I just joined the forum and am new to this whole thing but I wanted to reach out to you and also tell you not to give up. We were working with the same budget and with the same wish list. We very luckily recently found exactly what we were looking for and in our price range and we're really excited about it. It took a lot of time and effort and a willingness to look at a lot of ugly ducklings but a decent class c in that price range is not out of line.
We decided to forego dealers, as the markup at dealers near me was often outlandish. We checked rv trader, craigslist and other sites for private sales. I was willing to search many hours from our home. I checked for new listings every day and I was the first person to respond to the seller we are purchasing from. If we have up after the first class c we looked at we never would have gotten anywhere. We decided against towing simply because of our current vehicle situation and based on the advice of people much more knowledgable than ourselves.
A private sale can be risky, but so can purchasing from a dealer. There are really great people out there willing to sell their gently used rvs for a fair price. You just have to find the right one and that will take patience and time.
