Am I correct or not?
In my way of thinking when you purchase a motorhome, as you would a house, it's an investment. Yes, unlike a house, there will be depreciation as opposed to appreciation. If you don't live in it full ...
Forum Discussion
Floridastorm wrote:
Thank you so much all for the feedback. Very informative and interesting.
However, there may have been a bit of misinterpretation regarding my inquiry. I was primarily addressing "recoverable" funds.
As an example; One purchases a 10 year old motor home in good shape. One that does not require rebuilding or extensive work. You purchase it for $30,000. You keep it for 10 years, use it for recreation, and then sell it when finished with it for $15,000. (this is just a ballpark example and not an actual). You have recovered half of your investment. In fact, you can even figure, the funds you recovered from the sale, into the total expenses for the motorhome and traveling over a 10 year period.
I also somehow think that, when you consider how much it costs to drive your car on vacation, stay at hotels (sorry, but at my age I don't do Motel 6 and Super 8. Hampton Inns routinely are $100 per day ), 3 meals a day at restaurants (again, I don't do McDonalds), as opposed to driving your motor home, eating the same food, in the motor home, that you would eat at home, and occasionally staying at a medium priced RV park and other times staying at rest stops and big box store parking lots, then I'm wondering how, except for maintenance on the motor home and a little less gas mileage, that traveling in your car could possibly be less expensive.
I do agree, it you purchase a new motor home or one that is less than 5 years old, you will not recoup as much percentage wise that you would with a 10 year old motor home.
Does this add some clarification?
As mentioned above, "recovering costs" is not equal to "investment". For anything you buy, other than consumables, you may "recover costs" if you later sell it - but that is not an investment strategy because you will always LOSE money - whether in the actual price, the additional expenses, repairs and maintenance, etc.
As for the comparison to car travel, you're picking and choosing based on personal desires rather than apple to apple. You can find inexpensive motels, bring a hot plate, cooking supplies and food from home and travel at a similar cost to travel in the RV. As soon as you change those parameters, it ceases to be equal. So, you won't stay in a cheap hotel - OK, you changed the parameters; So, if you stay at a hotel you will eat at non-cheap restaurants - OK, you changed the parameters again. Now you're looking at 2 completely different travel styles and trying to say one is an investment. Travel is NOT an investment - it's an expense plain and simple.
Travel is what you make it. If you want to buy an RV and travel in it - do so and enjoy. There's no need to try to justify it as cost effective or an investment. It's what you want to do - it's what a lot of folks want to do.
