While this was always the plan, it was more than a little nerve wracking to actually sign a piece of paper and put down a deposit for an RV. We’re so excited and yet so nervous! Here’s how it all went down.
We had targeted January and February for RV shopping, knowing that it might take a few months to get delivery of our rig. We want to start getting to know our travel trailer with a few weekend trips this spring, and then some longer trips during the summer. We wanted to make sure we had our trailer by May.
The most difficult part, of course, was determining what would be a good price to pay. I started by looking at RV Trader and the websites of dealers near us. We’d been tracking prices for a while and had seen them rise precipitously during the pandemic. But there seemed to be some weakening of the market near the end of 2022.
That was confirmed by several YouTubers who had attended the big Tampa RV Show in January. Demand had slowed, inventories were building up and dealers were making deals. We figured it was time to move.
I then posted on a Facebook group for owners of the particular model we wanted, to see what people had paid over the last three months. That gave me a better sense of what sort of pricing we could expect. I then located about 10 dealers within reasonable driving distance and contacted them to see what sort of pricing they could offer.
One of the members of the Facebook group had gotten an insane deal on his trailer from a dealer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, and while that’s a good 12 hours away, we decided to contact them as well. I also reached out to the LazyDays dealership in Tucson, Arizona. They had a few added perks for buyers and I thought maybe they were large enough they could cut a good deal.
The local dealers gave us reasonable pricing, but even the lowest rate from them was about $3,000 higher than what the Texas dealer was offering us. We tried to see if the other dealers could beat it, but none seemed willing to lower their prices much.
LazyDays was the worst to deal with. Their internet sales person gave me serious used car dealer vibes. Although she said she wanted to earn our business, she was more interested in peddling misinformation. First, she warned us that other dealers would charge high dealer fees, as much as $2,300. When we told her the out-the-door price we had been quoted, she asked to see the specs to make sure we were “comparing apples to apples.” She then claimed her price was higher because it included a bunch of options the other dealer did not. The list of “options” she provided was the list of standard features that are on every one of those trailers built by the manufacturer.
We ended up counter-offering the Texas dealer at $2,500 less than his best offer, and he met us halfway. They were particularly excited about having sold an RV in the middle of an ice storm. We were thrilled with the price we got. Everybody came away happy.
So now, we’ve got a lot of logistics to figure out. We plan to drive down to Dallas in February to complete the transaction and do a walk-through with the dealer. Our plan is to take a full week to drive down there, spend three days camping out near the dealer and making sure everything works, then another three days to drive home.
We’ll get an inspector to come out and check out the trailer next week. If he or she identifies any problems, we’ll have the dealer fix them before we show up. Now we’ve got a limited time to secure financing, line up insurance, and buy the bare minimum in RV gear needed to camp out for a week. This got real very fast! But we’re one step closer to our dream.
