One reason VB dues are higher is because of higher insurance premiums. OTOH, should the resort be destroyed by a hurricane and not rebuilt, then the owners there would receive the insurance distribution.
You do realize I hope that if you buy two smaller contracts at different home resorts, you cannot combine the points at 11-months to get the home resort advantage. You can only use actual home resort points to book at that specific home resort at 11-months. At 7-months the points can be combined to be used at any resort.
While dues can go up annually, they can only go up as needed to meet increasing costs to actually operate the resort. As salaries go up for housekeeping and other staff, insurance premiums go up, taxes go up, utilities go up, then dues will go up to cover those actual increases only.
DVC cannot raise dues simply to increase their own profit. DVC management has a fiduciary responsibility to the owners.
You cannot just compare the rate of increase in dues to the rate of increase in regular WDW hotel rooms because the base cost is so different. Suppose you're paying $5/point in dues, and a Studio is 10 pts/night, then you are paying $50 for a night (dues only). If dues go up 3%, then it's $5.15/point, or $51.50 for a night, an increase of $1.50/night.
But if a WDW hotel room is $168/night ($150 + $18 tax) and it goes up 3%, then it goes to $173.04/night, an increase of $5.04/night. Over a 7-day vacation that's an increase of $35.28 compared to the DVC (dues) increase of $10.50 for the week. Keep doing that for 20 or 30 years, and you'll see the differences get considerably larger.
If you do the math, then depending on what you originally pay to buy DVC, how you finance, etc., you'll find that in anywhere from 6 to 10 years you've broken even and after that it's a savings compared to regular WDW hotel rooms. Keep in mind that's trying to compare apples to apples, DVC studio to a WDW hotel. Many owners elect to get better accommodations instead,such as one or two bedroom villas. In this case they're not saving a lot of money over a WDW hotel room, but are getting much better accommodations. Something many could not afford if it were not for DVC.
You seem quite knowledgeable. If you do buy say SSR and you decide say 5 months out you would like BCV (no special view) is this almost impossible. I guess I am trying to gauge is the reality of the booking procedure. What is the furthest out you would say-- sure you could get BCV 7 or 8 months out but definately, never _____ months out
When we bought AKV in 2007, we knew we would want to add on eventually at BCV- but the resale market had SO few listings; the fact that you can actually buy BCV right now makes this the right time to buy irregardless of the price factor coming down (not that I don't think that's great, too!
