Sell or trade - Montana Owners Club

anglerdad · 03-14-2014, 12:45 AM

My wife and I are heading to an RV show on Saturday to meet with a dealer and look at the High Country. We are unsure yet if we want to trade our current camper (Palomino Puma 27RLSS) or sell it ourselves. We're still buried in 2 1/2 feet of snow here in Michigan, so we definitely won't be bringing anything home even if we buy one.

Does anyone have good experiences in selling your Camper? And what resource did you use to value it and sell it?

bethandkevin · 03-14-2014, 12:55 AM

I sold our old fifth wheel out in front of our house. We live on M15-you being local, you know what kind of traffic we get. I used NADA for used value. Did a Google search for comparables. Put all that in plastic sheets attached to the door. It sold in three days for asking price. I did the same for my late uncle last fall. He has been trying to sell it for nearly two years, posting on CL. When he got sick, I offered to take on the responsibility for them. They told me what they wanted for it, I brought it home and gave it a good bath. The inside was already impeccable. I priced it $3000.00 over what they wanted for it because that's what comparables showed. We sold it for $2000.00 more than they wanted in one day!
Are you going to the Flint show or the Central Michigan show? We'll be at the Central Michigan shaow on Saturday as well. Might see you there.

JandC · 03-14-2014, 03:33 AM

There is a lot to consider before deciding between trading in, or selling your old unit. Remember, when you buy without a trade you will be paying sales tax on the whole amount. If you do decide to sell you old unit I agree with everything Kevin said. I have had real good luck with Craig's List, both as a buyer and seller. After checking NADA for the value on your present unit, do a national search for units like yours for sale. It won't tell you what they have actually sold for, but it will give you an idea of what folks are asking for them. If you price it right it will probably sell pretty quick. We were in our winter home and full time so it was almost impossible for us to do anything else but trade in.

mlh · 03-14-2014, 03:50 AM

We pay sales tax on the whole amount in Va even if you trade one in.
Lynwood

**DQDick** · 03-14-2014, 03:54 AM

We've had great luck with Craig's list selling everything from boats to vehicles to almost all our furniture when we went full time. First get the NADA for your current rig. Get a cash price on your new rig and then ask about a trade and see what the real difference is. That will make it easy to decide if you want to go to the trouble of selling it yourself.

richfaa · 03-14-2014, 04:18 AM

it somewhat depends on your area.In our S&B area a Montana is a high $$$ Rv and would not be easy to sell. We had no problem selling our previous TT's. .To us it is the bottom line deal that matters. One can do just as well on a trade in.

Flymutt · 03-14-2014, 04:58 AM

We bought our Monty through Craig's List. You might want to check that sales tax thing because it differs from state to state. In our state you pay sales tax on the difference IF you purchase another RV within 60 days of selling the existing one.

1retired06 · 03-14-2014, 05:00 AM

If time is not an issue, I would recommend selling yourself. Difference between wholesale trade-in (if a fair dealer) and retail values can be significant and far greater than any savings resulting from lower sales tax. My last Montana, in dealing with two different dealers, both offered trade-in values in the 25K range. This was after I worked out the best price on the new unit, indicating no trade-in and then bringing in the trade-in after the fact as part of the discussion. I sold the unit myself for $38K which was the fair retail price. Took me three months but well worth it.

jlb27537 · 03-14-2014, 05:36 AM

I used Craig's list to sell our 16 year old no slide pusher. It was priced right and went away in 30 days. When we sold our 6 year old Newmar 5th I used RV Trader and it also sold in about 30 days.

It needs to be selling season in your area. Listing it now in Mi. would be a waste of time (I think)

Pricing it too low may give the buyer the impression there is something wrong with it, and too high, no one calls.

A few years ago I had a 20 year old boat for sale that I had owned for 10 years. I had bought it for 10K. When I put it up for sale I priced it at $9,995. Gave several test rides, but no takers. A couple asked why the boat was so cheep? The next week I raised my price to 13K. Next guy that looked at it bought it for 13K.

Perception? is a funny thing.

Jim

1retired06 · 03-14-2014, 06:07 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by jlb27537

I used Craig's list to sell our 16 year old no slide pusher. It was priced right and went away in 30 days. When we sold our 6 year old Newmar 5th I used RV Trader and it also sold in about 30 days.

