Can anyone help regards a question me and my hubby can't agree with.
I have been told that touring vans hold their money even if you trade in px.....My hubby seems to thinks differently because he thinks tourers will loose like some statics on some sites....
just sold ours, if you look after them and keep them spotless yes. in 2004 we bought a 2003 van for £8000 plus £250 for a new full size awning. because I strip down and clean the van from top to bottom each trip it was like new inside. the cooker hob was stripped and cleaned each trip. I put it in the paper at top dollar, should have been £3500 at most for a 2003 caravan. I sold it for £5000 and they are very pleased with it. i threw in all the equipment times 2.barrels cables awnings annexe sleeper. steps large sky and box, television. ect.so in 10 plus years we have only lost £3000.
------------- the only silly question is the one you do not ask.
It will lose less if you look after it & keep a service history folder of annual services & damp checks. If you want a shiny new caravan every 3 years you will pay dearly for it. If you can get 10years out of it, a well looked after caravan will alway get a good price in a private sale.
Quote: Originally posted by michael on 11/2/2014
just sold ours, if you look after them and keep them spotless yes. in 2004 we bought a 2003 van for £8000 plus £250 for a new full size awning. because I strip down and clean the van from top to bottom each trip it was like new inside. the cooker hob was stripped and cleaned each trip. I put it in the paper at top dollar, should have been £3500 at most for a 2003 caravan. I sold it for £5000 and they are very pleased with it. i threw in all the equipment times 2.barrels cables awnings annexe sleeper. steps large sky and box, television. ect.so in 10 plus years we have only lost £3000.
Did you not pay for the TV,cables etc and such then? Sounds like new that lot would have been quite a few hundreds if not over thousand?
I do agree you can get more for a well looked after van and one loaded with extras that a newbie may well want to get started for example, same as you would for a car.
You will only get that extra if you sell privately and also an element of luck finding the right buyer, you wouldn't have seen any extra over the £3500 book at a PX
Only mentioning all that in relation to OP question
Don't know if we have jut been lucky, but over the last few years in an attempt to trade up, we have changed our van every year or so.
Our first van cost us £1400 from a trader in March and had a couple of small issues. Issues resolved DIY style, wWe sold it the week between xmas and new year after owning it for 21 months for £1400 privately
Our second van was purchased 5 months later in May at £5995 and sold PX the following July back to a different dealer for £5800.
Our current van we plan on keeping now for at least 5 years until the finance is cleared, but based on estimates from older models we expect to loose about £3000 from a £13500 purchase price.
The value of any touring caravan will decrease anually and the evidence of this is the touring caravan price guide called 'Glasses' which is a guide used by dealers very similar to the Parkers Price guide for motor vehicles except that there is no average mileage involved. Some people will be lucky when they sell their caravan especially if it's in excellent condition as some will lose very little but for those unfortunate who have to make an insurance claim for any particular reason the company will only pay out the current market price of the caravan disregards how immaculate or well looked after the caravan is. Touring caravans will decrease in value quite rapidly in the first five years as 'Jeff Juke' said but although the value begins to slow down the value each year still decreases. I recently renewed my 1999 (now 15 years old) caravan insurance and last year it was valued at £3200 and now in 2014 is currently valued at £2800 so it has devalued by another £400 just in one year.
I've been looking for some months at the financial viability of having a caravan....in fact, truth be told, I have a spreadsheet, where I've tried to work out the cost of owning one.
I guess one way to look at this would be "Do (non-caravan) holidays depreciate?" - of course they do. Nothing is for free, but you can adjust the cost to you by buying certain models of 'van, buying second-hand, buying one that needs work (and repairing it), as others here have suggested.
Keep in mind that you could also be staring down the barrel of other costs, which soon add up:
Another one to keep in mind is how often you are likely to change your car - a new tow bar can cost hundreds (pricing my own S-Max up, I'm looking at ~£600, for a detachable with appropriate electrics kit and fitting).
On my reckoning, there isn't that much in it between a couple of non-van holidays for my family of 3 and owning a caravan. the difference being that a) you can go away more frequently at incrementally little cost and b) you get to create your own caravan memories! Something I have from my parents and something I want my little lad to also experience.
You CAN of course, do things cheaper, just as you CAN go on holiday for less....it's more about what you WANT, I reckon!
I think it also depends what layout and how well you look after it inside and out. We bought a 2009 6 berth in June 2010 and sold July 2013 and lost around £1200 on original purchase price and we also got a twin axle mover thrown in with new van so we were very pleased!
I've just sold my van, and after 6 years I have lost £7k. I possibly could have got more, but it has gone to a very good home, and each viewing took a half day of my time. It sold in a week.
I got £1k more than the dealer would offer, and without a trade in there was a dealer discount of £1k on a new Bailey Pursuit, so a total of £2k better off.
I have kept a record of how often we have used the van, and over that 6 years it has cost us £30 per night. Add to that about £20 per night for campsite fees, plus extra for diesel when towing and I think we have still had very good value. Compared to a hotel it is cheap, and when one has to add on the cost of buying meals out and the freedom of the caravan, it has served us well.
The caravans that depreciate the least are the poptop Eriba Tourings. Early 90s & older are in fact going up in value. About 6yrs ago you could have had an 80s Eriba Pan for about £2k now they are going on ebay for £3.5k. A mid 90s Troll or Triton will fetch £5k or more, they probably cost that new. Which is odd because although very well constructed they are not really the caravan most people would choose.
Rear dinette with rear fixed triple bunks on a single axle are very hard to come by used and with many manufacturers switching to double bunks there just aren't many around. This is why ours held its value so well it also had a shower cubicle rather than wet room which is apparently desirable too.
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Topic: Do Caravans hold their value £
