Hi Everyone. Well, after 15 years the RV-Dreams Community Forum is coming to an end. Since it began in August 2005, we've had 58 Million page views, 124,000 posts, and we've spent about $15,000 to keep this valuable resource for RVers free and open. But since we are now off the road and have settled down for the next chapter of our lives, we are taking the Forum down effective June 30, 2021. It has been a tough decision, but it is now time.
We want to thank all of our members for their participation and input over the years, and we want to especially thank those that have acted as Moderators for us during our amazing journey living and traveling in our RV and growing the RV-Dreams Family. We will be forever proud to have been founders of this Forum and to have been supported by such a wonderful community. Thank you all!!
As my husband reminded me the following is not an end of the world problem but it's tying me up in knots a bit so I thought I would throw it out there.
The truck papers were signed on Sunday and hooray should be here today or tomorrow...it's an F350 with the a ability to pull darn near anything and thanks to the great advice here it's loaded up with all the warranties. This however led to spending more money than we anticipated which takes us into the RV dilemma. (Truck came in at $52K)
We spent many many hours picking our unit and then found a lone remaining 2013 in the area for "rock bottom" price. The after market costs of wiring for a generator (along with a washer/dryer and the hitch) brought the overall price up from $55K to $65K and with our trade in of $15K took us to out of pocket of $40. We were all set but the RV owner started putting on some pressure for an earlier sell (we were adamant the truck had to come first) and annoyed we started looking around. Another dealer felt we could custom order a unit prewired from the factory for a generator and get it cheaper plus a brand new unit. He also let us know the used unit had been on their lot for 560 days....YIKES!! WE went down that path adding custom wood blinds, double paned windows (again thanks to the threads here) and factory removal of one of the couches so we could put in a desk area instead to work at. This unit (including $15K trade in) comes back at $57....$17K more but brand new and exactly what we wanted. One down side the combination of this amount and the truck might require us to stay and work a couple months longer if we want to start out totally debt free. Between selling the house and living frugally we estimate having $100k towards truck and RV by end of year.
So here's where it gets tricky. To custom order we need to put 10% down...the existing unit would work but they would need to take possession. IF the unit comes in and is structurally flawed or just built wrong we would have no trailer to take to the rally in TN. Sure that's a long shot...but we have read enough horror stories to know it can happen. Also if for some reason the financing falls through they are keeping the deposit and we are going to have to take whatever on their lot. You can get pre-approved for the loan but it's only good for 60 days and the custom build takes longer than that to come in so you need to resubmit through the loan on delivery. Again...unlikely anything changes in 90 days, but things do happen and they are holding our deposit "hostage".
So here's the options we are mulling around
1. Seriously negotiate down the 2013, forgo the generator and more expensive options and after market make it what we need
2. Put the deposit down on the custom order and trust everything will go fine
3. Do nothing...go to the rally in our existing TT and wait until we sell the house and can pay cash for whatever unit we want.
I know people are very different..so am curious what you would do given these three scenarios. Health is good, Jobs are reasonably stable, willing to take any decent offer on the house, really really want to make our date of Dec 2014 but will delay a bit if we need to to be debt free. Do we take less to leave sooner? Do we delay to have exactly what we want?
Trace: Our opinion is option 3. We have been living debt-free for some time now and nothing, absolutely nothing compares. Plus, you might go to the rally and decide to go in a different direction after looking around and talking with others. Taking less for the house when you really do need the cash would not be the best decision either. I know it is hard to wait especially if you are like me and it seems like you have been waiting for this and then waiting for that forever. To have what you really want will be worth the wait and I think that being debt-free is a part of what you really want. I know you'll make the right decision for you but this is what would feel right for us.
1. I wouldn't settle for any rv you don't think is perfect. Trading a second time to get what you want is expensive.
2. I wouldn't give the dealer more that 10% down to order. If 10% is not enough others will chime in, but if you give them 15k and don't like the ordered rig you'll probably not be happy with what you end up with.
3. If working for 2 more months would make you debt free I think that's a no brainer. I think Lucky Mike said "slow down, the Grand Canyon will still be there in two weeks".
Hope this helps.
Red
-- Edited by el Rojo on Friday 27th of December 2013 09:23:33 AM
I would also sway towards option 3............not to mention option 1 will have a price drop drastically on a 2013 model in 2014......I would wait on the rally for 2 reasons , you will get to meet owners of different models and you will be in a different region of the country and the selection and pricing is alot different. Do a little window shopping while your down there..(New England is the highest in pricing in the country) if your buying new ,Haste definitely makes waste , if you think the depreciation is bad when you pull it off the lot , your really not going to like the re-sale value 2 months later when you try to trade it in........alot can happen in a year.....go slowly!!
