Over Priced Used Motorhomes.

A sale takes a willing seller and a willing buyer. Looks like you have neither. Find an RV auction and check prices.

It's very easy to get a stupidly high price if you use KBB as a guide for selling. They provide a base-line price and the prices for "Extra" features. These include stoves, sinks, toilets, propane systems, h/w heaters and many other things that are absolutely basic on any motor-home.

I'll be putting ours on the market in the next couple of weeks and I'll be taking another look at KBB and NADA, but trying to remain realistic.

bsinmich wrote:

enblethen wrote:
There are many good 14 year old rigs.
If you are looking in MI only, I would suggest getting away from the area where large quantities of salt is used during the winter. It remains on the road and other areas year round contributing to early decay.
You might look at RVT.com for what you are interested in. Some locations even pay your way your come and look.

I have lived in Mich. all my life and have had RVs since 1969. I have never had my RVs in snow!! Salt is use a lot less than previously and it does not remain on the road all year

. Rain and snow wash the salt away regularly. There is no rust under my '95 Roadtrek or '03 Mountain Aire.

Thank you! X2

I lived in Wisconsin.
A. we don't drive our RV's in winter.
B. The salt does NOT remain on the road after the torrential downpours of spring it's gone. If it were not we would all be sporting white dusted windshields all summer long and we don't.

I just bought property in Florida for a winter base. That said.

I would buy a Midwest RV in a heart beat OVER any RV from the south.

What the damp swampy rainy weather, green mold and black mold, and blazing sun does to a MH down here is unbelievable. And the damage is done in a very short time if they are not driven each and every day.

I parked my MH for the winter months in Wisconsin and come summer it looked the same as the day I parked it come summer. I parked my MH down here for 3 months and the damage had already started.:(

It rains 'everyday' during the summer months like clockwork. And it's sheets of straight down down pour rain for long periods.

That creates the green mold all over the RV. If there is a pin hole in the MH anywhere the water WILL find it. Just the humidity alone creates mildew/mold inside the RV. Pine trees pollinate down here and if not wiped and clean daily it permeates the RV. Decals? forget about it they last maybe a year in the south. And more so on the side facing the afternoon killer sun. Tires? Rot in half the time sitting from the intense sun.

Nope, I see what it is doing to my poor beloved MH as I look out the window right now and I would definitely buy one from the Midwest area versus the South. Just saying.

enblethen wrote:
There are many good 14 year old rigs.
If you are looking in MI only, I would suggest getting away from the area where large quantities of salt is used during the winter. It remains on the road and other areas year round contributing to early decay.
You might look at RVT.com for what you are interested in. Some locations even pay your way your come and look.

I have lived in Mich. all my life and have had RVs since 1969. I have never had my RVs in snow!! Salt is use a lot less than previously and it does not remain on the road all year. Rain and snow wash the salt away regularly. There is no rust under my '95 Roadtrek or '03 Mountain Aire.

rgatijnet1 wrote:

crcr wrote:

rgatijnet1 wrote:
Look on eBay for "completed" auctions. This will give you an idea of what coaches are actually selling for, NOT what people are asking for them. You will be surprised at how few are actually sold. Probably somewhere around 10% or less actually sell. Then compare the actual sales price and you will see that they are selling for below the low retail at NADA. Some of them are quite a bit below the low retail.

I also used to use Ebay "sold" auctions as a guide of value for items, but I learned that this is invalid as a measure, so I no longer use that method.

Here is why: I both sell and buy on ebay, have for many years. A couple months ago, I sold a used smartphone in an ebay auction for in the neighborhood of $250. The buyer was a deadbeat -- did not pay. Since I sell alot on ebay, I have it set up that after 4 days of no pay for an item, it automatically goes into a non-paying case in the Resolution Center. Then if the buyer has not paid after 4 more days, I as seller am issued by ebay, a refund of the fees they charged me when the item sold. I then re-listed the phone after the 8 day delay. The same exact thing happened, with a different deadbeat!! No pay, then my smartphone was tied up for another 8 days while I waited for the process to complete. Meanwhile, my item was off the market, and in the case of a smartphone, was depreciating.

So I started researching, and found that a LOT of used and unique items (this makes them easy to identify when re-listed by the same seller) that sold, were then re-listed, sometimes several times. So now I NEVER list an item on ebay as an auction, ONLY fixed price, and even then, I require "immediate payment", which means the deadbeats cannot tie up my item by bidding and not paying.

What I have found in my long years of selling experience is that auctions have the greatest amount of deadbeat bidders (as opposed to Buy it Now items), but both get them. Non-paying is rampant on ebay. Management doesn't seem to care, as there seems to be little penalty to the deadbeat buyers. I think one of the reasons they don't care, is that if you do not go thru the official ebay process I described, you will not recover your seller's fees. So if the seller just relists it after two or three days of non payment, then sells it again, he pays the sold fees twice! I can tell you that it's a major problem for sellers on ebay. Google it, and you will find discussions on forums of ebay sellers about the problem.

