April 2022 Grand Floridian Resale Price Down 7.3%; Lowest Volume in Over 12 Months

Median private resale prices were flat to down in April at most resorts, as reflected in the chart below.  Median prices represent the midpoint of all transfer values for each resort and period in question.  

Disney's Old Key West Resort and Disney's Beach Club Villas increased in median resale price by +$7 and +$3 per point respectively.  However, both resorts saw maximum buyback price increases of +$12 and +$2 per point respectively.  The value buyers ascribe to contracts at these resorts does not appear to have changed significantly.  Disney Vacation Development is buying back at a higher price, which means many of the lower priced sales that would have been recorded as resale purchases now appear as buybacks.  Removing these data points from the resale pool artificially inflates the resale summary metrics.  This has been affecting pricing reports since mid-2021.

Grand Floridian's median resale pricing decreased by $14 per point or 7.3% from $192 to $178 per point.  Mixed into the April data are lingering sales with prices agreed before direct sales reopened.  There is potential for Grand Floridian pricing to continue to move as buyers and sellers adjust for the new direct pricing.  Pricing at Bay Lake Tower at Disney's Contemporary Resort and Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows saw decreases of $3 and $4 per point, likely also related to the reopening of direct sales at Grand Floridian.

Resale prices for Disney’s Riviera Resort continue to fluctuate. Useful conclusions remain elusive with only 79 total contracts sold in 2021 and 45 in 2022.  The long range resale value of Riviera is unlikely to be settled anytime in the near future.

 In total, 45k points across 331 private sale deeds were recorded in April 2022 with the Orange County (FL) Comptroller, a decrease of 29% over the prior month.  This number was lower than the 311k direct points sold for the same resorts.  45k points per month is the lowest number of private resale points in a single month since at least Jan 2021. 

Disney Vacation Development’s buyback activity in April suggests the change in maximum buyback price varied across all the resorts.  Disney's Old Key West Resort and Boulder Ridge Villas at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge saw increases of +$12 and +$8 per point respectively while Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa saw the maximum buyback price decrease by -$18 per point.

Buyback volume increased overall by 38% to 68k points.  The biggest individual changes in buyback volume was a 102% increase from 12k points to 25k points at Saratoga Springs.

Exercising its Right of First Refusal to buy back points can be a profitable venture for DVD. As the above price range data illustrates, DVD is frequently able to reacquire points for under $120 each at resorts like Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas and Disney's BoardWalk Villas.  Disney then sells the points to new buyers, with published prices currently $200 each for Animal Kingdom and up to $230 for BoardWalk.

Old Key West remains a target of buybacks with DVD exercising its Right of First Refusal on a significant portion of recorded sales (87% of recorded points) for a maximum price of $137 per point.  The other 2042 resorts saw 45% to 67% of their recorded volume as buybacks.  Saratoga Springs has emerged as another buyback target with 82% of recorded deeds in April 2022 being buybacks.  Across all Walt Disney World resorts, 60% of points (68k points across 379 buyback deeds) were recorded in April 2022. In the case of Old Key West, Disney is able to re-acquire contracts slated to end in 2042 and bundle them with the resort’s 15-year extension.

The price range data at the top also includes listing prices (green). Listing prices generally outpace prior sales but ultimately buyer interest will dictate market value.

Disney Vacation Development’s buyback activity outpaced direct sales for five resorts in April 2022: Old Key West, BoardWalk, Boulder Ridge, Beach Club, and Saratoga Springs. In the first four months of 2022, DVD reacquired 46k points at Old Key West, 26k points at BoardWalk, 11k points at Boulder Ridge, 18k points at Beach Club, and 69k points at Saratoga Springs. Direct sales at those five resorts totaled 22k, 9.0k, 2.2k, 4.6k, and 26k points respectively through April 2022.

At dvc.market, there are resources including additional market data, pricing regression analysis, and a DVC listing search engine--featuring 13 brokers who specialize in Disney Vacation Club timeshare ownership transfers.

Chris Dantès is a contributor to DVCNews.com and has been a Disney Vacation Club owner since 2020 at Disney's Riviera Resort. You can find Chris posting on many Disney forums under the username i<3riviera