ROFR and actual sale prices questioned

[kboo]

If you want a bargain, it may take a while and you'll hear no a lot. That may impact your ability to use your points when you want for the first trip, negating the savings of the bargain. But if you have the time, the bargains are out there.

After getting my first resale contract under my belt, I was a LOT more patient and much more of a bargain hunter for my later resale contracts!

perhaps these VGF incentives were a way of testing the water to see what price point will pull customers from the resale market. I for one thought that direct was out of my price range, and now I own VGF direct. If they keep using this type of sales model, stacking MB & builder incentives, while ignoring ROFR they are going to pull resale down and some of these commercial owners that are carrying debt are going to drown.

Interesting point. When I was buying resale 6 years ago (feels like a lifetime!) it did not seem like there were a lot of commercial owners. Even though I relied most heavily on the ROFR threads in making my offers, there is a lot more information out there now.

There is no thread that tracks offers made and rejected by sellers.

I believe that is what the poster meant. If we tracked how many times a buyer offered before they secured a deal, we wouldsee a different picture

For example, it took my four offers before I had a seller accept my low offer years ago.

I also had a lot of rejected offers before mine "stuck" - and I vented about this a lot on the ROFR thread when I was looking. Sometimes the chit chat on the ROFR thread can be a good indicator too. My first lowball offer at BLT got a counter and we ended up closing at $2-5 per point more than my initial offer. I think my first lowball VGF was the same, maybe went up $2? I had many rejected offers on BCV and BWV that were well within the ranges that passed on the boards here at the time, and that's why we don't own BCV or BWV. I think most of the lowball buyers have probably made multiple rejected offers before getting the deal they were happy with.

I tend to think the hyper-informed buyers who regularly rely on the DIS threads to buy resale are probably a small enough ## to move the needle on pulling them to direct. There is a shrinking pool of people who have the money available to buy a non-essential product, and it's unclear how many resale sellers are selling because of financial pressure versus, say, aging out of using DVC or as many DVC points as they had. That said, we were looking at AUL or VGC resale or VDH direct right when VDH was coming up for sale and ... ended up buying wayyyy more direct VGF points than we would have bought at AUL, VGC or VDH. Remains to be seen if we made the best financial decision but I certainly rationalized it at the time.

 

[crisi]

Oh I’ve gathered that info I’m strictly looking at 100-300 point contracts I just can’t understand why a broker wouldn’t be informed on what the current direct offers are and guide their sellers accordingly. There’s no way I’m paying $175-185 plus MF and closing for resale when I can buy direct at $161. I feel bad for the sellers who also has a responsibility to do their own research before listing.

Why feel bad for them? They may be renting their points for twice what they are paying in dues and pocketing a few thousand dollars a year off their contract while they see whether they can get rid of it eventually at a price they want. Why assume that they are ill informed and not that they haven't done the financial math on what it would take to sell and make a profit over keeping it as rental?

We are reaching a point with the 2042 contracts where it makes better sense to rent out your points for the next 20 years than sell your contract - if you don't need the capital. But it costs nothing to list with a broker and see if someone won't pay you more than the rental value.