If you are going to use the RV for, say, 4 weeks a year, are you better off renting the MH, e.g., for 1 month every summer? (as opposed to purchasing?
RV rental 30 ft, sleeps 7-8 - $4500 ($150/day for 30 days)
mileage fees - $750
total $5250
RV - purchase - e.g., 31 ft. Sunseeker, 2008 with 20K miles, $41,000
assume it depreciates about $2.5K per year
- depreciation - $2.5K
- personal property taxes in VA - about $2.5K/year
- Maintenance - ? how much would i expect?
Of course, this is a simplification, since depreciation and personal prop. taxes will be more at first, and less as time goes on, whereas maintenance will be less at first, more as time goes on. also, the rental fees will probably go up every year. Also, this is a fairly cheap rental, as i found other at around $200/day for summer rental (works out to about $7K for 30 days if at $200/day).
From a pure economics standpoint, your expenses (and risks) will be lower with the rental. Even doing most of your own maintenance work on the Sunseeker, you will likely spend another $1,000 on average. If you have to pay to have the work done, it could be more than double that. This assumes, of course, that the Sunseeker will break periodically. For example, I lost a board in my refrigerator, a board in my steps and had to buy new chassis batteries this year.
Have you thought about where you would store your RV? Some people find that they cannot park at their house because of space or zoning restrictions and a monthly storage fee would add to your purchase costs.
All that said, the advantage of owning is tremendous. I hadn't anticipated that we would use our RV for as many short weekends as we do. It would be difficult to match those with a rental. A consideration with any rental is breaking down. With your own, you should consider some sort of ERS (we have CoachNet) but when we did two extended rentals before purchasing, we found that capabilities of the rental company to help you in a breakdown situation were important. We were able to get replacements for each of our two breakdowns during those rentals. Otherwise, our vacations would have been severely impacted.
There is no doubt, renting is a much better financial option. Most owners use their RV's in a very limited fashion. One or two big trips a year, some weekend jaunts. We get caught up in the ownership thing. Buying and installing stuff, building shelves, tables, book cases, fancy sound systems, shiny wheels and so on. If a person is strong enough to not get 'attached' they are much MUCH better off with a rental unit. No repairs, storage, operational costs that are hidden but huge.
The only way to make it acceptable is to buy low...an older unit for 3 or 5,000, not do anything to it, and use it. Now, you have a good solid investment. The worst is borrowing. If you can't pay cash you are truly wasting your money.
Having said all this...most of us will pay no attention at all to facts, go buy that new/near new, pimp it out and justify it any way we can. Just the way things are, eh.
IMHO, if you have never stayed in an RV before, it makes sense to rent.
This way you could try it to see and find out if you like it.
If you deciede that you like the RV life style, then look into buying one.
If you buy one, I think you ll find yourself going out more than just 4 weeks during the summer.
donee wrote: IMHO, if you have never stayed in an RV before, it makes sense to rent.
This way you could try it to see and find out if you like it.
If you deciede that you like the RV life style, then look into buying one.
If you buy one, I think you ll find yourself going out more than just 4 weeks during the summer.
Best advise. I second this. You will definitely use it more. We take ours holiday shopping in the winter. Take it to the races, take it out short weekends, take it out just for a ride.
Rent one, go away and USE it. Only then you will get a taste. Renting costs have drawbacks as you are "renting". We use out MH for a spare room when relatives comes over for a stay. (We also did this with the trailer.)
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We had to make this decision two years ago when I was on a sabbatical for work. Either rent a unit for 8-10 weeks or buy.
For us, the amount of money we would put into a rental would have been substantial, typically as you quoted around 200 per day, plus miles over 50 a day. Also most of the rental places had hidden charges. $2.50 an hour to run generator (which is almost a requirement when traveling in hot climate with passengers in the coach), setup and prep fees ranged 100-500, cleaning fees 100-500, etc.
So our decision came down to this. We could rent a unit for about 18,000 for 10 weeks or we could use that money for a substantial payment on a unit. We decided to buy, use the unit for 10 weeks and then consider selling after our trip. Turned out we liked it so much and the unit was over half paid for at the end of our trip we decided to buy it.
Now buying a depreciating asset is never a sound financial decision, this was a lifestyle choice for us.
Advice would be to try renting, determine if you like this lifestyle and then use the rest of the rental funds to purchase a unit if you think this is an investment for you and your family.
We end up using ours more because it is sitting in the driveway. Sometimes when you take it out on a weekend and find yourself to far from home to go back ,just stay where you are and enjoy the next day too. Of course I am retired so I don't have to be anywhere the next day anyways. I also find myself taking quite a few solo trips just because I have it, where if I had to go out and rent one I would be staying home. My wife does not go with me all of the time and she loves it more than I do. I told her that I was going to Carlisle Corvette show in two week and she said to me " Why don't you leave today and get a good spot " I retired 7 years ago and I think that the RV has been the glue that has held our marriage together these years. But if you are looking at it strickly at a cost point of view RENT! But that's not for me. as you can see I liked it so much I purchased two, plus, if the RV gets a little dirty ,I know its MY dirt.
Ed, have you checked on the property tax rate in your county or is that just a guess? I also live in Virginia and the property tax on my Winnebago View (which cost 65K new) is only $700+ per year. The SALES tax was a lot more, but that was only for the year I bought it.
I fully agree with the other posters who have said rent to see if you like the RV lifestyle, and if so, consider buying. I use mine far more than I ever thought I would. Either way your decision goes, you can look forward to some great vacations!
Ed, have you checked on the property tax rate in your county or is that just a guess? I also live in Virginia and the property tax on my Winnebago View (which cost 65K new) is only $700+ per year. The SALES tax was a lot more, but that was only for the year I bought it.
I fully agree with the other posters who have said rent to see if you like the RV lifestyle, and if so, consider buying. I use mine far more than I ever thought I would. Either way your decision goes, you can look forward to some great vacations!
(Sorry, for some reason this posted twice.)
* This post was
edited 07/24/08 07:38pm by VirginiaVal *
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