DVC Financial Analysis

[CastAStone]

Thread Drift:
For those with PTO issues, as a former HR assistant every year I removed employee time. Believe it or not, some didn't even notice. Seriously. Darn it.

I work at a place that doesn’t centrally track vacation time for exempt employees (your manager is supposed to; I’ve never heard of one who does) and I’d say the preponderance of my coworkers seem to never take vacation.

Not me. I use every darn day, floating holiday, and trade-in day i get when I have to work weekends.

I love my job but I love experiencing life more.

 

[Genie+]

Once we started visiting WDW at least once a year I caved. DH wanted to buy a couple years sooner. I wasn’t convinced yet out of fear ownership might artificially prioritize DVC over other trips. But we kept going back paying for moderates and the occasional value during expensive seasons, which started us down the DVC rental path because that was actually cheaper. We could rent something like AKV or SSR for less than Value rates, or rent pretty much any deluxe resort near cost of Moderate or less. The final step was owning which gave us more control with lower cost than renting.
DVC may not be right for all. It is a great fit for many and why it’s such an enthusiastic community. Most of us love our DVC! Once we decided the financials made sense for us and bought, it’s brought us much happiness. DVC feels like getting a big bonus for committing to the money we would’ve spent anyway. I liked Pop, AOA, POR, CBR fine but now we’re loving the deluxe resorts at similar room costs. It’s next level! Life is short make it count. Shoot for amazing when possible.

 

[Jack Kerouac]

I love to see these types of stories. That's an average of $136.36 per night... and that including Studios up to 2 Bdrms!!

The breakdown is as follows:
11 nights PVB LV
4 nights PVB SV
2 nights SSR 2BR S
1 night 1BR BLT S
2 nights AKV-K SaV
2 nights BRV 2BR

We couldn’t be happier with our DVC experience! We have stayed in rooms I could never have thought possible if paying rack rates.

 

[BayTower2010]

I work at a place that doesn’t centrally track vacation time for exempt employees (your manager is supposed to; I’ve never heard of one who does) and I’d say the preponderance of my coworkers seem to never take vacation.

Not me. I use every darn day, floating holiday, and trade-in day i get when I have to work weekends.

I love my job but I love experiencing life more.

I used to work in the mortgage industry as a mortgage underwriter. Prior to the mortgage meltdown in 2007, mortgage companies tried there hardest to discourage taking our allowed time off - it was always our busy time (even when it wasn't) or we were short handed or the manager was too busy to submit the employees request. Of course if you did not use it, the time off never was carried over and the employee lost it. For that reason I always was in the habit of submitting future time off in February and staying on top of my manager every day until I received an approval, which was carefully saved. I would than make sure I sent a "reminder" 3 weeks in advance to my manager And their superior of my vacation making sure I included a large deposit had already been made so there could be no attempt to cancel the time off. After the mortgage meltdown, there was a change on how we were treated as every mortgage company was trying to recruit top talented underwriters.

 

[2010dvcfan]

I used to work in the mortgage industry as a mortgage underwriter. Prior to the mortgage meltdown in 2007, mortgage companies tried there hardest to discourage taking our allowed time off - it was always our busy time (even when it wasn't) or we were short handed or the manager was too busy to submit the employees request. Of course if you did not use it, the time off never was carried over and the employee lost it. For that reason I always was in the habit of submitting future time off in February and staying on top of my manager every day until I received an approval, which was carefully saved. I would than make sure I sent a "reminder" 3 weeks in advance to my manager And their superior of my vacation making sure I included a large deposit had already been made so there could be no attempt to cancel the time off. After the mortgage meltdown, there was a change on how we were treated as every mortgage company was trying to recruit top talented underwriters.

Same here, I work in corrections, we are always Short Staffed, management cancels vacations all the time claiming "facility needs" that has relaxed some since 2020 era, due to shortage of qualified labor available across the country. Still happens just not as often.

We have a maximum number of PTO hours we can have on the books at the end of the fiscal year which is June, if you don't find a way to burn it down before June 30 to that maximum allowed they just take it back you never get that paid time off. It's gone. Not the best way to handle it IMO but I've seen it done over the years, planned trips canceled due to staffing issues and then PTO taken back in June.

