Just drop back a bit and get a used one for...Why, why...this RV is far nicer than my home. 70K is a bit high, but if you have it flaunt it. The American way! Ooh, ooh! And you need a double wheeled truck to pull it, they are so cute.
Do any of these fifth wheels have brakes on the wheels? You'd think that would be awful nice.
Well if you drop back 5 years you can pick up a used one for 20 to 25 thou.
My research has shown that you lose nothing by buying used... They leak just as often new,
Your better off letting someone else pay top dollar. Let someone else find the flaws they all seem to have.
My Trailer, the one I hope to buy, went for $58,000 new,list price $70,000 sold a year later for $40,000, now 5 years old I'm paying 25,000. Would have been $20,000 but it has a whole big bunch of addons and features.
I doubt it has 5,000 miles on it. Trailers don't go bad from being lived in so much as being dragged all over the country. Almost nothing in a trailer is special built to with stand this rolling earthquake.
But the trailer you really don't want is one that is parked un- lived in.
It's like a house in this one respect...If you see a leak you put something under it wait until it stops raining then you fix it. But if no one sees that leak it can trash a $1000,000 trailer in a single year, Nearly all trailers leak new and used. You have to stay on top of things or they go straight to hell.
Trailers require much more maintenance that a house. Very few trailer owners maintain their trailer properly if they don't live in it. They don't see the leak. leaky Trailers are a heaven for black mold. I have no doubt that black mold kills more trailers than wreaks on the road.
The ideal used trailer is one that when 200 miles to a camp ground, then after two weeks went home. There it sat in a high top garage for two years protected from the weather.
I have a neighbor who found one. Remember it was unused, but well protected. Three years old and he paid less than half the new going price.
All kinds of great deals if you have the cash or credit. But you have to remember that these folks just made the mistake of their financial lives buying new. They will want you to change the world to help them out of their debt.
This you cannot do! Go blue book. Check out the features see what works and what doesn't.
A "fair price" on a new trailer isn't just about the year model. It all about the condition...up to around ten years.
After it's ten years old nobody wants it. Just to many liabilities. A trailer can last you 40 years, if you keep up with it. But it's resale value is pretty much gone.
Finally, no trailer is any better that the place you park it. I would rather live in a shed in the country side than in a trailer parked in a city trailer park.I know of several that want over $2000 a month for nothing special.
In fact about the only use that I can personally recommend is buy a good used one and live in it in the country or wilderness. Move it no more than every two years. Dont move it very far.
Just moving my old one two hundred feet oped up two leaks we had to re-calk.
Oh yeah, you have to re-calk any seams every 6 months if you want to stay dry.
I love how I'm living now. But if Patti were not able bodied it would be a whole lot tougher.
If we did not have the knowledgeable neighbors we do we would have failed.
One must LEARN to live in a trailer and learning can be very expensive if you don't have a support group.
Last edited: