Quint Da Man wrote:
So a few have said that buying now is too early for reasons such as warranty issues ect.
I'll be devils advocate and list reasons I think are valid as to why it might be a better idea to buy now than to wait. But I'll set up some conditions. This is not meant to disagree it's just campfire chat here and maybe my logic is completely flawed.
Conditions: wife is 7 years younger than me and wants me to wait until I'm 65 to retire so lets go with that. That makes it 8 years away before full time.
Rig MSRP is $320,000, 30% off makes it around $220,000 plus or minus.
put $100,000 down finance the rest for 20 years but set up bi-monthly which makes it actually 18 yrs.
We are both working and can afford to actually do double payments for the 8 years until we retire so we will have only about 2 or three years left to pay when we finally retire.
If we wait until we retire to buy a new rig it may not be possible and if we do we are facing 20 years of payments so we would most likely have to go used. Also I'm hedging my bet that interest rates are not going to get lower in 8 years but a good chance they are higher, maybe much higher. Also units are not going to get cheaper either.
So used might be more practical, how old, who knows 3, 5 years and buying from somebody we don't know and don't truly know the history. Yes there are many success stories, but many disasters as well. Our rig will be 8 years old, all the bugs are worked out of it, and I know the owners really well :) and know they took care of it.
Yes warranties are long gone but if something failed I've already taken care of it. When warranties expire 5 years after retirement I still have to pay for them out of pocket. Would rather have done that when still working.
So now I'm 68 unit is completely paid off and we have no payments to worry about it's only 10 or 11 years old, has been taken care of and should last another 10 years if we chose to continue if not we sell and put the cash in the bank.
I'll bite. Part of it depends on how much you'll use it during those 8 years. If you have a paid off rig for those 8 years, you can put the same double payments in the bank for a bigger down payment. If you are getting substantial use, didn't have a paid for camper in the drive already, and could have the new RV paid in full at retirement, I can see your logic.