So bottom line, it is very dangerous to use sold ebay prices of items as a measure of value. You will end up with a lot of artificially inflated measures of value, since many of these items were never paid for, and thus are not real market numbers. There are often legitimate bidders who would have paid, but since they are bidding in good faith with real money behind their bids, when they are outbid by deadbeats, sometimes several of them, they stop bidding at a number that reflects their estimation of market value.

So you had a deadbeat buyer on a $250 phone. What does that have to do with the sale of motor homes? I have sold over $500,000 worth of Classic cars on eBay and every sale went through without a hitch.
I think the problem of non-paying bidders is more confined to low cost objects where the seller does not restrict his auctions to legitimate bidders. I restricted my bidders, as do many others selling high dollar items, to bidders with positive feedback and verifiable contact information.

I also restrict bidders as much as ebay allows a seller to do so. I have researched higher priced items as well as smartphones and other electronic items offered by many sellers, including items sold by sellers I know, and I have seen vehicles and RV's have deadbeat bidders also. It's nice that you have had good experiences, but not all have. The deadbeat bidder problem on ebay is NOT restricted to items under $500. I was merely providing a legitimate caution about using sold ebay prices as a guide to true market value.

Check here links from a simple search about 'deadbeat bidders on ebay motors', and you will see a problem exists, and not just on items of a few hundred dollars.

Bottom line is you must do your research. We probably looked online at hundreds of rigs, and while on trips we visited such places as PPL and some of the larger dealers, as well as the mom and pops. Before I got a plane ticket I had 10+ conversations with the owner, pulled carfax, and felt confident that this was the one. Had it not been, we would have been ok flying back home, having that return ticket told the seller we were not stuck in Texas. I got 2 round trip tickets, and we canceled the return trip, once cementing the deal, thus getting a credit for the unused leg.

As far as the upside down discussion, this has its merits. However 2 of the local rigs I looked at were owned outright, yet still overpriced.

Repos are out there. We have a friend who owns a resell business and was willing to find a late model rig for us at auction if we were unable to find one on our own. We found a nice 2010 well priced repo'd Georgetown in Indiana which we considered, however I was concerned about having a 38 footer on the V10 platform.

Research, research and research more! Use all tools available, let everyone know you are looking, and by concentrating in the southern states, older rigs seem to fair better (with the exception of a rig we bought in Florida years ago, the sun and salt took its toll)

crcr wrote:

rgatijnet1 wrote:
Look on eBay for "completed" auctions. This will give you an idea of what coaches are actually selling for, NOT what people are asking for them. You will be surprised at how few are actually sold. Probably somewhere around 10% or less actually sell. Then compare the actual sales price and you will see that they are selling for below the low retail at NADA. Some of them are quite a bit below the low retail.

I also used to use Ebay "sold" auctions as a guide of value for items, but I learned that this is invalid as a measure, so I no longer use that method.

Here is why: I both sell and buy on ebay, have for many years. A couple months ago, I sold a used smartphone in an ebay auction for in the neighborhood of $250. The buyer was a deadbeat -- did not pay. Since I sell alot on ebay, I have it set up that after 4 days of no pay for an item, it automatically goes into a non-paying case in the Resolution Center. Then if the buyer has not paid after 4 more days, I as seller am issued by ebay, a refund of the fees they charged me when the item sold. I then re-listed the phone after the 8 day delay. The same exact thing happened, with a different deadbeat!! No pay, then my smartphone was tied up for another 8 days while I waited for the process to complete. Meanwhile, my item was off the market, and in the case of a smartphone, was depreciating.

So I started researching, and found that a LOT of used and unique items (this makes them easy to identify when re-listed by the same seller) that sold, were then re-listed, sometimes several times. So now I NEVER list an item on ebay as an auction, ONLY fixed price, and even then, I require "immediate payment", which means the deadbeats cannot tie up my item by bidding and not paying.

What I have found in my long years of selling experience is that auctions have the greatest amount of deadbeat bidders (as opposed to Buy it Now items), but both get them. Non-paying is rampant on ebay. Management doesn't seem to care, as there seems to be little penalty to the deadbeat buyers. I think one of the reasons they don't care, is that if you do not go thru the official ebay process I described, you will not recover your seller's fees. So if the seller just relists it after two or three days of non payment, then sells it again, he pays the sold fees twice! I can tell you that it's a major problem for sellers on ebay. Google it, and you will find discussions on forums of ebay sellers about the problem.

So bottom line, it is very dangerous to use sold ebay prices of items as a measure of value. You will end up with a lot of artificially inflated measures of value, since many of these items were never paid for, and thus are not real market numbers. There are often legitimate bidders who would have paid, but since they are bidding in good faith with real money behind their bids, when they are outbid by deadbeats, sometimes several of them, they stop bidding at a number that reflects their estimation of market value.

