Looking at Saratoga Resale

[BrianLo]

DVC should never be considered in a "purely financial" mindset. It is NOT an investment that anyone can expect to "make" money on. People keep talking about how you could do so much better investing your money in something, and using the profits for Disney trips. Sorry, but unless you have several hundred thousand dollars at a rate of return greater than almost anything today, you're never going to have enough to stay deluxe for 2-3 trips a year like we do. Just not going to happen. DVC isn't for everyone, I am the first to admit that, as the one and only thing that should be considered when purchasing DVC is the money saved on the deluxe accomadations. Period. Never buy thinking that there will be discounts. Never buy if you think you might make money on a resale. The resale market could crash tomorrow.

We have owned at SSR for over 15 years already, and plan on leaving it to our kids in 20 years or so. Still plenty of time for them to enjoy it themselves, though we already add them onto trips every other year now.

This is what the OP lead with. Clearly preferring RIV and indicating they would sell in 20 years. If the advice is not meant to be financial then yes, they should buy RIV and not worry about the 11k difference. The only reason they are considering SSR is because of the financial aspect, so that's what I was discussing.

There's nothing wrong with extracting all the value and running out the life of a contract. At a certain point someone needs to point out that there is absolutely no financial benefit to buy Boardwalk Direct when renting more or less breaks even. In this instance I think the OP is indicating they want RIV but are getting stuck on the upfront cost of the contract, which really is a small portion of the lifetime use of the contract.

Just like the maintenance fees, the biggest predictor of which has to do with the cost of the home resorts points chart pricing. RIV likely will be at or below SSR maintenance fee wise.

 

[i<3riviera]

This is what the OP lead with. Clearly preferring RIV and indicating they would sell in 20 years. If the advice is not meant to be financial then yes, they should buy RIV and not worry about the 11k difference. The only reason they are considering SSR is because of the financial aspect, so that's what I was discussing.

There's nothing wrong with extracting all the value and running out the life of a contract. At a certain point someone needs to point out that there is absolutely no financial benefit to buy Boardwalk Direct when renting more or less breaks even. In this instance I think the OP is indicating they want RIV but are getting stuck on the upfront cost of the contract, which really is a small portion of the lifetime use of the contract.

Just like the maintenance fees, the biggest predictor of which has to do with the cost of the home resorts points chart pricing. RIV likely will be at or below SSR maintenance fee wise.

agreed, the various resorts certainly have different operations / maintenance / tax costs but not dramatically so on a per equivalent 2b basis (fictitious for PVB) ... at the same location (WDW); the logic follows that if the numerator (operations + maintenance + tax costs) is roughly the same but the denominator (total points per resort via an expensive point chart) is higher, your maintenance fees will be lower per point; again, considering a per equivalent 2b basis

in 2020 (for 2021 dues), a credit was refunded to DVC members for the COVID-19 shutdown period; essentially, DVCM refunded 100% of surplus funds vs. their typical approach of applying them to the capital reserves; calculating true effective dues being trivial: 2020 initial - 2020 credit applied to 2021 dues; sure the absolute dues would be off but resorts all closed for the same amount of time (WDW resorts) would still be relatively correct

with this, you can then see which resorts' long term dues should align with each other; as @BrianLo mentioned, it's not an unreasonable conclusion to assume RVA dues will be ≈ SSR dues in a few years

there are many reasons to prefer SSR over RVA; however, SSR's dues advantage is fleeting in a 20+ year analysis

below are the data ...

 

[Schweino]

Nice chart @i<3riviera - I actually think you shared something similar in the past with me.

Hopefully our trip on 11/29 gives my wife a better idea if she's sold on it or not. The other thing I need to think about is we def want to take 2-3 trips to Hawaii over the life of ownership as well. However, a 1BR is $740 (which includes 30% discount promo) and my brain wants to say for $740, there are nicer rooms/resorts, and I don't see Aulani offering anything unique (like staying on-site at WDW offers with 'perks') other than the Disney brand. Maybe I need to look at that more.

