Finance rates?

Tried your bank?

180 months seems awfully long for just a 50k purchase. It would be many years before you have any equity in it. 180 months is 15 years. Check with the credit union again to make sure your comparing apples to apples.

Check rates on the internet, Google RV financing. Bank of the West is always pretty reasnable.

I'd feel safer dealing with a well known bank, or better yet a credit union that you are a member of. I would be skeptical of someone willing to loan that amount, for 180 months, just using the RV as collateral.

I was looking at CD rates at my bank, and to get 2.05 percent, it would require 50K minimum locked in for 60 months. This being the case, a solid credit union should be able to compete with any honest lender.

How one handles their financial health, is just a step below religion, and politics. :)

Jerry

When we purchased our Redwood, we found a place called -Lightstream.com.. They are associated with a bank in Florida ( we are in PA ).

They secure the loan against a Credit Card, we were able to get 3.4% for 4 years.

They were completely awesome to deal with, everything was done online..

I agree w/ bluie5. Check w/ your credit union again. Do you have other loans w/ them already? We went thru our CU and got a very good rate <3%. Most dealer rates are higher than what you can secure on your own. Come to think of it, what did you tell your CU the $$ was for? If a personal loan, then yes, the rates will be high. If a RV loan, they should be darn close to auto rates.

Essex Credit is 4.89% for 180 months. They are the same as Good Sam Finance. Essex is easy to work with, all done over phone, internet. I used them previously and had no problems.

15 year loan wouldn't you be upside down for a long time

That would be $408 per month for 15 years, payback is $73,490. Plus any fees. Same amount for 10 years at 4.5% (which is still high....) is $518 per month, and you'll save about $10K in interest.

jarata1 wrote:
15 year loan wouldn't you be upside down for a long time

Not really. $50k is after 20% down payment, from trade in of our last RV, which was paid for in cash, so equity is built in.

Plus, I look at 180 month term as cheap insurance hedge against cash flow issues in the future. Nothing prevents us from doing principal pre-payments when we can afford to, which accelerates equity.

Worst case, looking at an amortization schedule, we'd owe roughly $42k after 3 years without pre-payments, which should be slightly less than retail resale value of the rig at that time.

Thanks to all who alerted me to GoodSam/Essex/Bank of the West. I'm using that option to leverage my dealer into doing this as a one stop shopping experience.