One Man's View of the Market
Came across this video on YouTube with, what seems, a non franchise dealer and his views on the caravan and motorhome market. I suppose given the general economic situation and high-ish interest rates persisting we shouldn't be surprised that the post Covid boom has subsided and left in it's wake very high prices for new caravans and motorhomes?
David
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Do you remember all those comments during Covid that once people started taking holidays abroad again then there would be a surfeit of stock available at bargain prices?
Well, that was pie in the sky thinking. If you bought a new/ish Motorhome for £80,000 in 2021 you were not going to sell it back to the dealer for a whopping loss just because you wanted to go to Greece by plane.
I've been tentatively keeping my eye open for a small MH or PVC with a view to changing from a caravan. The second hand prices for decent looking stock are ridiculous. They'll have to fall some more before I part with my money.
Maybe it's me that's out of sync but that post Covid bonanza hasn't materialised.
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Wherenext
Because I have a Bailey motorhome I keep an eye on a Facebook Group for the buying and selling of Bailey motorhomes. It does seem that most of those listed, even if 6/7 years old are being advertised at or near their original manufacturers price. Obviously I have no idea what they actually sell for it seems low mileage, good condition motorhomes, be they coachbuilt or PVC's do seem to be maintaining their price as the new replacements have gone through the roof. What went out the window with the advent of Covid was the "economy models". Because of the general shortage of base vehicles, manufacturers concentrated on the more upmarket models. There are a few signs that some economy models are being reintroduced but they are still way higher priced than they were in 2020. I am not sure prices will come down as everything that goes into a motorhome has also gone up and I suspect the vehicles used to base motorhomes on are in themselves going to start getting more expensive. Perhaps we are about to, or at least in the next five years, see major changes to our hobby I suspect we may be.
David
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I sold my 6 year old Eriba caravan early last summer for £16.5K, eventually to a dealer.
The market for caravans was severely depressed, overstocked with new and nearly new vans. I could have realistically sold it privately in the summer of 2022 for about £21K,
The dealer who bought my van advertised it at £22K and took over 9 months to sell it.
The up side is I was buying a new caravan, and realised a discount of about £7K.
It would appear from stories I'm hearing personally, not just in the media, that the campervan and motorhome market would appear to be the opposite. Prices are still high, so a good time for moving from camper to caravan if the thought was there.
Colin
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I really don’t know why people are prepared to buy motorhomes at the £80,000 price which has been mentioned. Nobody I know does it. Everyone I know - family, friends and neighbours, is well aware that these days there are cheap flights anywhere- like those to southern Spain next week at £42.return. Flying is so cheap. That’s departing right now. No booking ahead. No capital outlay. No ferry across the Bay of Biscay in a storm. Just sit in a plane for two hours and rent accommodation when you get there. Postcards have arrived here in the last 12 months from Madeira, Montenegro, Jordan, Copenhagen annd Greek islands. The ones who went to Iceland didn’t send a card. Everyone I know travels like that. Motorhome prices seem madness to them as well as to me.
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ET
Maybe not in your circles but I would have thought where you live you only have to observe what is happening on the main roads to see hundreds if not thousands of motorhomes and caravans over the course of the holiday season. For some the sort of holidays you and your friends enjoy are not always an option, especially if they want to take pets with them or perhaps want to be within easy reach of getting home if they have elderly relatives. There are all sorts of reasons why people choose the holidays they do and for many being stuck in an airport or having flights cancelled is not one of them? Of course, many will have both types of holidays, as they say variety is the spice of life.
David
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It depends on what you enjoy ET. We have always taken camping type touring holidays. Initially with tents, then a caravan and now a MH. Fortunately purchased in 2019 before the rapid increases in prices. Perhaps if we couldn’t of afforded a MH things would be different, as we are a bit old for a return to tents and a caravan and replacing the tow car and caravan not a lot different in cost to a MH. However we can, and enjoy the type of holiday it provides.
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eurotraveller/SteveL, I can see both sides of the argument. However I don't believe it is one type of holiday or the other and both can be enjoyed in the same year.
