December is usually a good month for direct sales of Disney Vacation Club points, and this past month was no different.
In December 2011, direct sales improved to 192,299 points, an increase of 19.2% over the previous month. Almost 80% of the points sold were for Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa and Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas. Bay Lake Tower at Disney's Contemporary Resort was a distant third in sales and was outsold by Saratoga Springs by almost a 3-to-1 margin.
Although December 2011's sales were an improvement over the prior month, it's sales total was below the monthly average for 2011. In 2011, Disney Vacation Development (DVD) sold 2,506,276 points -- an average of 208,856 points per month -- for the nine Disney Vacation Club (DVC) resorts tracked in this study (point sales information is not readily available for Aulani, Disney Vacation Club Villas or Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel).
The sales data includes all seven DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, as well as Disney's Vero Beach Resort and Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort. Point sales data is not available for the Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Hotelor for Aulani, Disney Vacation Club Villas. The data is compiled from deeds filed by Disney Vacation Development and recorded with the Orange County (FL) Comptroller, the Indian River County (FL) Clerk of Court, and the Beaufort County (SC) Register of Deeds.
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At the end of December 2011, DVD had about 342,000 points left to sell at Bay Lake Tower at Disney's Contemporary Resort and 2,470,000 points at Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas. In addition, DVD had at least 236,000 left to sell from the Treehouse Villa Units at Saratoga Springs Resort, plus an unknown amount of points that it had left to sell from the previously declared Units at Saratoga Springs. Thus, DVD has well over 3 million points left to sell at the three Florida resorts.
At a rate of 190,000 - 200,000 points per month, DVD currently has at least 16 months' worth of sales inventory in the three Walt Disney World properties.
Bay Lake Tower at Disney's Contemporary Resort - In December 2011, Bay Lake Tower recorded 27,499 points sold, an improvement over the previous month when only 21,977 points were sold. These sales numbers are well below Bay Lake Tower's historical average of over 140,000 points a month. The slow sales reflect DVD's disinterest in marketing Bay Lake Tower to prospective buyers.
DVD has sold about 93.9% of the maximum number of points it can sell at Bay Lake Tower. This includes 58,139 Bay Lake Tower points that DVD has reacquired through foreclosure proceedings, exercising its Right of First Refusal (ROFR), and other buyback processes.
100% of Bay Lake Tower has been declared for the DVC inventory, which means that all 281 of its Vacation Homes can be booked by Vacation Club members using points.
February is the most common Use Year at Bay Lake Tower, while October is the least common Use Year. As of the end of 2011, DVD only had about 11,278 October Use Year points and 14,870 September Use Year points remaining in its inventory of unsold points. However, DVD has yet to use points from five Bay Lake Tower Units (01B, 01C, 20B, 90B, and 91A) to support sales. These five Units, which account for 133,175 points, have not yet been assigned to a specific Use Year. Unless DVD assigns one or more of these Units to the October or September Use Years, prospective buyers may experience difficulty obtaining those Years in the near future.
Disney's Animal Kingdom Villas - In December, Animal Kingdom Villas recorded 74,587 points sold, the second highest monthly total it recorded in 2011. For the year, DVD sold 602,327 Animal Kingdom Villas points.
Disney Vacation Development has declared 72.54% of Animal Kingdom Villas for the DVC inventory and sold 65.9% of the maximum number of points it can sell at the resort. With 586,000 Animal Kingdom Villas points declared but not yet sold, DVD should not need to make another declaration for several months if sales continue at the current rate.
Disney's Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa - With 79,142 points sold in December, Saratoga Springs sales led all other DVC resorts for the fifth month in a row. For the year, DVD sold 778.089 points at Saratoga Springs for an average of 64,841 points per month.
All of Saratoga Springs' Units have been declared for the DVC inventory. To date, DVD has used points from all but one of the 339 Units at Saratoga Springs to support sales.
By Summer 2012, DVD should sell all of the points that were added to the Saratoga Springs inventory when the Treehouse Villas were declared in January 2009.
