RE: Fixin to jump in, need some advice
If you’re indicating that you have an “opportunity†to purchase three units, it sounds to me like you’re looking only at dealers and/or private parties fairly close to where you live. I think that would be a big mistake. In this market, which is probably the best buyer’s market that’s existed for decades, you’re really hurting yourself if you don’t allow yourself to really utilize that bargaining power that you have right now as a buyer. Allow me to explain.
I personally wouldn’t consider paying more than wholesale price as listed in a current NADA price book. In that regard, the first thing that I would do is spend $132 to order a 2009 recreation vehicle appraisal guide from NADA. (
http://www.nadaguides.com/priceguid...hicle-appraisal-guide.aspx?template=template3) I did that when I bought my used coach a year ago, and it’s the best money I ever spent in my life. I view having the hard copy (not the CD) in hand as indispensable. It made me an informed buyer who was in the driver’s seat whenever I was talking to anyone about purchasing a motorhome, whether an RV sales person or an RV owner. Most RV sales people are really quite ignorant about motorhomes, and the old saying that “the best way to tell if a salesperson is lying as if they’re moving their mouth†is certainly true with most RV salespeople. Sadly, most of them don’t even know that they’re uninformed. That’s why you must take responsibility as a buyer to make sure that you verify everything yourself rather than taking the word of an RV sales person.
I believe most private party owners on the other hand tend to be fairly honest. These units aren’t cheap, so owners are usually very proud (and knowledgeable) about “their babyâ€. A person who owns one of these top-of-the-line motor coaches typically is very well informed about their unit and in most cases will tend to give you the straight scoop, in my judgment. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t owners who will mislead or purposefully not mention things that are bad, etc., but I personally feel a lot better buying from a private party than I do from the typical RV sales person at a typical RV dealer. Yes, I know many people feel better buying from a dealer because they feel the dealer will “stand behind the unitâ€, but I’ve heard many more horror stories from people who’ve bought from dealers than I have of people who’ve bought from a private party.
If you set it as your goal to try to purchase a unit at or below wholesale price, you’re going to have a lot more likelihood of being able to do so when buying from a private person. A private owner who takes it to a dealer will get wholesale price (at most) for it. In a down market like exists now, very few dealers are going to want to purchase any used motorhome unless they can buy it for a very good price, probably even below wholesale, because most are just totally strapped for cash. When you offer a wholesale price to a private owner (and I’m assuming that you’ve already gone to a bank and prearranged your financing with a bank rather than going through a dealer which is typically in my judgment not the best thing to do unless you have no other alternative), then you can have a great deal of leverage because that private owner has “a bird in the hand†with you rather than “a bird in the bush†and most of these private owners have seen very few serious viable potential purchasers for their motorhomes even though they may have listed them months and months ago! So if you’re standing there willing to sign an offer to purchase and put down money on a unit, most private sellers are not going to want to have you walk away without an agreement.
Because I brought my NADA Price book with me whenever I went to look at a unit, I could open the book and show the seller exactly what the book says. That gave me a great advantage of being better informed than the seller in most cases. Another thing to be aware of is that many sellers will have used the NADA website to attempt to get a price for their unit, and the website necessitates a person checking off those “extra options†as that the unit has in order to reflect the price of added options. The problem is that this list of options often includes items that are actually included in the base price of the motorhome unless you actually have a spec sheet for what the base price includes. With the Country Coach website, you can go to the archives and find out what is included in the base price and which items actually are “optionsâ€. Then you can validly use the NADA book to calculate a true wholesale and retail value of a motorcoach. I do not know if Fleetwood and Newmar have the capability to access archives stating the features included in base units, but that’s critical to determining a valid wholesale and retail price. Because many owners don’t understand that many items on the checklist are often included in the base price, they check them off and that artificially inflates the price so the buyer gets an unrealistic expectation of what their unit’s worth.
Another problem that you have with every owner is that they believe that their unit is “above averageâ€. I have yet to find one owner of a motorhome who feels that their unit is “averageâ€, not to mention the possibility of somebody thinking that their unit is “below averageâ€. When you deal with motorhome owners, it’s like being in Lake Wobegon where “all the children are above averageâ€.
So most private owners are quite unrealistic in their asking price, and that’s why having the NADA price book and knowing exactly what features are already included in the base price and bringing the book along with you is key to helping that owner understand that they’re unrealistic and what a realistic price is. It may mean you need to do a little education of the seller, but that effort is well worth while in terms of getting them to accept a price below or at wholesale.
In contrast, few dealers will sell at a wholesale price. I don’t think I’d waste my time with dealers (nor do I have enough money to waste it on spending more than I have to). Besides, the typical sales techniques they use on buyers are too frustrating for me. I’d much rather deal one on one with the long-term owner rather than a salesperson with minimal knowledge about the coach and who has no authority to accept an offer.
When I bought my 36 foot1997 Country Coach Allure with no slide (49k miles, 200 hrs on the gen) last May, I flew out to Oregon from Wisconsin (NADA book in hand!), rented a car and drove to look at the unit. I had been searching to whole country via internet. Before I made the purchase, the owner and I took it to a Cummins engine shop with a certified Cummins mechanic to check over the engine, etc. As I recall, it cost me either $80 or $120 for that inspection. That was very important for me to have the confidence of having an evaluation done by a Cummins mechanic. I also spent something like $150 to have an inspection done by a Camping World facility associated with a dealership. I was very disappointed in the quality of the inspection done by that person, but I think it helped me to feel more confident. I actually made an offer and it was accepted as we were waiting for Camping World to complete its evaluation, so I actually had bought the coach before that inspection was finished. I felt confident enough in the buyer’s expressions about the coach and having had it inspected by a Cummins mechanic that I felt confident enough to offer $40,000 which was accepted by the seller. The purchase price of $40,000 was $2000 over wholesale (as of a year ago) but was about $9,000 less than retail, as I recall. That purchase was made in May of 2008, and the market has plummeted so much since then that I think, if it were happening today, I don’t think I’d offer anything over wholesale (or maybe a couple of hundred dollars over wholesale just to make the seller feel better). Remember, there are hundreds of DESPARATE private owners out there who would LOVE to get an offer at wholesale! You just need to find only one! It will save you THOUSANDS of dollars!