Whilst we do use our 2018 caravan as much as possible, we also take many holidays abroad whilst we can. Having just returned from a 6 week holiday to Australia/New Zealand, we are definitely of the mindset of see as much abroad as you can before old age and the inevitable health problems it will brings reins in our gallivanting abroad.
Although we have not decided either way, I cannot see us replacing our caravan for another and I do think we may have missed the boat in moving to a motorhome. One reason for this is the necessity in my mind that, to justify the expense, we would have to spend more time in the MH than we probably would like to.
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I'm not surprised that Elddis have laid off staff, their quaity control is atrocious.
At the Caravan Show at the NEC last October, I went into one caravan and the drawer unit at the front came away completely....it hadn't been fixed in place.
If they don't check caravans that are display models at shows, what chance does the consumer have?
I reported it to a member of staff on the stand and they locked the caravan..not good for a show
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An interesting post David. Personally I think in the short term there will be a correction of the market, perhaps not as much as we were hoping. However, whilst I agree that the component parts of our outfits have increased which have helped to drive prices up, I do wonder about the longer term. If the economic outlook persists, I could envisage people being reluctant to part with their savings for large discretionary purchases like motorhomes. Perhaps there will be a situation where a number of motorhomes will sit on forecourts until a clearance discount is offered. Whilst caravans are reliant on ICE vehicles to tow them, it will gradually dawn on owners that the impact of the ZEV legislation will gradually remove ICE vehicles from the options list. Electric tow cars are severely compromised in terms of range and do not offer the same flexibility of the ICE powered units. In some of the wider caravan fraternity, there is a hope that electric vehicle range will substantially improve. Unfortunately, hope is no substitute for a plan which seems to be missing. Could we see a switch to motorhomes in the near future with the attendant price increase?
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I thought the video was more focused on Elddis rather than the market in general. According to a report I have seen, it appears true the caravan market took a hit in 2023 with declining sales of 5 percent. However, the motorhome market did not and it grew by 3 percent. This seems to support DaveT's view that the switch is to motorhomes rather than caravans.
peedee
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"However, the motorhome market did not and it grew by 3 percent"
much to the consternation of those on the frontline
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DaveT
Some interesting points. It could be that we have reached, or are rapidly approaching a cross roads with regards to caravans as there seem to be some difficult decisions ahead for caravan owners. For those happy to soldier on with existing cars then the problem is not so immediate. However for anyone in a position to be able to afford a new car they could well have reached that cross road and are perhaps looking at the idea of a motorhome. Back when we decided to change from a caravan to a motorhome (2013) the thought processes included looking at the price of a new car, then probably £25/30000, we had recently changed the caravan which cost us about £15000. So taking both those sums into consideration we decided that buying a motorhome for £45000 wasn't as outlandish as it first seemed. OK we would have to invest in a smaller car for home use and I am not sure whether that should also be added into the equation but in the end we got a good deal on our old 4X4 so the extra outlay was minimal. I should also add that changing to a motorhome wasn't done on a whim, it had been on the back boiler for some time.
Moving forward 11 years that caravan would now cost £25000 and a car £30/40000 and the equivalent motorhome probably £75/80000. So apart from the eye watering sums, has the ratio changed? Probably not. Now where that extra money comes from, of course will depend on individual circumstances and it is just impossible to make a judgement who can or cannot afford the sums involved or indeed willing to afford those sums.
David
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Of course it all depends on the individual circumstances David, how old the car and caravan are but at present the ratio you mention isn't that far out for ourselves plus we already have a second small runaround. Other factors do come into play such as health, commitments at home and/or money.
i think DaveT is mostly on the mark with his comments. Peedee's facts about sales bears out what we have been told by dealers we have made enquiries to.
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I think what I am perhaps trying to point out is that there is a tendency to look at the headline price of a motorhome be it new or secondhand. On its own it can seem eye wateringly expensive without comparing the relative costs of a towcar and caravan. Changing from a caravan to a motorhome does have its risks because there is always the possibility that the change is too great to get used to. Are there any perfect solutions in life, probably not! Maybe in future the hobby will split not so much between caravan and motorhome but between motorhome and static accommodation which I know a few on this group is a route some have gone down. In my later years that does have some attraction to me but the question has always been where!
