Anyone rent out their camper?

IAMICHABOD wrote:

dedmiston wrote:
Bingo. It's an excellent indicator that the thread is heading off the cliff.

Well then lets get it back on track somewhat.

Look at these articles they may give you some insight on the original question.

All of these articles are written by the same person that seems to have an agenda and while I didn't read all, they certainly contain a lot of fairy dust about how to "turn your RV into gold" etc. In the real world it's best to rent RV's as a business. Anything else and eventually you'll end up with a headache. On paper it sounds great.

What I didn't cite in my original post was the cost to renting an RV. Now our business was a proper business and we rented strictly Class A rv's. Aside from paying for them, there is maintenance, repairs, advertising and insurance, etc. We had to carry a $1MM policy and the ONLY game in town that even offers RV rental insurance is MBA - So there isn't a lot of price shopping. Our premium was $800/month - per unit. Back of the napkin calculations we had to have our units rented about 25% of the month to Net. It's a cash intensive business. Folks come from everywhere to throw $300/day at you to rent a Class A. But it's all fun and games until it comes back. Then the real work starts, cleaning. Sure we charged a cleaning fee but let's face it, it's never as clean as it should be. Outside, full detail inside etc. On a good day units come back with minor wear and tear, but it becomes the norm that things are damaged. And while damage deposits are fine, that unit is out of commission until it's fixed. That means missed revenue and possibly cancelled trips - depending on how many units you have and if they are available. For us we were emotionally detached. But doing it with your own RV would be heart wrenching. When it's all said and done and you want to exit the game, now you have to sell your RV(s). Pennies on the dollar due to wear and tear and deprecation - most of which is mileage and rag tag interior, smells, stains, all those goodies. No one wants to buy an RV with 100k miles on it - at least not at a fair price. So all that cash you made while things were good, now needs to supplement your loss on the sale. I am telling you, it's not for the faint of heart and certainly shouldn't be done with your personal RV. To each his own. I understand how these bring your own Rv places work. You go into a stable and for a fee they manage everything. But people renting stuff end up destroying it and it's value. That's the nature of people using things that aren't theirs. And best intentions be darned, most of the customers don't have a clue how RV's work.