BTW, like your screen name @BayTower2010, that was the year I bought my first contract at BLT in 2010.

 

[DougEMG]

I had a staff member who had PTO expiring, I finally told them: "We've been open since 1817. We will be here when you get back. Go on vacation."

.

Fair points to be made, some considerations to your thoughts if I may please

#2- I never stayed at Deluxe resorts due to not being able to get past the price tag, once I joined DVC and that whole new world of Deluxe resort was opened for me it became clear DVC was a choice so many people if open to the idea could experience for close to the same price of moderate stays each year. DVC will elevate your vacation experience if you stay at values and moderates.

#4- I had to finance my first contract way back when I was young I knew I was going to vacation with my young child to Disney each year, there's no saving up for that by the time you do they have grown up and that "season of your life" is gone for good.

DVC payments were not that much more each year then what I was spending to go to stay 10 days at a moderate resort each year paying and having nothing but memories when the trip was over. My thinking was if I'm going to go anyway, which I was going to go each year with my young child. Why not put the money towards securing a resort room for future trips instead of renting a room at moderate each time. Financing DVC allowed me to continue vacationing each year during that "season of my child's youth" while also working towards owning a paid off contract with decades of future resort stays ahead.

I do not regret financing that first contract at all. The value in this membership is not only about the financial cost it takes to own it. It brings so much more to the table then just "cost".

Your financial aspects are very valid but do not take into account "priorities" in life, my priority was vacationing to Disney making memories every year and DVC has made that more possible then I would have ever imagined. For some families "financing may be the only way to make an experience like this happen in the "season of life they most value it".

One thing i do wish is that i had of known about DVC and owned it when my daughter was young. She was already 15 when we first bought.

 

[TheDailyMoo]

time is our most valuable currency...

This could be typed into every message board and then every message board closed because this is the truest thing to ever be said…time and health and everything else means nada.

But it is still fun to talk about everything else…

 

[HyperspaceMountainPilot]

After we sold the contract for a profit in May 2024 (even after including the 8% comp), our total cost (dues minus the profit) was less than $3,000 for those 22 nights.

Am I the only parks-obsessed person who heard that in the voice of Hondo Ohnaka at the end of MFSR?

 

[gisele2]

I bought in 2020 with our vacation money not spent for 2 years. It was an emotional purchase that helped me cope with the pandemic. Now , it is a fun way to take vacation with my family and explore all the resorts. But it is a luxury and the accommodation is only a small part of the cost of a Disney vacation. The real benefice is to be sure that I need to go back to Disney unless I am loosing money

 

[DKZB]

This is an under-valued aspect of owning a timeshare. Owning nudges you to take vacations, because they are use-it-or-lose-it. I am 100% sure that I spent more money on vacations by owning timeshares than I ever would have just paying as I go. That's because I've taken some vacations with timeshares that I would NEVER have taken otherwise.

A few examples that come to mind:

• An early summer week at Smuggler's Notch in a Wyndham 3BR Presidential with the kids. This condo was larger than our first home. https://www.smuggs.com/accommodation/presidential-owls-17-32/
• A week in a 3BR Penthouse in Lagoon Tower at Hilton Hawaiian Village to celebrate my daughter's graduation from high school. This isn't the one we had--we had the "worst" view, facing away from the ocean/Diamondhead, but the wraparound deck still gave us an ocean view.
• A week in a 2BR BLT Lake View during spring break. (Y'all don't need pictures of that one!

There are plenty of more pedestrian things: A 2BR in Alexandria, VA for Easter/Cherry Blossom; A 1BR at Beach Club for Food & Wine over Halloween; A 2BR in Sedona in late June, combined with an overnight on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon; a week in an ocean view 2BR in Oceanside, CA for spring break; a summer week in a 1BR with my son in San Francisco just off Union Square; lots of other Hawaii weeks on all four islands; frequent trips to the Smoky Mountains; and the list goes on.

1000% Agree.

We are staying with most of my family for a few nights in a 3BR Ocean View Grand Villa at Aulani this coming Feb. My Dad has cancer and has never been to Hawaii so we are just saying YOLO and going big. Not only are we saving $10k+, the reality is, we probably wouldn't have done it!