David
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The price of new motorhomes & campervans has certainly outstripped wages growth, my van has gone from £60k less than three years ago to £80k now. I haven't had a 33% pay rise in less than three years. But new funding methods seem to keep coming along. As most ordinary working folk are possibly unlikely to be able to save up for such a discretionary purchase as a motorhome it used to be the only people I spoke to in work who had bought one had funded it from an inheritance. Then PCP deals came along. Then pension lump sum early release and now all the adverts on TV seem to be for equity release. I think I've even seen one that specifically mentions buying a motorhome. For the many many people who are sitting in a couple of hundred grand or more of equity in a house, £90k for a motorhome is peanuts if you are happy to spend a bit of your kids inheritance.........
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We bought our current van just before the end of the first lock down in 2020.
It had been sat at the dealers since December 2019 so 6 mths, of course very little trade had been going on and the dealers premises were full. We got a very good deal buying without a trade in.
We were at the dealers recently looking around and were offered 10k more than what we paid for it. Certain makes and models are still very hard to come by so this drives the price ever higher. A new van same make and model is over 80k and a year or more waiting list. I think we fell lucky.
Not so obvious here but abroad the market for those mega big and expensive vans is still strong. I've never seen so many monsters as we saw last autumn. Off course many of them have become home to lots of folk. Rents and house prices have gone through the roof not just here but overseas.
I think we will see a drop in the prices in the next few years as the market levels out and parts become more available or is that just wishful thinking.
Edit: the dealer I mentioned is not one that reduces prices often but when we were there last time they had quite a few lovely new MHs with good discounts. Was sorely tempted by one but managed to resist. The cost of road tax on a new MH for the first year is eye-watering I believe.
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I subscribe to MMM (Motorhome Monthly Magazine) and I have just been thumbing through the latest edition. BTW I do recommend this magazine to anyone thinking of changing to a motorhome as a couple of editions will equip you with a lot of information about the world of motorhoming, not so much doing it but all the practicalities of owning one. Anyway I was reading a comment about the latest Swift Camper Van, which I quote, is competitively priced at £71000, £1750 extra if you would like the automatic gearbox and why wouldn't you? In the same issue they had a series of reports on the sort of large motorhomes that TG mentioned in her post. These are what are called A Class motorhomes where they build everything on the base chassis, so unlike a coach built they don't use the manufacturers cab but tend to create a lounge/driving area in that space to give more room. It was a bit like looking at House & Garden Magazine! The most expensive was around £400,000 which made the Niesmann+Bischoff good value at around £200,000
David
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I’m following this thread with interest as we have been going through this very same thought process. I can relate to many of the comments on here as I’m at or nearing the crossroads that DK mentions.
my caravan is 7 years old this year and good for a few more years yet. My car is 10 years old and on 64000 miles. The van is a large twin axle and therefore needs a large diesel tow car to comfortably pull it, think disco4 3 litre v6.we have caravanned for 40years this year in uk and near continent. No desire for a tiny light van, as we like being comfortable on holiday. Being recently retired and now on a fixed income we have to get the decision right.
Options are continually going around my head including all those mentioned above. But there’s more to add into the equation :-
if I keep my large diesel how much will I be penalised by increased car tax, fuel duty, extortionate car insurance hikes, I’ve even heard mention recently of different parking charges for diesel, petrol and electric cars - all designed to drive us towards electric/ hybrid vehicles ( pun intended)
If I change to a Motorhome and a small hybrid/electric runaround I go from three vehicles to two with the consequent savings but Motorhome prices are sky high
After spending £75/80,000 on a Motorhome do I want to bounce it down our potholed roads and onto a wet often muddy field? I can take a lot of holidays overseas for £75,000.
like a previous poster we are now of an age where we want to and can travel to see the world whilst enjoying warmer climes but we also still enjoy combining this with using our van in the summer/ autumn. If I’m therefore going to use the Motorhome for say 6 weeks a year, I’ve got £80,000 sitting around for 48/weeks deteriorating. So another option to consider is just renting one as needed. Doing that saves me insurance, servicing and maintenance and storage not to mention the upgrades I’d be likely to spend money on if I owned one. Keeping the £80k in the bank earns me £4k pa to go towards the rentals. To this end we’ve hired a Motorhome (Adria matrix) in Scotland for 3 weeks beginning of May to see if we enjoy it as much as the caravan.