So you had a deadbeat buyer on a $250 phone. What does that have to do with the sale of motor homes? I have sold over $500,000 worth of Classic cars on eBay and every sale went through without a hitch.
I think the problem of non-paying bidders is more confined to low cost objects where the seller does not restrict his auctions to legitimate bidders. I restricted my bidders, as do many others selling high dollar items, to bidders with positive feedback and verifiable contact information.

One thing that's pretty much been missing from this discussion is that not all older MH's were created equal. Our Beaver was a luxury coach with an MSRP in the ~$400k range. Fortunately, we didn't pay anywhere near that. It has a full-body paint job in an automotive-quality finish with multiple layers of clearcoat. There are no decals. When waxed and buffed it looks as good as new and people are astounded to learn that it is 14 years old.

Mechanically, we try to keep it in top-notch condition. It has a large-block 12 liter CAT engine designed to last >750k miles before first in-frame rebuild, coupled to a heavy duty Allison 4060 transmission. With 95,000 miles on them, they are just broken in. My maintenance schedule conforms to factory recommendations and I don't cut corners because my per year mileage is low.

As for the interior we have changed most of it, except for the solid wood cabinets for which Beaver was known. The typical RV furniture has been replaced by an Ekornes Stressless sofa and recliner, some of the most comfortable seating pieces in the world. Lighting, electronics, flooring, etc have all been updated. There's a residential fridge, a new washer/dryer and microwave, etc.

If you start with a quality item and employ high quality products when you update it, there is no reason that an older MH can't have a fairly high selling price. The drive train alone on a rig like ours is worth $20-30k just as a used engine and transmission.

rgatijnet1 wrote:
Look on eBay for "completed" auctions. This will give you an idea of what coaches are actually selling for, NOT what people are asking for them. You will be surprised at how few are actually sold. Probably somewhere around 10% or less actually sell. Then compare the actual sales price and you will see that they are selling for below the low retail at NADA. Some of them are quite a bit below the low retail.

I also used to use Ebay "sold" auctions as a guide of value for items, but I learned that this is invalid as a measure, so I no longer use that method.

Here is why: I both sell and buy on ebay, have for many years. A couple months ago, I sold a used smartphone in an ebay auction for in the neighborhood of $250. The buyer was a deadbeat -- did not pay. Since I sell alot on ebay, I have it set up that after 4 days of no pay for an item, it automatically goes into a non-paying case in the Resolution Center. Then if the buyer has not paid after 4 more days, I as seller am issued by ebay, a refund of the fees they charged me when the item sold. I then re-listed the phone after the 8 day delay. The same exact thing happened, with a different deadbeat!! No pay, then my smartphone was tied up for another 8 days while I waited for the process to complete. Meanwhile, my item was off the market, and in the case of a smartphone, was depreciating.

So I started researching, and found that a LOT of used and unique items (this makes them easy to identify when re-listed by the same seller) that sold, were then re-listed, sometimes several times. So now I NEVER list an item on ebay as an auction, ONLY fixed price, and even then, I require "immediate payment", which means the deadbeats cannot tie up my item by bidding and not paying.

What I have found in my long years of selling experience is that auctions have the greatest amount of deadbeat bidders (as opposed to Buy it Now items), but both get them. Non-paying is rampant on ebay. Management doesn't seem to care, as there seems to be little penalty to the deadbeat buyers. I think one of the reasons they don't care, is that if you do not go thru the official ebay process I described, you will not recover your seller's fees. So if the seller just relists it after two or three days of non payment, then sells it again, he pays the sold fees twice! I can tell you that it's a major problem for sellers on ebay. Google it, and you will find discussions on forums of ebay sellers about the problem.

So bottom line, it is very dangerous to use sold ebay prices of items as a measure of value. You will end up with a lot of artificially inflated measures of value, since many of these items were never paid for, and thus are not real market numbers. There are often legitimate bidders who would have paid, but since they are bidding in good faith with real money behind their bids, when they are outbid by deadbeats, sometimes several of them, they stop bidding at a number that reflects their estimation of market value.

mike brez wrote:
After looking at dozens of motorhomes over the course of a couple of years there's is a ton of junk out there. You can go broke flying out from here to there looking at coaches. Thanks to the members on this site and irv2 that happened to be or live in the area of some of the coaches I was interisted in and took a quick look at them for me and gave their opinions. When I saw the coach that I did purchase I didn't mind spending a few grand more for it just because of the condition it was in. As long as your happy with the purchase who cares.

This is the same conclusion that I have come to. What I want to buy has to be better than what I have now. Defining better to you I think is important. Better performance,handling,storage,CCC etc. If you can list what is important to you, then be prepared to spent a few more thousand dollars when you find most of them in one MH.