Originally posted by InstImpres
My regrets....
Didn't buy in when we first looked at it. We watched the price rise and the free AP's disappear!!! (as well as many extra years)
Technically that perk was free LOS passes, not free AP's. For those who aren't aware, an early incentive to purchase in 1992-1995(?) was free LOS passes to the parks when you stayed in your
DVC unit. This was good to Jan 1, 2000. We purchased in '93 at a much lower price/point than today and those free park passes for 6-1/2 years were a tremendous perk. The value of that alone practically paid for DVC.
All the other perks are just icing on the cake.
We've watched the prices of regular WDW rooms go up over the years while our DVC point system kept making our DVC resorts a better and better value each year. (Example: Suppose a WDW hotel room today is $200/night (($223 with tax) and Disney raises it 5% for the next year, then it goes to $234 (with tax) or a $11 increase. Meanwhile DVC raises our dues 5% so $4/point dues goes to $4.20/point. If you got a DVC villa that cost 20 points/night, the increase then was $4/night. ($80 (at $4.00/point) to $84 (at $4.20/point)). Remember, there are no taxes when using points.
Do the above for 10 years (remember everything compounds) and you'd find that hotel room goes from $200/night up to $363/night while the 20 point DVC room goes from $80/night up $130/night (20 points @ $6.52/point dues). For a 5-night vacation that hotel room now cost $1815 while your DVC villa cost you $650 based on dues costs along. Well what about the initial purchase? Just considering 5 days in that 10th year the difference will be $1165 between DVC and a WDW hotel. That's equivalet to $11.65/point ($1165 divided by 100 (20 points for 5-nights)).
And that's just in the 10th year alone. Do the calculation for 38 years, or 50 years, and see what happens. Even if you wouldn't stay in a $200/night room today, figure a $100/night room today and you still save considerably using DVC, AND you get much better accommodations.
(Just for fun, at 5%/year increases, in 35 years a $200/night WDW hotel room will be $1230/night (incl. taxes) while the DVC room is $440/night (no taxes), a difference of $790/night, or $3950 for 5 nights, or equal to $39/point in that 35th year alone.
In the 34th year that 5-day vacation difference would be equivalent to $37/point, and year 33 would be $35/point, so those 3-years alone calculate to a savings of $111/point or much more than the cost of purchasing points today. Of course that's calculated in year 2038 dollars so don't take the numbers too literally. Think of what $20 would do in 1968 compared to today. (In 1968 I purchased a brand new Volkswagen, from the dealer, for $1600. and I could never get $5 worth of gas in the tank. $20 was a lot of money. When I was in H.S. in the early '60's it was common to buy just a dollar's worth of gas. My after school part time job paid $0.85/hour, .....But, I digress......
Somewhere on these boards are threads that have actually compared the cost of dues for DVC and the costs of WDW hotels, and how they compared for the last 10 years. DVC comes out way ahead. Many members have done extensive calculations and report the break even point is in the 7 - 10 year range.
Regrets? Absolutely none.