Before deciding to fly out to look at this Country Coach, I had planned to locate five or six privately owned premium units within about a 500 mile radius and making a trip to look at those units, tell each of the owners that I planned to make an offer at wholesale on one of them after I had completed looking at each of them, that I would not anticipate any negotiation beyond simply giving the offer. If that seller rejected the offer, I would then go to my next choice and give a wholesale offer to that owner, etc. until I had purchased one of the five units. By doing that, I was being very honest with the sellers, they knew what I was willing to offer, that I would be offering only wholesale, and they knew that my offer was a valid cash offer, and that I would have other options to go to, so they didn’t have a lot of leverage over me. I talked to several people on the phone and indicating that that was my intention, but I never got that far because this Country Coach came up where the owner was already at a reasonable price (had dropped asking from 55k to 45k) and I felt that I really wanted this Country Coach which had a very rare unusual floor plan with huge windows that appealed to us. I think I did about as well as I could have done had I went with my previous plan.
I restricted my search to Country Coach, Monaco, Beaver and Newmar. Since I was looking for something shorter than 40 feet, that ruled out American Coach. If I was looking for 40 footers, I would certainly include American Coach in my list of “acceptablesâ€. I decided that in order to use my dollars in the best possible way, I was better off buying a top-of-the-line coach that was older in preference to going with a more middle-of-the-road or bottom-of-the-line coach that was newer. I did feel especially confident in my decision to go with Country Coach. I also would’ve felt comfortable going with a Newmar. Monaco, or Beaver, but I must admit that my preference leaned toward Country Coach after an extremely extensive research process. In retrospect, I’m pleased that I did go with a Country Coach.
Someone stated earlier that Fleetwood was out of business, but that’s not correct. Several companies including Country Coach and Fleetwood have filed for protection under Chapter 11 bankruptcy, but hopefully both will continue to function and hopefully prosper as the economy improves. Country Coach shut down for a couple of months pending renegotiating their financing during Chapter 11 and recently reopened with new financing and a new marketing plan whereby they are selling direct to the customer from the factory instead of selling through RV dealers. I just read where Fleetwood has obtained some new financing under their Chapter 11 process as well, and that hopefully bodes well for Fleetwood. A number of RV manufacturers have gone out of business during the last couple of years including National RV, Western RV, Alpine, Alpha SeeYa, and perhaps there are some others that I can’t recall right now. Even Monaco closed down their factory operations for awhile to let inventory balance better, so I think the whole industry is teetering on the precipice.
best to go with a
If I were in your situation, I would automatically rule out any unit that had a kitchen slide rather then a dinette slide. In other words, be sure your slide has a sofa and dinette rather than a sofa and kitchen in the slide. The typical kitchen slide only extends about 1.5 feet whereas a dinette slide typically extends about 3 feet. With there being four of you, I would definitely want the additional floor space. There’s absolutely no question in my mind that if I had two kids, I would automatically rule out any unit with a kitchen slide. And that’s an absolute with two kids! My first question to any seller would be, “Does the unit have a kitchen slide or a dinette slide?†If the answer is “kitchen slideâ€, I would say “Sorry, but I’m only looking at units with a dinette slideâ€, and hang up! Don’t even waste your time talking to people who have kitchen slides! You’re going to need to have the flexibility of space provided by having a dinette slide which gives you that whole distance of an entire slide to enable reasonable living accommodations and workspace for your children. That extra 1.5 feet of floor space provided by a dinette slide will really make a critical difference for you, in my judgment.
Also, please remember that you can always change furniture. We removed a sofa in our motorhome and replaced it by two Lazy Boy recliners. As you may know, the back comes off from Lazy Boy recliners so it’s easy to get them into a motorhome. Many 40 foot motor homes have two sofas, and I doubt that you’ll want to go that route although that is important decision for you to make in your selection of a motorhome, keeping in mind that it’s easy to pull one out and replace it by one or two chairs or desks or whatever.
Another important thing for you to decide is do you want a bench dinette or a table and chairs. My guess is that you decided to go with a bench dinette because it makes into a bed. However, it’s easy enough to have an air mattress and blow it up with a compressor and take it down every day and put it on the floor for a child.
We made other changes in our unit as well. We replaced the mattress with an expensive top-quality mattress because comfortable sleep is so important. We also replaced all of the day-night shades with room-darkening dual–cell cellular shades. They provide a lot more privacy, provide total darkness to provide quality sleep, and provide better insulation in both hot and cold weather. We attached wire shelving onto the walls under the dining table to hold canned goods. Our approach is to buy older for less money so we can spend some to improve it in ways that meet our unique needs. We also spent $1000 to add some steering stabilizers that I’d planned to add to any unit because I live in fear of loss of control with a flat, going through a construction zone, if I get off the edge in Mexico, etc. It was worth it as great control became excellent! Very relaxing to drive now.
My point is – You can make changes to a unit. Many prospective buyers don’t consider that.
My guess is that the net carrying capacity of the Kountry Coach you mentioned would be on the low side for your situation. It’s frustrating if you need to watch your weight limits all the time.
If you have questions, my cell is 715-797-9198. I better stop – sorry about the length of this post!
Harv Gunderson