Might be blasphemy but after 5 trips to WDW in the last 2 years, I'm getting kind of tired of it and want to see other things. Hence selling some points.

We are going on an RCL cruise this November (I'm not really a cruise person but I promised to give it a chance).

How have you found the quality of the accommodations at HGVC and Wyndham? I am considering buying a HGVC ski resort resale for the winter + can be used anywhere else in the HGVC system but really haven't looked into Wyndham.

 

[gisele2]

1000% Agree.

We are staying with most of my family for a few nights in a 3BR Ocean View Grand Villa at Aulani this coming Feb. My Dad has cancer and has never been to Hawaii so we are just saying YOLO and going big. Not only are we saving $10k+, the reality is, we probably wouldn't have done it!

Might be blasphemy but after 5 trips to WDW in the last 2 years, I'm getting kind of tired of it and want to see other things. Hence selling some points.

We are going on an RCL cruise this November (I'm not really a cruise person but I promised to give it a chance).

How have you found the quality of the accommodations at HGVC and Wyndham? I am considering buying a HGVC ski resort resale for the winter + can be used anywhere else in the HGVC system but really haven't looked into Wyndham.

We stayed at a Wyndham this summer in Kona on Big Island, and we loves it. It was clean, had a lot of amenities, BBQ, cute pools.

 

[sethschroeder]

Pet peeve, but: This is why I wish MouseSavers did not use the phrase "opportunity cost", because this is not what it means. A better term would have been "the time-value of money" or something similar--anything that captures the idea that $1 today almost certainly buys more than $1 does ten years from now.

You can still argue over how much less that future-$1 buys, but it buys less, and how much less it buys has nothing to do with what you do with the today-$1. If it doesn't, and we are in a deflationary economy, we have much bigger problems than what our DVC contracts are worth.

I think opportunity cost is more accurate to DVC personally.

Time value of money like you are outlining is if I invested the money. I dont think this is accurate and as IMO a large percentage of people are using money that would never hit an investment account.

On the other side opportunity cost means you have given Y up because you did X instead.

Not sure how MouseSavers writes it out but I have typically brought this up on these $$$$ threads that the money I used would never have been a long term investment and was money marked for using on something regardless (DVC, vacations, home improvement, tech upgrades, random other things).

The big difference with DVC though is:
- I spent $50k on DVC
- I sell DVC in 20 years for $60k
OR
- I spent $50k on a pool
- I sell my house in 20 years for an extra $10k because of the pool value
OR
- Some other things but you can get the point as vacations, tech, random stuff will all have no monetary value in 20 years likely

EDIT:
I want to add as well to "not from an investment account" if you are trying to say "well you could invest the money and with draw to pay for your stays.... I did the math on an example from an AKV owner who bought in like 2011 and posted 1-2 years ago and they would have went to $0 in their investment account after 10 years even when using things like getting the full years of interest from the account and renting at below market rates. Math could be slightly off but even if it wasn't 10 years it shows the ebbs and flows of investment accounts are more risky than DVC.

 

[Brian Noble]

How have you found the quality of the accommodations at HGVC and Wyndham?

Hilton Grand is consistently very good. Wyndham is a little more variable, but correspondingly less expensive to buy and to own. As an aside, you don't have to own in a system to stay there. I don't own HGVC, but have stayed in: Sea World/Orlando, Kings Land (2x) and Kohala in Waikoloa, Park City, and Lagoon Tower in Waikiki.

(The same is true of DVC, but that's another post for another time.)

Time value of money like you are outlining is if I invested the money.

No, that's not how this works. At all. The simple fact is that spending $40K on DVC today "costs more" than spending $1K on DVC every year for 40 years, because $1 today is worth more than $1 next year, and more again than $1 the year after that, and so on. This is just how money works. It has nothing to do with what you do with said money.

I realize that having this conversation is like spitting into the wind, and I can't help myself. I guess it's one more thing to put on my Fourth Step list.

 

[Cfabar1]

No, that's not how this works. At all. The simple fact is that spending $40K on DVC today "costs more" than spending $1K on DVC every year for 40 years, because $1 today is worth more than $1 next year, and more again than $1 the year after that, and so on. This is just how money works. It has nothing to do with what you do with said money.

