Lynnmor wrote:
bid_time wrote:
johnnyrv wrote:
Start first with a good floor plan then build a good shell around it. I think 23 to 24 feet is necessary for a walk around queen. If the interior quality is high end I think $50,000 would be competitive.
No way am I going to spend $50,000.00 for a 24-foot non-engineered trailer from a guy building it in his barn that could be bankrupt tomorrow. Frame bending, wall instability, and about 100 other potential disasters come to mind with no recourse. No offense - just no thanks. I'll stick with a manufacturer that at least has some engineers on staff, if not signed and sealed drawings.
If you think that the current crop of travel trailers are "engineered" I wonder why they don't last. Show me one built in a barn, I might buy it.
I'm not going to doubt the guys engineering skills but from a marketing perspecitive it's not a plus.
The problem is for $50k, I could buy a new trailer every 10yrs and just throw the old one away and assuming no investement earnings, I should be good for 40-50yrs.
Realistically with a modest amount of maintenance, the cheap trailers are good for 20+yrs and by then most peoples needs have changed so they are looking for something different anyway.
From purely a market planning perspective: When the people saying we need a top quality trailer put down a $10k deposit, I will take thier comments seriously but until then I will go with what the market makes and sells as being realistic.
There probably is a small market for high end small trailers but from what I've seen on the roads, it must be a very tiny slice of the pie and unless you have a connection, it will be difficult to capture that market.
