Buying Our First RV – Part 3

What Does A Winnebago Campervan Cost?

When people start shopping for an RV or campervan, they usually have bug eyes and faint when they see the costs. Pre-Covid19 pandemic, RV sales in general were on their way up and attendance at national parks was already on the rise. But you could still get a good used class B campervan for $40-$60K. Or less depending on age and condition. But since the pandemic (when we were shopping) the cost of used RV’s grew to near what people paid for them originally. Or more. I attribute this to the natural human state of “Greed Is Good” (Thank you Gordon Gekko). And hopefully, in the years to come they will again normalize when there is enough supply for the demand.

New RVs and campers have also increased in cost with the rise in raw materials cost on everything from wood, metal, glass and even the glue. And yet they are selling like hot cakes! Consumer confidence must be high, but so is inflation. If you lived through the 1970’s – 1980’s you know how bad that can get. The average interest rates for a home at one point was about 16+%. We don’t want to see those days again, as it would crush the economy.

Typical Dealer Inventory Dec. 2020

After talking with a dealer, we were happy to hear that these very expensive homes on wheels were able to be financed like a sticks & bricks home and over a 20 year term. Making monthly payments an expense the average middle class person could afford, despite the high ticket prices.

We also found that the MSRP that is listed on the manufacturers web site or dealer web site was not what we could expect to pay. I was told that usually there was anywhere from 20% to 30% discount from the MSRP. And then it was up to each dealer to determine just where that price would be. Their margins based on the cost of labor, real estate, etc. could vary by region. Imagine a dealer in the NYC area would have high real estate and labor rates to cover each month. And a dealer in the cornfields of Iowa for example, might have far less overhead to cover and could therefore sell at a more competitive rate. And likely sell more volume of units than his big city counter parts.

We found this to be true in December 2020. But now, here in November of 2021, we are hearing reports that dealers are sometimes selling at full or nearly full MSRP price. Mostly because of the basic economic law of supply and demand. If they sell you a camper at a low price, they may not get resupply of inventory for months. So while in a normal year they could sell several a month and make good income. Today, if they sold one and no more for a month, they would go out of business. Sure, there may be some greed or even price gouging going on right now, but I don’t think there is much. The vehicle manufacturers (Mercedes, Ford, RAM, etc.) are all raising the price of their basic empty van that the van builders (Upfitters) have to pay before they add a single bit of insulation or carpet. Those costs have a “trickle up effect”. In this case, shit rolls up hill to the consumer who has to pay a higher price for a home on wheels. On the flip side of this, many good dealerships have not resorted to this and are still selling at similar margins as a year ago.

But shop around, that dealer in the country is still likely a better price than the one in the big city near the shopping mall. Negotiate as best you can, but don’t expect much wiggle room in the price. Know that you will lose money if you sell the camper in the next few years. Accept it and write the check or hold off and rent for awhile until the market cools down. People talk about instant depreciation as soon as you drive a car off the lot. As a motorcycle dealer I can tell you that is mostly true. That dealer made his profit margin and has used it to pay the bills and employees. You can’t expect to walk back in the next week and have him buy it back at full price and loose what he has already paid out to others. The price they will pay is likely closer to their dealer invoice from the manufacturer (or less if they really don’t want it back) so they can turn around and make the same (or nearly the same) profit margin again. Profit is how they stay afloat. That “instant depreciation” is the consumer taking a bath. So don’t be afraid to travel to pickup your new or used RV, as other geographic locations may provide significant savings.

Do some research and may I suggest the Facebook group named “Travato Owners and Wannabees” which is full of experienced owners of multiple Travatos as well as wannabes who haven’t bought their first one yet and have a ton of questions. Do a search there first to see if your topic has already been discussed in depth and if not, fire away with questions. There are similar user groups for almost any model of RV / campervan.

Real World Pricing

So what did we pay for our 2022 RAM Promaster upfitted by Winnebago and sold by a dealer in the cornfields of Iowa? We had looked around and gotten pricing from a dealer in Dayton OH near us and found that their price was pretty good. They had a reputation for giving a fair price, perhaps as low as you might find. The dealer that was one mile from the Winnebago factory in Forest City Iowa was similar in their pricing, maybe $600 more. But we went with them because their sales staff was more attentive, they communicated better with us and we could custom order exactly the model we wanted. Now that may have been because we were ordering a 2022 when they were still producing 2021 models. So the dealer didn’t mind including our configuration in their next batch of rigs ordered from Winnebago. The first dealer never really followed up with us and never gave us the option to order a unit the way we wanted. Else, we would have bought from them.

MSRP on our configuration (Travato 59K) was about $135,500 USD and we paid closer to $106,700 plus tax which was paid back home in Ohio when we registered the vehicle at our local BMV (7.8% sales tax). With our downpayment, monthly payments are in the $650 range. This was a deal struck in late December 2020 or January 2021. Financed through Bank of America and insured via Progressive, both arranged by the dealership.

Everyone’s finances are different and what seems like a reasonable amount to pay will vary based on your debt load & income. We don’t have kids, don’t have too much credit card debt. One of our two cars are paid off and our third vehicle, an old F150 was sold to add cash to our downpayment. We are fairly young still and have several more years until official retirement. But we don’t want to wait until retirement to start to live. We don’t know if we will even live that long, as Covid has shown us. So we are “practicing retirement” and figuring how to work from the road or fit trips in on long weekends and PTO. Traveling to places we’ve always wanted to travel together or occasionally a random trip to someplace nearby to just get out and have some fun experiences together. We know that not everybody has the ability to live like this and we know we are blessed. We don’t want to squander those blessings. Life is meant to be good. Recognize when it is good and live it well.

If you missed Part 1, or Part 2 of our blog on Buying Our First RV, start there. This is the final of the three part blog series, but more on what happens next is soon to follow.

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