December is typically a slow month for direct sales of Disney Vacation Club points and the trend continued in 2017. However, the full year produced the best sales figures DVC has seen in quite some time.
Disney's Polynesian Villas & Bungalows
Disney Vacation Club point sales in the month of December have consistently trailed other times during the calendar year. Since 2011, December sales have lagged 7.3% to as much as 41.7% below the yearly average. December 2017 continued that trend with 153,400 points sold for the 10 DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, 19.4% less than what sales had averaged for the other 11 months of 2017.
Despite the slowdown in sales in December, 2017 was the best year for direct sales since 2011. Disney sold 2,245,821 points for the Walt Disney World Resorts. In 2011, when it was actively selling Bay Lake Tower at Disney’s Contemporary Resort, Disney’s Animal Kingdom Villas, and Disney’s Saratoga Springs Resort & Spa, Disney sold 2,445,187 points.
Monthly results improved year-over-year with December 2017's 153,400 points clearly besting the 124,736 points sold in December 2016.
Disney has not officially announced that the Polynesian Villas & Bungalows are sold out but all indications suggest that it is no longer being actively marketed. As of January 18, 2018, the price of the Polynesian increased to $220 a point, the highest of any DVC resort.
Disney’s Polynesian Villas & Bungalows — The Polynesian sold 68,231 points In December 2017, the fewest number of points sold since May 2015 when 59,752 points were sold.
The Polynesian has sold 3,760,824 points, or 93.3% of its 4,032,720 total points. This includes 13,851 points that have been reacquired by Disney through buybacks, foreclosures, and exercising its Right of First Refusal on third-party resale transactions.
Disney must retain at least 2% of the Polynesian’s total points for itself, leaving it with about 191,242 points remaining that can be sold to the general public. However, since there are hundreds of transactions containing tens of thousands of points that are awaiting closure, Disney has far fewer than that amount of points left in its inventory.
The September and August Use Years have the fewest number of unsold points with 9,820 and 11,617 points, respectively. As of December 31, 2017, Disney still had one Residential Unit (#84) containing 39,448 points that had not yet been assigned to a Use Year. Even if Disney assigns Unit #84 to the August or September Use Year, Disney may not have enough points to satisfy all member who wish to add on points in one of those Use Years.
Copper Creek Villas & Cabins at Disney’s Wilderness Lodge — In December 2017, the resort sold 67,849 points. Although less than the previous two months, December’s sales were still 21.9% higher than what Copper Creek has averaged since sales began in April 2017.
Copper Creek has sold 513,225 points, which is about 15.5% of its 3,321,954 total points. Now that Disney is no longer actively marketing the Polynesian sales for Copper Creek should improve.
Disney has declared 48 of Copper Creek’s 184 vacation homes for the DVC inventory. In terms of points, the 48 declared vacation homes account for about 1,021,430 (30.7%) of the resort’s 3,321,966 points. As Disney sells more points for Copper Creek, it will declare more vacation homes for the DVC inventory.
So far, Guaranteed Week sales at Copper Creek have been feeble, accounting for only 0.25% of the points sold. Only 9 Guaranteed Week deeds have been sold, 8 for studios and one for a one-bedroom villa. Disney recently announced a special promotion aimed at runDisney participants to purchase Guaranteed Week deeds to coincide with runDisney events at Walt Disney World. It will be interesting to see if Guaranteed Week sales increase due to this promotion.
The sales data includes all nine DVC resorts at Walt Disney World, as well as Disney's Vero Beach Resort, Disney's Hilton Head Island Resort, and Aulani, Disney Vacation Club Villas. Point sales data is not available for the Villas at Disney's Grand Californian Hotel. 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.
Wil Lovato is a contributor to DVCNews.com and has been a Disney Vacation Club owner since 2009. His DVC Home Resorts include Bay Lake Tower, Animal Kingdom Villas, and Aulani. He can be found posting on many Disney discussion forums under the username of “wdrl.”
