50% less from what you paid

The depreciation curve looks like a hockey stick starting at about 20% the first year it goes to 18% 15% 12%10% 8% 6% and stays at 6% all the way out to scrap value. The knee of the curve is somewhere around 4 to 5 years then it starts to flatten out.

happy-2 wrote:
I never bought an RV as an investment,I buy for the freedom of going when i want, where i want, no bed bugs, we buy when we find a coach that fulfills our needs.and then we keep it . I just found our 2nd MH,it took me about a year of looking,It will be our last.When we get ready to Stop The RV life Im not going to care what Its worth.I never buy from a Dealer.

No it's not an investement but if you understand how much you lose to buy that "new car smell", you can save a ton of money.

Half of that occurred the moment you drove it off of the lot.

Amazingly, when we were shopping for our current MH we can across a number of 2013's and 2014's where the buyer purchased the new rig and then traded it back in within 6 months or a year of purchase. Talking with sales people I learned that often the trade is because they just didn't like the first purchase and traded back to purchase a bigger or smaller RV. I can't even imagine the depreciation loss that was taken.

The depreciation loss is probably huge. It is not that amazing. Some people don't care about depreciation, they only care about getting the coach they want. And if they keep what they don't want two or three years more they only suffer that much more depreciation in trade in value while watching the prices of new ones going up. Sometimes it is best to cut losses early on if you know what you have is not working for you.

Amazingly, when we were shopping for our current MH we can across a number of 2013's and 2014's where the buyer purchased the new rig and then traded it back in within 6 months or a year of purchase. Talking with sales people I learned that often the trade is because they just didn't like the first purchase and traded back to purchase a bigger or smaller RV. I can't even imagine the depreciation loss that was taken.

I was just thinking about the decline in value of my previous coach, but cannot calculate it because I traded a 3 yo Damon Daybreak for it plus cash and then traded it for my present coach. I owned the Southwind for 8 years and put just about 110,000 miles on it. I figure that I got about $10,000 for the coach in trade - msrp when I bought was $120,000 but I figure I got it for about $90,000 so depreciation was about $10,000 per year. Since we averaged more than 6 months a year living in it, I feel that we got plenty of value for the money. The mileage was a big detriment to the dealer. Many would not even consider a trade. I can understand that the market for 8 yo gas coaches with high mileage is poor even if they have been well maintained. KBB suggested it was worth $15,000.

Our real life experience with depreciation on our new 2008 Monaco Dynasty was a follows:

We ordered it from the Monaco factory in January of 2007 and took delivery of our 2008 in April of that year.

We paid 77.8% of sticker price (cash sale, no trade). Fast forward 7.5 yrs. and 70,000 miles, we sold it and received 49% of our funds back minus the commission of 8%.

So final percentage from new...

45% actual cash back after 7.5 yrs.

We could have sold it ourselves but I didn't want the hassle and it was worth it to us to consign.

We were happy.

MM.

I never bought an RV as an investment,I buy for the freedom of going when i want, where i want, no bed bugs, we buy when we find a coach that fulfills our needs.and then we keep it . I just found our 2nd MH,it took me about a year of looking,It will be our last.When we get ready to Stop The RV life Im not going to care what Its worth.I never buy from a Dealer.

Automobiles of any kinds start depreciating as soon as you drive off the lot. No different.

The last vehicle I purchased before traveling was a fully loaded GMC Envoy. Sticker was 38,000 and at 4 years old and 59,000 miles when I purchased it, I paid #15,000 -- lots of depreciation there too.

jmtandem wrote:
Many RV's lose about half their MSRP value in about five years. One exception is Airstream. Their folks will tell you if you keep a new AS for fifteen years in good condition you will likely get your initial purchase price back (since the new ones have increased in cost/value it tends to keep the pre owned value higher). Many other RV's are not worth all that much about the time the loan is paid off. Too bad.

Well most people pay about 75% of MSRP to begin with, I would say that in the first 5 years it depreciated another 30-40% of what you paid.