Live, Breathe , Relax.........
-- Edited by Lucky Mike on Friday 27th of December 2013 07:50:58 AM
-- Edited by Lucky Mike on Friday 27th of December 2013 07:52:10 AM
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I would lean towards one of the first two options. We were originally going to wait until we sold the house to buy our fiver. Ended up finding something we liked and jumping earlier. We had about a year with our fulltime rig to get it just the way we wanted it, spend some time in it and decide what changes we wanted to make, had a couple little bugs that we discovered and had fixed. When we sold the house and moved in fulltime, we both said how thankful we were that we didn't still have to buy our rig and make all those changes while we were living in it.
Snow Gypsy said it best. Burn down the debts, not owing anything is psychologically and the financially least risky place to be... you'll never regret it.
In my case it would be option 3. In our case we are not yet in the serious shopping mode but it is coming very soon. We have been waiting and working so hard to acheive our goal that we don't intend to change our plan at this point of time. We know what we want and we will get it the way we want. I'm not going to change my mind because of any outside pressure that I don't control. The way I see it is that you are not going to buy a pound of butter therefore take your time and get what you want now. You will have a very good pick-up truck, take what you have right now to the rally and keep working a plan to get what you are looking for not a second third or fourth choice. The day I will left my S&B house I will be debt free, the motorhome and the trailer will be ours and there is no negociation. I prefer to wait another year instead of being hurry and take bad decision because I want to hit the road. For me it is clear in my mind I'll become FT it is only a matter of time, like Lucky Mike say's Patience........... Good luck
We are still working and fulltiming but still wanted to be Debt Free when we hit the road, ya never know what is going to happen.
We shopped for our 5th Wheel for quite a long time, looked at many, sat in many and played house in many.
We had a couple of finalist we would be happy with so it came down to price.
At the same time we had a solid cash sale contract on our house, we got a email flyer from one of the RV dealers we had looked at with a end of the year model closeout 5th Wheel that looked like it would work for us and had the must have items we were looking for. We went to the dealer, sat in the 5th Wheel for about an hour by ourselves and agreed this would work for us so we went inside the dealership and started some hard bargaining (DW got up and went outside) since I was going to stick to my budget.
The dealership finally came within $600 of my original number so we agreed and picked up the 5er the week after we closed on the house. We put a few items in storage during the cleaning and sale of the house, put some items in a utility trailer I borrowed from work and lived in a hotel for a few days after the house closing till the 5er was completely ready to be picked up.
Everything went as planned and here we are 2 years fulltime (November 8th) and still loving it, the move from the house to the 5er went smooth, the transaction went smooth, the PDI and pickup from the dealer went smooth and we have only had a few minor issues with our 5th Wheel in the past 2 years, we are still loving it and seeing the country while we work.
In the end I would agree with the Debt Free Option and waiting until after the RV Dreams Rally. You will learn so much at the rally, talk to actual fulltimers and learn what is important and not so important. Your view may change after the Rally.
-- Edited by Rob_Fla on Friday 27th of December 2013 10:29:28 AM
#3
Every dealer can make a great "Deal" on any rig he has in stock or ordered. I would not compromise on buying something that had to have a lot of rework from the beginning to make it what I wanted. If the difference is only 2-3 months of working, then it really is worth the extra time. You will spend more the first 2-3 weeks on the road than you think for all the "extra's". Our rig was our once in a lifetime type purchase, we searched for about a year to find this one and we walked by it all day without looking till the end of the day.
So what if you have to bring you current TT to the rally? You might decide that a class A makes more sense!
Additional thoughts: 1. This salesman is probably one I would not work with because he would have gotten my hopes up while probably knowing that there was no way the new unit would come in for less. 2. The lone 2013? Used or new? It seems to have been on the lot a long time to have been a trade-in, almost a year on the lot as a used unit and a 2013 doesn't compute. 3. I'm wondering if you intended to finance both the truck and the 5th wheel and then pay them off when the house sells as that is what I seemed to gather. 4. How are home sales in your area? Do you know the average number of days on the market for a home? Are there many homes on the market in your area? It took us two years to sell our last house because they had tightened up loan eligibility requirements. Which I guess would lead to the question: Can you afford to make the payments on both the 5th wheel, the truck and upkeep of the house for an indefinite period? Just rhetorical questions. Run through all the possible scenarios and then prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
I would lean towards one of the first two options. We were originally going to wait until we sold the house to buy our fiver. Ended up finding something we liked and jumping earlier. We had about a year with our fulltime rig to get it just the way we wanted it, spend some time in it and decide what changes we wanted to make, had a couple little bugs that we discovered and had fixed. When we sold the house and moved in fulltime, we both said how thankful we were that we didn't still have to buy our rig and make all those changes while we were living in it.
