We seriously considered joining the DVC...but after talking it over with our Financial Advisor, we decided it was not the best investment for us.
We are looking to buy a vacation home NEAR Disney and will rent it out part of the year to cover costs... and may still opt to stay on property once a year, and at our own place another time each year. When it's all paid for, it will be ours outright and we can use it long term when we retire... and unless it disappears in a hurricane, we'll still have it long after the terms of a Disney Vacation Club membership are over. We're just waiting for the Orlando housing market to correct a bit more... We figure what we spend on a week's lodging at Disney on property would cover at least 2 months of a mortgage each year... Between friends and family we could probably rent it out at least 24 weeks a year... We don't really care about making money off it, just covering the costs of ownership...and having it for our golden years. A longterm investment.
There are some cost benefit analysis available on the net if you search for them... It just didn't make good financial sense to us... as much as we love Disney and the idea of joining DVC.
Not trying to veer off topic here, but since this came up, I wanted to discuss it, and it's semi-relevant to the issue.
A very experienced realtor that I've used for several property transactions called me a short while ago just to chat. We discussed the following:
As of yesterday, Aug 14, 2006 - the Central Fla inventory of homes for sale is 20,770, a 600% increase from one year ago. These are listings of private sellers only, which doesn't include homes for sale by developers.
From personal experience I can tell you that there are over 300 homes in Celebration on the market not including the condo conversion of Mirasol or hundreds of homes being built in Artisan Park. There are probably the same number for rent.
An article in the Orlando Sentinel about a month ago cited estimates that by the end of 2006 there would be around 100,000 homes for rent in Central Fla, most of them vacation homes.
It's the best buyer's market he's seen in 21 years. He has clients becoming desperate and dropping prices 50 to 70k at a clip.
He believes we're in the very early stages of a 3 to 5 year correction and that the area as a whole is 25 to 30% overpriced.
The property flippers are starting to hurt big time.
He has more business than he's had in 5 years because tons of people who got licenses and jumped into the biz cannot make it now and sellers/buyers are looking for experienced agents.
Only my opinion, but I'd be careful in these circumstances about being an absentee vacation home owner.
