Considering SVC help.

[LauraRoberts]

Hi,

Am considering DVC*

Ideally like to come to Disney once a year for 21 nights. Party of 7 from England. Can anyone please tell me how DVC works. How much would we need to pay up front? And how much per year? Thanks in advance.

 

[freediverdude]

Well, it's a big thing to research with a lot of ins and outs. It's a point system and you buy yearly points, so basically for your party size and number of nights, you would probably need somewhere between 1000 and 1500 points, although it varies by resort, time of year, room type, etc. That many points if purchased directly through Disney would be around $175,000 to $275,000, and you put 10% down and pay the rest over 10 years, with interest rate depending on your credit, from around 10% to around 18%. But you can buy resale contracts for cheaper, again depending on resort. The yearly dues on that many points would also be in the $6000-9000 range. Your home resort where you buy your contract is where you can reserve at 11 months out, and reserve at all the others at 7 months, which makes a difference sometimes, depending on different factors like time of year, resort, room type, etc. Anyway, those are the types of numbers you would be looking at if you sit down with DVC, and you would have to ask them about financing a foreign owner, not sure about the terms on that.

With those types of numbers, you might also look at purchasing a house in the area, although I know home ownership comes with its own types of issues.

 

[mousehockey37]

There are people internationally that own DVC. Everyone's situation is different, obviously. The poster above gave a pretty good start. There's a ton of information here on the boards. Grab a drink, snack and get comfy, you've got a lot of researching ahead of you.

Basics though:
- DVC is points. You buy into a "home" resort (you can book 11 months in advance) but points are good at all DVC resorts (7 month booking window if other than the "home" resort).
- All resorts/contracts carry different point values and price points...
- You buy at a certain price/per point. This is where you need to look at how many points would be needed for a stay for you (21 days? Studio? 1 bedroom? 2 bedroom? Grand Villa? Tree House Villa? Bungalow? They all carry different point necessities on a per day/per week basis).
- Once you have your contract, there are also Maintenance Fees that are due. This is a certain percentage that varies per resort.

Also, while looking into this, while it is doable, is this the only time each year you'd be coming over? Getting a DVC reservation is hard enough to do for a week or less sometimes depending on the resort and time of year, let alone staying put for 3 weeks in the same setup. So keep that in mind as well.

 

[dreamfinder]

Definitely suggest reading through the threads and stickies in the forum. And probably reading through the DVC site itself, and maybe some others like DVCInfo and DVCNews.

As pointed out, it is a time share program. Each night requires a certain number of points, and will vary based on room type, season, and resort. You buy as few or as many points as you need/want, paying the upfront purchase price (either direct from DVD or someone selling their deed) as well as yearly dues. A 3 week stay would be pretty pricy, and you would most likely need to be looking at a 2BR villa (or possibly a 3BR). A 2BR unit would probably be anywhere from 200-400 points per week, so even on the resale market you would probably want 800 or so points which could easily run you $100,000 USD. And would probably require you to buy multiple deeds at most seem to top out around 400 or so. Buying direct would easily run you double that.

Read some of the threads about breakeven. If you need to finance that (and I think most of us would strongly recommend against that) you could easily end up doubling the length of your breakeven to 20+ years.