The first thing to understand is if DVC is a good fit for you:
- do you go to WDW or
Disneyland (California, not Paris) at least every three year and plan to continue to do so for at least 10 years?
If you need to skip one year or more you could rent your points, but while at the moment the rental market is healty and it's easy to rent also with a nice profit, it is not guaranteed it will continue this wat forever. For many timeshares weeks are rented for less than the cost of the maintenance fees. It probably won't happen to DVC, but look into DVC only if you plan to use it
- do you have the money to pay it in advance?
If you finance, expecially at Disney's 10% "preferred" rate, most if not all the savings DVC could provide would be eaten by the interests.
- do you stay at deluxe resorts when you go to Disney?
DVC saves money only when compared to Deluxes resorts (and a tiny bit of savings when compared to moderates). Or for around the cot of a value/moderate you can upgrade to a better room
- do you plan to book studios or a two bedroom instead of two double rooms at deluxe? Of are you happy to pay more for a one bedroom?
If you book a one bedroom you'll get a much nicer accommodation than an hotel room: a full kitchen, whasher/dryer in the room etc. But it will cost more than a deluxe hotel room
- do you know the differences between DVC and a normal hotel room?
you won't get daily housekeeping, you need to book far in advance (sometimes 11 months are required), no free dining or other offers.
- do you plan to use DVC only for DVC resorts stay?
any additional incentives, like using points for cruises or hotel rooms are an AWFUL use of the points. Buying DVC to cruise every year would cost you much much more than paying cash for the cruises. And exchange into resorts outside DVC (using RCI exchanges) is often not a good value either.
That leads to:
- do you know about the resale market?
buying resale you can pay as low as half than direct! And perks you loose are really a bad usage of points anyway.
Resale is the way to go in 99% of the cases. There just are a few exceptions to this rule (VGC, small addons in small resorts, want to stay at VGF every year and want to buy immediately).
So my suggestion is: spend a bit of time on the DVC boards to learn everything about the system. This will require 4-6 months. Then evaluate to purchase resale. You can buy resale from home, you will deal with the brokers using email and post.
Another good idea is to rent points for at least a trip, so you can stay at a resort before buying there. It's a good idea to visit the ground before commiting to a purchase.
DVC is a big commitment, do not rush it.
