Lets Talk Travel Trailer Financing

[Anonymous]

Another piece of advice I would have when purchasing a camper..especially if it's your first time buying one, don't go crazy and buy a 50k+ fiftwheel or something of that sort.

Most people, like my paren'ts, bought a travel trailer and used it quite a few times the first two year's and after that it slowly went down hill.. they purchased their's 12year's ago and as of last year they never once went camping. In 8 year's time they probably used it 30 times, now they didn't go out and purchase a very expensive one, in fact I think they bought their 23' travel trailer brand new in 2005 for $10900.

The point I am trying to make, for something you will use so few times, think about what you REALLY need in a camper and don't get sold on all the expensive options. There's alot of craze over outdoor kitchen's on campers, which are great but in reality they're nothing more than a tv and a gas top grill that cost's way more than a simple card table with a coleman grill from wal-mart.

Unless you plan on using the camper for month's out of the year rather than day's/weeks out of the year, I would suggest starting off with something relatively cheap.

One more tid-bit I would add would be, I would consider purchasing an extended warranty on a camper (be sure to negotiate the price of the warranty) because camper's quite frankly are poorly made and with heavy use they will fall apart. Hell, just a refrigerator in a camper can cost over a thousand dollar's to replace if it goes bad.

[Anonymous]

great input , appreciate it. I am defintely looking at a camper that meets our needs for basic/comfort levels but outside kitchen or including Tv's or fireplaces anywhere in the camper are gonna be avoided. Its not worth it. I know that for one dealer a 34" tv that wasn't a high end one i might add, was over $500. I could go to walmart and buy a Vizio smart tv 32' for $199 if we really needed it.

[Anonymous]

The only benefit to some of their TV's they offer is they are more durable and can withstand all the vibration's. The manufacturer's are actually the ones that price the TV's and options, dealer's don't price those. With that being said, I would look online for similar TV's to those they have in travel trailer's and see what kind of pricing you can find.

It's good to overlook all the "unnecessary" options because they can become quite costly. The only time I would suggest going all out is if you are going to live in one or do some extreme traveling with one in which case they might be nice.

Every manufacturer in the camper industry basically makes the same camper's with different "features", graphics, and interior's. Find the floorplan you like and that suites your needs and simply shop at many different dealer's looking at the same floorplan and see who is more competitive with pricing. Trust me when I said there is quite a bit of negotiation room on new camper's and if a dealer is only willing to come off of MSRP a few thousand, there is a ton of room left on the table.

Have you pulled your Auto-enhanced scores? Most of the national captive RV lender's will want to see 700+ scores and they generally pull auto enhanced scores. I assume you have  large down payment considering what you said in your original post so I would think approval odds are great for you, however know that the interest rate will not be great.

[Anonymous]

Well I did pay off the rest of my wifes debt with that sum O cash we had. I have now 10% down on a 25k rv if thats what we get. Everything is paid but not reflecting yet on our CR which kinda blows a bit. Guess we will have to wait 30-60 days for that to eventually report. In the mean-while of course we found the trailer we wanted for much less, only $16k at another dealer. Grrr.

[Anonymous]

is the trailer you found used or new for that price? Why don't you see if they will allow you to put a deposit down to hold it until your better scores are updated?

[Anonymous]

its technically used but it is a 2017. I wasn't aware i could put a deposit down lol. Guess i could call and ask.

[Anonymous]

Not all dealer's will allow you to put a deposit down, but it's definately worth asking!

[Anonymous]

This dealer does not sadly.. Ah - well worth asking

[Anonymous]

Absolutely, have you tried proceeding with purchasing this particular travel trailer? RV financing is very tough as they are a very fast depreciating item, often financed at very long terms to be affordable, and high risk to lender's as they are strictly luxury items. However, I think with your scores and the possibility of money down ( I would suggest at the very least 10-20% down) you should be able to obtain financing somewhere.

I would also recommend pulling NADA values on the camper that you are looking to purchase, you will see two values, Used Wholesale Trade-in and Used retail values. I wouldn't suggest adding any option's whatsoever when using NADA to value the camper you are looking at, typically dealer's don't add option's when valuing a trade in camper because lender's will not allow dealer's to include add-on's and option's to determine a lending value. I would try to purchase the camper as close to Used Wholesale Trade-in because camper dealer's usually try to put less than that value into a camper when trading for it.

[Anonymous]

Applied with Alliant cu. they would do 7.75% rate with 20% down 80% ltv for 96 months on this specific used trailer. I am thinking of having them switch it from used to new tomorrow and look for maybe a slightly better deal from them otherwise I will try to wait a month before applying elsewhere.