azdryheat wrote:
It's like buying anything else - find the TH you like and make a reasonable offer. Be prepared to negotiate. When you and the seller are satisfied then you have your TH.
That sounds like a great plan, but I find it a bit off-putting when a dealer's website lists a unit that, for example, high retail is $11,900, and they have it listed for $16,000. What that means is that the most I could pay, even if the unit is pristine for its age, is 75% of the asking price. I find it hard to believe that any dealer would create that much "wiggle room" on the price.
I hear people saying the word "markup" but I guess I don't quite understand what that means in this context. They aren't paying retail or anywhere near retail for any used unit on the lot. If retail is $10-12k, they are paying $6-7k max and then pricing it at $16k when NADA retail is $10-12k. I think showing up with $10-11k for a unit like that is a pretty hefty profit in any business, but from what I've seen, the dealers don't seem to think so. Unless people are just not doing their homework?
Most dealers don't have anything on the lot under $15-20k unless it's a piece of junk they're trying to get rid of "as is." A dealer by me in New Mexico has a unit for sale for $19k that has a book value of about $12k. It's bigger than I'm interested in anyway, but how do you walk in and tell someone they're 40% over book? When I asked the salesman if the price was negotiable, he told me they were "blowing it out" at 40% over NADA high retail. It was and remains a fair condition unit and their asking price is about double what I would be willing to pay. It's still there a month later so I imagine others thought the same thing.
Everything I read on the internet says to do your homework, check NADA or similar, etc. And when I was selling my camper, I wasn't even able to get low retail for it as a private party.
Something is crazy about used RV prices that I just can't put my finger on. I've even thought about doubling my budget because the units that are 5-8 years old book at $12-15k, but dealers are asking $25-30k for them!
I find it hard to believe that these businesses survive entirely on people not looking up the market value of used units and simply relying on other people's insane asking prices, but my experience thus far trying to find one for a reasonable price suggests that might be the case. I hope I'm wrong about this.
Out in the west, it can be a 3-400 mile drive just to look at a few units, so showing up and haggling really isn't a practical solution for me at least.
