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The main consideration is the loss you will make if you later decide to sell.  I had a static which cost £16000 new in 2001.  In 2008 I had to give it up and the site gave me £3250 for it - in immaculate condition.  The man in the next caravan enquired about it for his nephew the same afternoon and was told it was for sale for £14000!

We were paying around £2000 per annum - taking into account insurance, site fees and share of business rates.  On top of this there is gas and electric.  This was on a site in the Kidderminster area.  If you decide to look around the Stourport area, check out the flooding history of the site - we lost one van to floods on a site there in 2000.

as suggested above, you need to check out the resale VERY carefully and also check to see if there is an age limit on vans, many sites dont allow private sales and insist on vans being replaced through the site if its more than 20 years old (which nowadays is silly but profitable for the site operator)

 if its just a weekend retreat and youre not going far, have you considered a tourer, you wont be limited to one site and wont suffer high losses when selling/replacing

as an indication of costs elsewhere, we pay 2070 euros in france on the vendee  - obviously not a weekend retreat- no age limit on vans, you can buy a second hand one in the uk as we did and ship it out, saving a LOT of money and once its sited its worth more than you paid for it (inc transport) if you buy a half decent one!!! 

some of the sites around where we live in clacton, charge around 5k per year !!!

Quote: Originally posted by happy-snapper on 15/4/2012

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i did wonder about resale value. I would have to visit a lot to justify 2K . Thought about a tourer but as i only have very small car it would not be possible. Will keep on thinking!

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We now have a tourer on a seasonal pitch (with winter storage) at £1600 a year.  We can't tow ours as our car isn't big enough either.  We had it delivered to the site from the dealer. Not sure where in the West Midlands you are, but we bought ours from Chichester Caravans, who delivered it to Oxfordshire for us.

The rent is not cheap but as we have no additional fuel costs for towing, we think it is worth it. 

We have an old van, it only costs us £1300 a year ground rent and the van itself was just £200. We are in our 3rd year and the only problem we have had with an older van is it's chillier than a double glazed insulated one but no colder than when we were touring with a converted minibus.

It gives us as many weekends away as we want and we have our main holiday there too, all in all it pays for itself really as we are there 3 weekends a month and all bank holidays plus 4 weeks annual holidays.

It's worth looking at older vans IMO as the resale hardly matters if you have only paid a couple of hundred for it anyway.

We're also in the process of considering buying a static.  Over the years we've holidayed in every imagineable type of van - from the extremely basic to the very luxurious. Our preference is for something in the middle - comfortable but practical.  We're really not into the current trend for everything cream - I don't want to spend my leisure hours scrubbing carpets and upholstery! Am I also the only person who cannot stand all that fancy curtaining with dozens and dozens of fiddly tiebacks? - they drive me crazy.  I'm also not a fan of two bathrooms which to me seems a waste of valuable space, or large kitchen appliances. The most recent van we stayed in had a bigger cooker and hob than we've got at home. That said, each to his own.

Our honest opinion is that you shouldn't consider buying a static unless you can afford to say goodbye to that wad of cash. You don't buy a caravan as a financial investment. Static ownership is a leisure activity, and like most, you just spend your money for the enjoyment you get out of it.