I realize that having this conversation is like spitting into the wind, and I can't help myself. I guess it's one more thing to put on my Fourth Step list.

I am glad you continue to say this.... and sometime I think people would love a post with real world examples - which the Mousesavers article speaks to quite nicely as well.

 

[Bucketfoot]

I get the thoughts on opportunity cost, but for us the bottom line is that the money we used for our contracts was disposable income specifically intended for vacations and other fun things. It would not have been invested.

As for the break even point, first it's not that important to me, as I simply know it is a good investment for us. We often regret not do this sooner (especially Grand Californian when it first went on sale). But then we were not in the same financial position then that we are now and almost certainly would have needed to finance it.

That said I do track the break even point for each contract with both full cash value of the places we stay, at a reduced value or compared to say the Hiltons we would otherwise stay at.

 

[Chili327]

As for the break even point, first it's not that important to me, as I simply know it is a good investment for us.

This is priceless.

It’s an investment into my life!!

 

[bakerworld]

Wait…you took their PTO time? Was that allowed??

I track mine in my budget app (shoutout to YNAB!) so I always know how much PTO I have and can crosscheck the number work tells me. At a certain point the number caps out and I have to sell it or use it or it won’t accumulate further. I haven’t reached that ever though.

Yep - took their PTO. Written into the benefits package annually PTO would be reduced. Accumulation was allowed past cap so the employee had until a certain date to use the overage and about a 1/3 did not use it or felt it would 'look' better for them if they lost time. The only person who saw them losing time was the person who ran the time accrual reports. Their managers/directors/VP's didn't see it. The only smart ones were the employees who separated before the date the PTO was reduced back to their accumulation cap because those employees actually received comp pay.

You're smart.

 

[BeachClub2014]

I always enjoy reading the financial analysis strings with fuzzy DVC math shown, all the different ways folks make comparisons of DVC with rates at moderate/deluxe resorts, comparisons with rental rates, time value of money, opportunity costs, arguments for, arguments against—all good reading, but all really meaningless. What is often glossed over and can't be converted to a mathematical equation is the time value of time. What I mean by that is that life is short and challenging enough without trying to monetize happiness. We bought our DVC because we can afford it and love WDW, and want to vacation there every year. Full stop.

My elderly parents are very frugal and have accumulated wealth, but they rarely travel, rarely go out, drive a 10-year-old car, have lived in the same house since the Flintstones moved away, and would NEVER spend "hard-earned money at an amusement park." That's how they choose to live, which is great for them but not for me and my family. All this to say, if you find value in your DVC purchase and it brings enjoyment to you and your family, then "break-even" and other fancy analyses are fun to debate but unimportant to the equation.

 

[bama314]

This is how I thought about it when buying our first resale contract at BLT in 2018:

-The average time that people keep DVC contracts is 7 years, so I assumed I would be average and sell after 7 years.

-It seemed like the price of contracts had steadily increased in the previous years, so I assumed the initial cost would be recouped after selling, including the time value of money, since the value of the contract should increase at the same rate or higher than inflation.

-With the up front cost was taken out of the equation (see above), the cost of the rooms equals the cost of the annual dues on the points required for the room. That seemed like a good deal, so I went ahead with the DVC contract purchase.

- Of course, 7 years later, we have added on, have no plans to sell, and all analysis went out the window

 

[WeIcomeHome]

No, that's not how this works. At all. The simple fact is that spending $40K on DVC today "costs more" than spending $1K on DVC every year for 40 years, because $1 today is worth more than $1 next year, and more again than $1 the year after that, and so on. This is just how money works. It has nothing to do with what you do with said money.

I realize that having this conversation is like spitting into the wind, and I can't help myself. I guess it's one more thing to put on my Fourth Step lislistI

I'll try facing downwind when I spit... doesn't this ignore the fact that Disney accommodations are increasing in price over time. If 1k buys a week in a room today, it would buy less number of nights in the same room in 10 years but the room will still cost the approximately the same points. Based on this, doesn't your initial purchase maintain value for a certain period of time or do you assume 100% of accomadation inflation is captured in dues increases?