The DVC Spreadsheet Details

The MousePlanet DVC Calculation Spreadsheet

To help my wife and I in our decision to buy into the Disney Vacation Club, I created a spreadsheet that allowed me to adjust the assumptions—but was not very simple to use. MousePlanet had offered two older spreadsheets over the years which, while useful, were designed to be used at one specific moment in time, with many of the assumptions hard coded into the document. Click here to download the Excel spreadsheet.

This spreadsheet is designed to work permanently, allowing you to control all of the assumptions. However in order to be able to calculate compounding costs (for dues) as a variable, this spreadsheet uses Excel Macros. Since more recent versions of Excel automatically disable macros, please check your Excel documentation for instructions on how to turn macros on for this spreadsheet.

Rather than building the spreadsheet from scratch, I borrowed on the work done previously by Brian Bennett and Pat Edaburn. I am indebted to their efforts.

To use the spreadsheet, adjust the values in the yellow section. The results will update in the green section. The following describes each value you see in the spreadsheet:

Assumptions

• Number of Points Purchased – This would be total number of points you purchase. In most cases, 150 points will be the smallest number you can buy, though you can obviously more. Change this to the number you are looking to purchase.

• Number of Years until Contract Expiration – This will vary depending on the property. As of November 2006, all DVC properties except Saratoga Springs have 36 years remaining until the contract expires. Saratoga Springs has 48 years remaining.

• Cost per Point – This is the net cost per point you are paying. As of November 2006, that cost is $101 per point. However, DVC frequently runs specials that will provide you a discount on the cost per point. So, if the current discount is $15/point, you would adjust the cost to $86.

• Closing Costs – This number can only come from Disney. Included here is an example of what one person paid for a 150 point purchase, but this value will likely be different for you.

• Down Payment – How much are you putting down for your purchase. In you are paying cash for the entire purchase, put in the full amount here.

• Length of Loan in Years – How long are you financing your purchase for. (Do NOT set this to a value below 1, even if you are not financing. It will cause the calculations to break).

• Loan Interest Rate in percent – Enter the annual interest rate you are paying for your financing.

• Current Maintenance Cost per point per year – Enter the current maintenance cost per point for the property you are looking to purchase. This value changes yearly, so ask DVC what the current rate is.

• Average Annual Rate of Increase in Maintenance Cost – As of 2006, this an average of 3.5 percent across all DVC properties. Adjust this assumption to several different values, in order to see just how changes in the maintenance costs can impact your total cost.

• Current Cost of Moderate Resort – What is a common rate for a nightly stay at a moderate resort? When you determine this, be sure you include the all taxes (including occupancy tax) in your cost.

• Average Cost of a DVC Room per night in Points – See the chart below for average point cost per night for various DVC resorts—both studios and 1 bedrooms. That chart represents an average point cost. If you know that you always travel in September, you can change this to the actual average nightly cost for that stay.

• Effective rate of increase in hotel rates – In percentages, what is the average rate of increase in hotel rates expected during the life of the contract.

Results

• A. Lifetime Cost of DVC membership in actual dollars – This is the total you would pay in actual dollars over the full lifetime of your contract in purchase price, financing, annual maintenance costs, and closing costs.

• B. Net cost per point per year (equally spread over life of contract) – This represents the average price per point per year. Keep in mind that this is an average, which means that your cost per point in year 1 would be the exact same as you cost per point in year 48.

• C. Average Nightly cost of DVC Room for profiled property – For the property you selected above (in Average cost of a DVC room in points), this is the average cost per night. Again, as in result B, this value is an average, which means your cost in year one is the same as in year 48.

• D. Average Cost of full use of points per year – If you use all the points you purchase in one year, this is the average cost for that stay.

• E. Average Cost of Moderate Resort for same length stay as D – Based on the rate of increase in hotel room rates, this is the average cost for a room based on the length of stay represented in D.

• F. Cost of Moderate vs. DVC – This is how much more a standard Moderate resort room will cost over the life of the contract, compared to a DVC resort.

Please understand that while I’ve put a lot of effort into making sure my math is accurate, the final results are only an estimate. I hope that they are a very accurate estimate, but I cannot guarantee that.