points!

When is your UY? Ours is Oct. So if you get the bonus points can you bank those?

 

[RuntheMouse]

When is your UY? Ours is Oct. So if you get the bonus points can you bank those?

Ours is August. Last time a quick chat with Member Services and they banked our points no problem!

 

[edk35]

Ours is August. Last time a quick chat with Member Services and they banked our points no problem!

Thanks good to know!!!!!!

 

[eandt]

When is your UY? Ours is Oct. So if you get the bonus points can you bank those?

October here as well and our last purchase was Sept 30 … we got that UY points plus the new UY points the next day …

 

[eandt]

I believe Direct for a small add on was still about $370 in closing costs (not including any Maintenance Fees).

I know www.fidelityrealestate.com had a $225 "admin fee" they add, perhaps others here can give you a head's up as to who else adds that fee on top of the normal closing costs. Escrow companies have different charges too - per www.DVCbyresale.com a 50 point in Florida (CA and HI likely differ in pricing and who you can use) with Jeffrey Sweet https://www.ormondlegal.com/meet-the-team is $465, while First American www.firstam.com is $595. There are others, of course, I'm just showing a couple prices to show they differ.

Whether Direct makes you pay for Maintenance Fees for current year would change your costs too. I'm not certain, but "think" they did not charge me for current Maintenance Fees, so all my current points would have been "free."

You can negotiate who pays current year fees in Resale, just like you can negotiate the deposit amount, and who handles the escrow - but you need to be clear on those items when you make the offer. I'm guessing Direct is whatever they say it is lol.

Closing costs for a 40 point contract in Sep 2023 was $387

 

[lowlight]

I will never buy direct again.

 

[AwfulWaffle]

We are direct because we don’t want points that can’t be used at RiV or future resorts.

This is where we are now. We have the resale points we need for our 11 month booking window at the sold out resorts we love, Copper Creek and Animal Kingdom.
Now we have time to save and wait for a super savings event like we saw during the GFV blowout. We are hoping Poly 2 or Reflections gives us the chance at direct points but we have 300 resale points now so we can wait it out until DVD’s bottom line needs a shareholder boost .
If it never happens then at least we have Wilderness Lodge and Animal Kingdom for another 40 years

 

[Genie+]

Whether Direct makes you pay for Maintenance Fees for current year would change your costs too. I'm not certain, but "think" they did not charge me for current Maintenance Fees, so all my current points would have been "free."

Direct only charges dues toward the remaining months in a year. Somebody buying direct in Sept 2024 would pay 4 months of dues for 2024, regardless if they had a Feb UY or Dec UY. The big difference would be the Feb UY would not get the extra year of points vs the Dec UY. But both would actually be paying the same amount of money in dues.

Another potential of savings with direct is foregoing title insurance. Everyone needs to weigh this risk for themselves but we decided we did not need with our direct purchase. I personally would not do the same with resale!

For a small contract resale/direct would depend on what our intentions were. Which resort and how are we typically going to use these points? Then decide if extra for direct is worth the conveniences that matter to us.

 

[CWTC]

When is your UY? Ours is Oct. So if you get the bonus points can you bank those?

Yes. Our UY is Feb - we added on direct (VGC) last month and our guide called member services for us to bank the 2023 points in 2024.

We own 7 total contracts - our first was resale and is grandfathered in, we have 5 direct contracts, and 1 resale (not grandfathered).

We bought VGC direct because the delta of resale vs direct was smaller (vs our last resale which was BLT), we wanted the same UY and knew it would be challenging to find the right contract via resale, and direct is so much simpler with immediate points access.

 

[edk35]

I think my heart just skipped a beat!

 

[edk35]

I will never buy direct again.

Can you share why? Thanks!!

 

[edk35]

Direct only charges dues toward the remaining months in a year. Somebody buying direct in Sept 2024 would pay 4 months of dues for 2024, regardless if they had a Feb UY or Dec UY. The big difference would be the Feb UY would not get the extra year of points vs the Dec UY. But both would actually be paying the same amount of money in dues.

Another potential of savings with direct is foregoing title insurance. Everyone needs to weigh this risk for themselves but we decided we did not need with our direct purchase. I personally would not do the same with resale!

For a small contract resale/direct would depend on what our intentions were. Which resort and how are we typically going to use these points? Then decide if extra for direct is worth the conveniences that matter to us.

Is this a common thing to not get with direct?

 

[jason423]

We did add on at VGF direct but only because the deal at the time was almost the same as buying resale and it got us enough points to qualify for the blue card. If we were just adding 50 points I think we would probably just look resale unless we really needed extra points ASAP or were big RIV fans and wanted to make sure our points were good there.

That being said I do think it may be worth pricing out though especially if many of the resale contracts are stripped. Purchasing direct would likely get you both 2023 and 2024 points just for the cost of the 2024 points, which are going to be prorated for when you purchased. The value of those additional points may be a big offset.

One question- did you try to put an alert for any listings that match your criteria? Since those small contracts do go fast it probably doesnt hurt to ask some of the brokers about that particular one.

 

[lowlight]

Can you share why? Thanks!!

I purchased 3 contracts direct because I convinced myself I needed blue card benefits, and wanted future resorts. The end result is that I paid an extra 50/pt for nothing, absolutely nothing. The one benefit that didn’t suck was AP’s. They took away AP’s for a bit, then returned them and increased prices substantially twice and kept them limited to the reservation system. And the “future resorts” have turned out to be CFW (hah), a VGF and Poly that will be same association, so basically I feel bamboozled and silly for buying direct.

 

[Cfabar1]

we bought vgf this summer... should have bought more in hindsight...

we'd like to buy a 75 point vgf direct add on, but right now that isn't possible. that will likely move us to resale.

 

[intamin]

We bought 2 resale contracts after our first initial direct contract and then recently bought another 2 direct contracts. We likely will only be buying direct from now on but that has more to do with the resorts we want to buy. With us wanting preferably more direct points and to own at Poly 2, it makes sense for us to wait for active sales on Polynesian. However, if we wanted to own at BC/BW or buy more AUL points, it does not make sense at all to buy direct for those for us. AUL direct would have to be a smoking deal for us to consider it over resale.

 

[Cfabar1]

AUL direct would have to be a smoking deal for us to consider it over resale.

It could happen.... I could see them deciding this summer to juice sales by doing an AUL fire sale rather than discounting Cabins or RIV... We will have to see...

My gut tells me a good sale (but not as good as last summer) will come later this spring. I don't think they want to be selling 5 active resorts when Poly comes down, but maybe that's what they will do.

 

[mamaofsix]

We added on direct a few months ago. Not being shut out of future resorts with our points was priority number one. Convenience and matching use year were great side benefits.