Should we Rent or Buy an RV?
Our family (my wife, 3 kids, 11, 8 and 3) is planning a month long vacation this summer. We're going to hit the midwest including the Dakotas, Yellowstone, Glacier NP, some of Utah, Colorado and as ma...
Forum Discussion
jplante4 wrote:
We were facing the same issue. We wanted to do a few vacation and weekend trips before retirement to see if we liked it and also to get a list of the things we'd need in a motorhome to do a six month trip.
I looked at renting but for what I would pay to rent I could buy a 20 year old gasser and use that for a couple of years then resell it.
So that's what we did. We got a 95 P30 chassis 28 foot class A and I put about $5k into getting it fixed up. I got more than what I paid for it when I sold it 2 years later, so 2 years of ownership cost me about $5k.
To me that makes sense. It's a "getting your feet wet" investment. And you bought older and basic to keep the cost down and had the funds to do it.
In the OP's case, they are only going to use it for one trip and then try to sell it in the fall (when the market for RVs goes down). If they're paying a loan on this RV, then they will need to continue making payments and paying for insurance until it sells.
In addition, if the RV is more than 8 - 10 years old, they may not be able to get a loan for it. Are they prepared to pay cash for that $50-60k? Or pay more for a newer one so they can get a loan?
And then there is the buying it for a big trip this summer - depending on weather, they may not have the tume to work out all the bugs, fix it up, etc., before the trip.
