I keep coming back to this same write-up year after year:
http://changingears.com/rv-art-determining-rv-fmv.shtmlThe short and quick answer is try to pay no more than NADA low retail, without adding any options. The options trick gets many people into thinking their RV is worth more than it is.
The longer answer is summarized in the above article. NADA is only a starting point and many factors can come into play. I usually watch the market for months on the model I'm interested in and similar ones. Make notes on how long a listing stays online, what the price was when it first went up for sale and if it dropped. My own rule of thumb is <30d on the market is a hot seller or at a great price. >90d price is too high or no demand. I use this for car shopping and seems to be about right for RVs IMHO.
I will also leverage new prices if the used model is new enough to make the comparison to a seller. Go to rvdirect.com and price a new one ... you'll see the huge markup between a reasonable price and MSRP. That will put into perspective asking prices on the used market. For example I ran into someone trying to sell a 6 yr old MH at only a few thousand below what I could get a new one for. With that research you'd know their out to lunch.
Additional leverage is when the exact model is for sale in two or more places within reasonable distance to you. Then you can play the sellers off of each other. This is exactly what I did between two dealers to get our current 5er.
It's far too easy to pay too much for an RV. Gotta do research.
