Buying First Motor Home

I don't see any reason to avoid the Chevy / Workhorse chassis models at the time (early to mid 2000's the Workhorse chassis with the 8.1L was a multi thousand dollar upgrade over the Ford F53 with 6.8 V10 on those models that were offered with a choice of each), As to what you can get for your money I paid $20,500 ($25,000 initial asking price) for my then just under 15 year old 28 ft Safari Trek last year from a private seller 1,100 miles away in Florida, and it had over $10,000 in upgrade parts since 2014, though I did spend 5 or 6 months shopping mostly online before I found it.

Also while one might have reason to be cautious about coaches from the gulf coast at the moment, I would not rule them out entirely, particularly right now, sure those with water damage will be showing up on the market but for now people have not had time to hide that damage and there are people needing to sell their RV's to pay for home repairs, etc.