 

[CaptainAmerica]

the logic follows that if the numerator (operations + maintenance + tax costs) is roughly the same but the denominator (total points per resort via an expensive point chart) is higher, your maintenance fees will be lower per point; again, considering a per equivalent 2b basis

I think you have two numerator problems and a denominator problem.

Numerator problem 1: Saratoga Springs and Riviera are vastly different physical resorts. One giant tower versus 20 individual buildings around a golf course are going to depreciation much differently. There's no reason to assume that operations + maintenance + tax cousts would be "roughly the same."

Numerator problem 2: The Skyliner station at Riviera. People much smarter than me have opined that they see the Skyliner station as a ticking time bomb of maintenance fee increases.

Denominator problem: Your analysis hinges on the assumption that a point is a point. That might work for SAP, but it doesn't work when we're talking about Riviera resale in particular because Riviera resale points can only be used at Riviera. The heavy points chart might mean that maintenance costs are spread among a larger base of points, but also means you need more points to stay there for the same number of nights. You shouldn't care about dues per point, you should care about dues per room night. The heavy chart might mitigate the cost of a 150 point contract, but it might also make you upgrade to a 200 point contract.

 

[BrianLo]

Numerator problem 2: The Skyliner station at Riviera. People much smarter than me have opined that they see the Skyliner station as a ticking time bomb of maintenance fee increases.

This seems like a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket of maintenance and also people talking out their bottom ends. The resort isn't responsible for the maintenance of the entire system, which is also significantly cheaper than a Monorail.

Based on Doppelmayr's costs we're talking about 5-10-cents per point annualized would buy an entirely new line, gondolas, stations etc. Probably just as, if not more expensive is the dedicated busing.

 

[nickys]

This seems like a tiny, tiny drop in the bucket of maintenance and also people talking out their bottom ends. The resort isn't responsible for the maintenance of the entire system, which is also significantly cheaper than a Monorail.

Based on Doppelmayr's costs we're talking about 5-10-cents per point annualized would buy an entirely new line, gondolas, stations etc. Probably just as, if not more expensive is the dedicated busing.

I’ve tried to copy the breakdown of costs for 2021 maintenance fees for Bay Lake vs Riviera, but the formatting stinks. So instead, this will have to suffice:

Bay Lake cost per point for transportation $0.4075

Riviera cost per point for transportation $1.0513

That’s more than double, which is quite significant.

For 2022, remembering that Bay Lake hasn’t had boats running:

Bay Lake cost per point for transportation $0.3443

Riviera cost per point for transportation. $0.9691

 

[BrianLo]

I’ve tried to copy the breakdown of costs for 2021 maintenance fees for Bay Lake vs Riviera, but the formatting stinks. So instead, this will have to suffice:

Bay Lake cost per point for transportation $0.4075

Riviera cost per point for transportation $1.0513

That’s more than double, which is quite significant.

For 2022, remembering that Bay Lake hasn’t had boats running:

Bay Lake cost per point for transportation $0.3443

Riviera cost per point for transportation. $0.9691

Thanks! That's good to know. Just pulled SSR and it's 0.8883 for 2021. VGF is 0.5551.

I'm surprised the Monorail resorts run so low.

 

[SteveAZee]

Thanks! That's good to know. Just pulled SSR and it's 0.8883 for 2021. VGF is 0.5551.

I'm surprised the Monorail resorts run so low.

If they buy a fleet of new monorails, that may change.

 

[nickys]

Thanks! That's good to know. Just pulled SSR and it's 0.8883 for 2021. VGF is 0.5551.

I'm surprised the Monorail resorts run so low.

Each of the monorail resorts are shared resorts. The proportion of transport costs are based on the relative occupancy. If there are 50% regular rooms and 50% studios at the Poly, the DVC maintenance fees pay 50% of the transport costs of the resort.

Whether the Skyliner costs are split equally between the four resorts, or split by relative occupancy I don’t know. But still Riviera doesn’t have regular rooms to share the cost with.

Saratoga has buses to all four parks to pay for, therefore has relatively high transport costs. Etc.

 

[correcaminos]

If they buy a fleet of new monorails, that may change.

They still will share the costs, but I doubt we'll see a new fleet anytime soon