It needs to be selling season in your area. Listing it now in Mi. would be a waste of time (I think)

Pricing it too low may give the buyer the impression there is something wrong with it, and too high, no one calls.

A few years ago I had a 20 year old boat for sale that I had owned for 10 years. I had bought it for 10K. When I put it up for sale I priced it at $9,995. Gave several test rides, but no takers. A couple asked why the boat was so cheep? The next week I raised my price to 13K. Next guy that looked at it bought it for 13K.

Perception? is a funny thing.

Jim

Bet you took exceptional care of it.

Art-n-Marge · 03-14-2014, 07:39 AM

Trading in an RV just means you won't get what it's worth since they are looking to resell it and think they deserve all the profit. Selling on your own might get you more dollars but it's more work in pricing it correctly for your market area. It depends how hard you want to work. Check the Nada website to get a ballpark figure for tradein or owner sale of your rig, then hope you are about there. I'm guessing your rig will be in their database.

Also know that if you trade in a trailer for higher than you might deserve, then they'll not discount the new rig as much. Dealers are very good at not giving away money easily, but with a little homework you should have pretty good ideas where to price things. The smarter you sound when purchasing, the less chance of feeling like you got taken.

anglerdad · 03-14-2014, 10:22 AM

Quote:

quote:Originally posted by BethandKevin

I sold our old fifth wheel out in front of our house. We live on M15-you being local, you know what kind of traffic we get. I used NADA for used value. Did a Google search for comparables. Put all that in plastic sheets attached to the door. It sold in three days for asking price. I did the same for my late uncle last fall. He has been trying to sell it for nearly two years, posting on CL. When he got sick, I offered to take on the responsibility for them. They told me what they wanted for it, I brought it home and gave it a good bath. The inside was already impeccable. I priced it $3000.00 over what they wanted for it because that's what comparables showed. We sold it for $2000.00 more than they wanted in one day!
Are you going to the Flint show or the Central Michigan show? We'll be at the Central Michigan shaow on Saturday as well. Might see you there.

Yes, the central Michigan show in Mt Pleasant. We're planning on being there mid afternoon. Maybe we'll see you.

bethandkevin · 03-14-2014, 10:42 AM

Sent you a PM Mike.

anglerdad · 03-15-2014, 12:31 AM

Thanks everyone for all the good advice.

HOOK · 03-15-2014, 01:36 AM

I have always traded. It removes responsibility to the purchaser. Also, the dealer can get it financed. The banks are obligated to the dealer and will finance more for them than they will for a private transaction. Yes, I'm an RV salesman, but I'm also a MOCer. The advice here is IMHO. There is not a great deal of difference in the money you get for your coach, all things considered.

bethandkevin · 03-15-2014, 04:07 AM

[quote]Originally posted by HOOK

I have always traded. It removes responsibility to the purchaser. Also, the dealer can get it financed. The banks are obligated to the dealer and will finance more for them than they will for a private transaction. Yes, I'm an RV salesman, but I'm also a MOCer. The advice here is IMHO. There is not a great deal of difference in the money you get for your coach, all things considered.
[/quote
Every sale will be different, there are so many variables, many of them human condition related. In our case we sold our unit for $5000.00 more than was offered in trade. This will not be the case every time. We had an exceptionally clean, barn kept unit.

anglerdad · 03-15-2014, 05:30 AM

Ours is also clean as a whistle, and immaculately maintained. Always covered during winters. I'm super picky about my stuff. So, I'm hoping to do well in selling it. It may happen that we have two campers for awhile this spring. Someone mentioned on here that there's a better time to sell it--I'm assuming that is spring and/or summer here in Michigan.

TLightning · 03-15-2014, 06:17 AM

It's always better financially to sell it yourself. The key is to make it look like it just rolled of the assembly line (only works better

).

Re the taxes, all states are different. We used to live where you could deduct the value of your trade or private sale off the cost of the new vehicle for sales tax purposes.

richfaa · 03-15-2014, 06:26 AM

It is still the bottom line numbers that count. What did you actually pay for the new Rv. Did you get a discount and how much was it. What did you get for your used unit for the down payment on the new on. We paid cash for our 06 3400 no trade in.We traded in the 06 to the dealer for the 13 big sky. The bottom line numbers were the same.

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