This is exactly where our thought process is at. After some deliberation we have chosen Option #2 although we will be putting 10% down in cash rather than trading the TT initially so we are all set on the Rally either way. Why did we choose #2??
1. We can afford to maintain the payments on truck. house, and RV as long as we are employed...and every dollar spent is a direct dollar towards becoming debt free. Putting dollars into something you are going to trade in later is not a 1-1 ratio because the trade in lessens the value.
2. We really want to work the bugs out in the next year. Seen tons of horror stories about poor quality control and rather than dealing with issues on the road we will be local to the dealer and have them fix them
3. We did the research, know what we want, and can't get it (without compromise) unless we build to suit. The expense is going to be hiring building to suit no matter how you slice it. Great thoughts from folks on not settling btw...exactly how Lee feels.
4. If we have to work a couple extra months to be completely debt free we can, BUT if something happens in life (ie: I get fired or we sell the house sooner than expected) we have more options
5. Finally, and most importantly for me, forward motion matters. As I have said before we have spent a lot of time discussing and less time doing. As I said to Lee there is a difference between running with your eyes shut and closing your eyes and taking a leap of faith. I choose the leap of faith.
Trace: I am glad that you updated us and that you have come to a decision as I know how hard that must have been. I truly hope that all goes well with your endeavors as you move toward the "dream".
My advice is that you make sure you have googled reviews for the Open Range to see what issues there have been and if any seem to be major and what sort of factory support one gets from them. I would also price shop some before making the purchase if for no other reason than to perhaps get your dealership to come down on the price.
-- Edited by SnowGypsy on Monday 30th of December 2013 06:42:35 AM
I realize I am in the minority, but I do agree with your decision. You sound a lot like me, in that forward momentum is important. I have little patience, and every little bit of moving forward helps keep me motivated. I do realize that possibly sounds a bit childish, but I admitted a long time ago that I have never fully grown up and I am ok with that.
Bill and I were originally going to order a unit to be exactly what we wanted, that was the plan all along, but we really truly lucked out and we were in the right place at the right time and got a great deal on a unit on the lot that already had all we wanted/needed and then some. Any other day of the week we would be in the same shoes you are in right now. We had actually talked about ordering our unit sooner that we originally thought, which was going to be late January after getting back from the Tampa show, which is why we were at the dealer that day. We were going to do that for the same reasons you talked about.
We still have our Class C to sell, which we will probably list on CraigsList as soon as the weather starts to break a bit, probably mid March or so. The dealer where we bought it only deals with 5th Wheels, so they didn't want it. We will be listing our house late February/early March and I am hoping for a quick sale.
I hope your unit arrives in great shape, with few, if any, problems and I hope to see it in April at the rally!
Trace - totally understand your decision as long as you are sure this is the right unit for you. Like you, we could maintain house, RV, truck payments while we were employed. Now, a year after the RV purchase, 8 months after the truck purchase and 5.5 months after the sale of the house we are debt free, still working our jobs / self-employed biz on the road and truly appreciating the freedom.
My only caution is that you are SURE this is the unit you want. We went to the Harrisbury OR rally absolutely convinced that for our life / art biz and art shows a MH with a toad was the way to go, so we had only looked at MH, only researched MHs, etc. Rally? Oh yeah, that changed our mind, the day of the Big Rig Walk thru and we realized how much more livable (to us) the 5'vers were and we did a 180 degree change, took about 3 weeks after the rally to realize our direction had totally changed. Set our research back a few months, led to lots more research, but in the end it was the right choice for us. We had to buy a bigger truck (F450 vs. F350) to accomodate the weight in the truck of the art booth set up "stuff", plus in bed tool boxes and a Thule cargo box, but right now it's working. We did sell the second car, 2 months after getting on the road and purging a LOT more, but if anyone had asked us at the Harrisburg Rally if we wanted a 5th wheel, well the answer would have been no, at that time. Amazing how life can change and continues to change for us!!
Thanks all...appreciate the positive words. We spent two full days researching onsite at the Hershey Show, numerous hours pre and post show on research , and then followup visits to two dealers to see again in person. We are definitely as sure as we could possibly be. Plus I am really good with living with the consequences of my decisions as long as I get to make them rather than life making them for me :)
Late to chime in, but totally understand the need to move forward. It's the little things (in this case--a BIG thing) that keeps the dream alive! We've set goals/small carrots to keep us moving forward....and every little bit helps!! Congrats on your decision!