I think the writings on the wall for cars suitable to tow the vans that most uk owners have. The club know this which is why they are encouraging glamping pods, seasonal pitches, static airstreams (like at Brighton)
I remain undecided!
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Hi Dunton, I liked your thoughtful post - though the decision not to spend big money on amotorhome was tor us the easiest decision we ever made,
We wanted to start to see the world and felt that the lifetime we had been confined to campsites was long enough - and however much this Club spent on its site at Cayton Bay our sights were on the Taj Mahal, the west coast Thai islands, the terraced rice fields in Bali, the Grand Palace in Bangkok, Luang Prabang in Laos, and loads more. And a motorhome simply wouldn’t get us there. Not even to the Scilly Isles which we love. Decision made.
And even when we toured Oz and NZ we found it could be done more comfortably in motels, hostels and B&Bs than in a rented motorhome - at similar cost. For us a motorhome would have simply restricted our ambitions and tied us down.
Good wishes. Enjoy your planning.
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Dunton10
I hope you enjoy your motorhome hire experience. It should at least give you an insight into whether you would get on with a motorhome. Having said that to get the best value out of a motorhome you do need to use it fairly regularly. Maybe you have hit on something by looking are hiring, especially if your usage would only be 3/4 weeks of the year. I appreciate that hiring a motorhome is expensive but if you own a motorhome you have greater costs than a caravan if it sits in storage for most of the year. Insurance, servicing, road tax, storage could easily approach £2000 a year and that doesn't include depreciation. So if your use of a motorhome is restricted in any one year, there might not be a lot in it if you hire rather than buy? Hope you let us know how you get on.
David
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Surely the loss of ICE powered engines applies the same to motorhomes as it does to tow cars. I suppose that electric powered M/Hs are easier to refuel but for anyone wanting to do some "wild camping" that will a big drawback and of course there will be the addition cost in the purchase price of an electric vehicle.
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Nellie
From what I can see the base vehicles used for motorhomes seem to be way back in development of alternative non ICE engines. There are electric versions of some of the base vehicles but not much in the way of electric engines in the larger motorhomes as yet. The change from ICE cars to Hybrid, Plug in Hybrids and pure EV's is much more advanced. There is another issue in that electric vans are so much heavier which impacts on the licence requirement. Europe is currently considering increasing the B1 licence to 4250kgs compared to the current 3500kgs just to accommodate "white van man" for want of a better description. I am sure the UK will follow suit. At a guess I would have thought the van market is at least 5 years behind the car market in terms of progress. I think you are right that the refueling situation with EV of all sorts will add a new dimension to electric motorhoming, but we do get used to change. Many of the fears people had about electric cars have proved unfounded as people who own them adapt to the different situation. My son charges his EV at home on a very low tariff overnight, much cheaper than petrol. He regularly goes to South London and back to MK without charging en route. You are certainly right about the additional cost which seems to be an extra £20/25000 over the ICE version. So what we think is the current over priced starting point for motorhomes of £70/80000 will become £100,000!!! I don't know about you but I don't think I will be worrying about such things
David
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Europe is currently considering increasing the B1 licence to 4250kgs compared to the current 3500kgs just to accommodate "white van man" for want of a better description. I am sure the UK will follow suit.
