"It's strange to me, the prices of stuff. Back in the late 90s I bought a new Starcraft popup for $4500; pretty much any travel trailer would have been more than twice as much, and I couldn't afford them. Now I see plenty of popups selling in the teens, and I could buy a basic 16' lightweight TT for about $11K."
This is so true. I think, in 1998-1999 when we purchased our first pop-up, we bought it new and the price was right at $5000. When we sold it for a trade-in at the dealer, they gave us credit for $4000 six years later. We were ecstatic! We didn't even negotiate that price, they just offered it. So in that 6 year period, prices of PUP's really began to skyrocket... even used.
Today, it makes better sense to purchase a regular small travel trailer for the same price. (the prices today just don't make sense to me!)