anybody have any input?

[rockdale]

I am interested in buying a conversion. I have found racingjunk.com with the largest listing. My issue is the asking price on the used units. I do have some experance with rvs. They do not hold there value. Example I purchased a new "high end rv"(if there is such a thing in the rv industry)it is now 4 years old and according to NADA and my dealer it is worth less than 1/2 of my original purchase price. I can swallow this but not easyly. after all the book says so.

Now I am looking at used conversions. I find a hand full of used units and all the prices seem to be very high as they are 3 to 7 years old. Doing what I think is correct is I go to NADA.com and check to see what they say the used units are worth. What I found is the book price is some times 1/2 of what the dealers and the private sellers are asking. One other point I would like to bring up is when ever I have traded in an RV,car,truck,boat, the dealer has always pulled out his NADA book and insulted me with the price, again I except this it is what the book says. Let me know what you think.

[Warpath]

Boy if you would have only been looking a year earlier. I would say last year you could have had any 05 or older for at least $30,000 less than what they are selling for now. I monitor Racingjunk quite often and early in the year Haulmark & others started to turn out some really high end rigs with 3 & 4 slides, decked out interiors, full custom body paint in the 250,000 range. Once that happened all of sudden the used stuff started to see higher prices as well.

Ahh but only wait a short time and it will probably change again. With these higher end upgraded rigs, I think it pulled in new buyers. But as you see in many of the ads there are a ton of 07 used stuff with low miles flooding the market. I think alot of these new buyers have no clue what a conversion is about and quickly find out that it was not what they had imagined it to be.

The problem with NADA and conversions is that it is near impossible to judge the builder, the chassis and the customization into a standard price for a rig. Unlike traditional RV's you will need to do alot more homework to really judge what is a fair deal.

[rjdhomes]

Rockdale, you will find that the nicer conversions hold their value unbelievably better than anything else out there. When I appraise a used Renegade- I figure out what I would have sold the unit new at, I deduct 5% to 10% for the first year, 5% for the second year- than nothing after that. I then add for any profit I would need, and my customers see those figures. My partner (who sells used trucks) thinks I'm nuts, but that formula works on most units. If a motorhome is really beat and not taken care of- it would hold less value. These motorhomes hold together great and the chassis are basically retired the day they are built. Another reason I believe they hold their value better is that our profit margins are less than traditional motorhome dealers. NADA does not get enough data from dealers to accurately reflect prices. I have an input form for NADA and I am guilty of not getting info to them. Some financial institutions go by that book, we have plenty of banks that know our product and we do not have too many problems getting financing.

Bob Dill
Owner of Westside Motorcoach