The UK introduced the increase some time ago just for alternative fueled vehicles. There has been a campagne in the EU for somethime by motorhome organisation to increase the B1 licence not just for alternative fueled vehicles but ICE ones as well. It was also under consideration here but not seen anything further about it since consultations on the subject finished.
peedee
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we had to make to sad decision to sell our coachman vip 460/2 2016. we bought it to last us but unfortunately the wife fractured her back in two places due to falls, we purchased it in late april 2022, and had a few holidays then she had her problem, so did'nt use it untill sept 2023, and then i cut short the holiday as i went ill, so after standing since then we decided to advertise it for sale first went on facebook market place one woman rang asking about the van, question have you used the shower, have you used the oven, has a dog been inside it because i answered yes to these then she didnt want to look. next i advertised it on ebay, one man rang me but he was using a motorised scooter to get about and thought his wife would be able to manage towing even though she never towed and had no where to store the van, it had plenty of views nearly 400 when i last looked i kept dropping the price to the lowest i could accept, which was £12000, dealers selling them for £16000 upwards, still nobody intrested i then rang some adverts most would offer £11,000 but didnt really want it, as people buying 4 berths now, i advertised it with water containers etc even brand new porch awning, then i advertised it on autotrader and the next day a dealer rang and said if still for sale then he'll go to £12,000 so hes now got it, speaking to him it seems as though not many has money spare now they just look, dont think we will get another, well just rent cottages .
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Kalamitty55
Sorry to hear that various health problems have resulted in you selling your van.
A couple of hours ago I watched another "dealer" video, just on caravans. It seems that new caravan prices are being discounted which is having a knock on effect of secondhand caravans values. It would also seem that the market is a bit slow at the moment with some uncertainty that it will pick up significantly.
Interesting what you said about Autotrader, clearly dealers keep an eye on that website?
David
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Unfortunately, when you are selling something, you will very often have timewasters phoning up who have very little intention at all of buying what you are selling, especially it seems when it is a house, car, boat, caravan or a motorhome! I once put an add to sell a car in autotrader and had dealers phoning me offering to buy it for a low price, so perhaps that is where many dealers obtain some of their stock.
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Just come across another video here compiled by someone who is not in the trade but is looking to buy a new van. He has looked at several dealers across the country and observing the state of their stocks and pricing which some might find interesting. Also some news on White Arches who have now been taken over by the Spinney Group but seemed to be within a whisker of going under.
David
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David,
An interesting thread. As I think you know I am just acquiring an LHD 2007 Hobby 2007. This is a "toe in the water" for me and I might sell next year if it does not work out.
Comments about cheap flights and foreign travel all noted (I have regularly flown to Morocco). My background is solo motorcycling around Europe and I miss it but I have got out of the riding habit of riding in part because of some temporary health problems. So the Hobby is there to allow me to perambulate around Europe mixing dual carriageway for progress and D roads (and LHD because I was spoilt riding motorcycles!) I have two 2024 trips abroad planned to date plus an few UK outings (With a 4 camera system fitted I should not be massively disadvantaged on UK roads especially if I plan dual-carriageways for most longer haul trips. (From home to Newhaven I am on dual-carriageways for all but 20 miles!))
My thoughts on the market:
1. Caravans will have to get smaller and lighter if they are to be towed by EVs.
2. EV MoHo development is way, way behind cars. There will be a market for ICE MoHos for donkey's years. And those who are petrol heads may well go down the route of a small MoHo or camper to keep using ICE transport rather than purchasing an EV.
3. Eventually a combination of massively upgraded electrical hookups and EV MoHos will make an EV home feasible but mainly around the 6-7 metre mark.
4. Europeans enjoy the great outdoors more than we Brits. No way will they give up MoHos. That will be the where there is first growth in upgraded electrical hook-ups feeding through eventually to the UK.
So I see the MoHo market as likely static for the foreseeable future with just inflation based rises in single digits. That will do me! I am OK taking a small hit on a sale next year if that is the way the cookie crumbles!
If I stick with MoHoming I am unlikely to buy new. A well specked vehicle that is a few years old would be the height of my ambition. An auto gearbox would be nice but far too many new vans look flimsy and built down to their eye-watering price!! Maybe I should consider a re-engine of the Hobby with an auto box or even just a 6 speed but keep this very well-built van!
Chris
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