I love MHs but, the price!!

[Julie and Charles]

What a super weekend.
Loved meeting Terry L on the MHF stand. No we didn't buy it Terry.
Lots of beautiful MH in this show also, lots of Tat.
Had second viewings of a few vans, looked closely at the quality of the build. Rejected a few on this alone. Surely I'm not the only person that wants good quality in exchange for extortionate amounts of cash.
The pre loved at the show had never been loved, apart from, a very good Auto sleeper Topaz on the loudhams stand. Immaculate throughout, 3 years old but, 45k!!!!
How!!!!!!!
Until I saw the price I was wanting to buy it. My hubby said, guess the price. I said 35k. I woke to the familiar scent of smelling salts, these are a handy addition to our MH viewing days out.
Wow these things are so expensive, more than the price of our last house.
We had a great day, climbing in and out of everything, learning what we can get for our monet, in our case nothing! We will continue looking and saving, I hope we manage to get one in spring. I'm chomping at the bit to get touring.
Lovely to meet some of you.
Bye for now
Julie

 

[duffs]

Why didn't everyone just say all this in the first place

Yes so funny when a post gets legs.

 

[Theonlysue]

Me too.
This group has directed us towards Hymer too, I've had a quick look on line this morning however, I've noticed that they are very wide. 3 meters on some. I need to find a slimmer model. This MH will have to be a car replacement too, we can't afford two vehicles.
So it's looking like a Hymer research day. *jumps up and down with excitement *

Hi the max width is 235 cms of the hymers. Max legally on our roads are 250cms. Not sure where you are getting the 3 meter width from?

 

[Spidey]

When we bought our first motorhome handing over the money we felt sick. So much money for a holiday accessory as my neighbour calls it. Two years later we upgraded to a larger, better make motorhome. We gleefully handed over the money and felt just happiness in being able to get this lovely motorhome. I think that we soon realised we loved going away in it and got so much pleasure that second time round was easier.

 

[Jands]

Keep within what you can easily afford, there will always be a better one slightly more expensive.
More fun sitting in the sun outside your affordable MH than sitting worrying about the repayment on something that's pushed you to the limits.

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[Julie and Charles]

Vat has nothing to do with it, it is sold at a price and after a year it is worth x. We have never lost more than 5% a year on a van and have only bought new vans.

We have noticed that, if we look at a registration plate, we can now (in most cases) value the vans ourselves.
I think it must be similar to cars in that, the book says it's this much.
The German ones differ and after looking at the advice on the forum, I noticed these and high end models can be a bit more but, I guess you are paying for quality build.

 

[Lenny HB]

We have noticed that, if we look at a registration plate, we can now (in most cases) value the vans ourselves.
I think it must be similar to cars in that, the book says it's this much.
The German ones differ and after looking at the advice on the forum, I noticed these and high end models can be a bit more but, I guess you are paying for quality build.

We have only bought Hymers, yes fairly expensive but have lost very little on them but we have always bought in Belgium. Our last van which we changed in March this year we received a trade in price of around 7-9% (dependant on exchange rate) less than what we paid for it 3 years ago and got a large (nearly 20%) discount on the new van which was a factory order. Previous Hymer to that one had 6 years lost 23% on it, average of 4% a year.
Although a chunk of capital is tied up in the van it's not really costing us much.
If you stick to the mid range German vans like Hymer you don't loose a lot, not so with the high end vans such as N&B, Concorde & Morelo.

Edit:
Nearly every Aire we stopped on on our last trip we had either a N&B Liner a Concorde or a Morelo parked next to us.
I kept drooling over the Morelo's but won't fit on the drive (could remove some fence panels down the lane and get it in the back garden) sadly my wallets not that deep.

 

[peterc10]

Edit:
Nearly every Aire we stopped on on our last trip we had either a N&B Liner a Concorde or a Morelo parked next to us.
I kept drooling over the Morelo's but won't fit on the drive (could remove some fence panels down the lane and get it in the back garden) sadly my wallets not that deep.

We noticed the same. Initially thought they were using Aires or wild camping because they did not have any money spare after buying the moho. Now think they are just too enormous to get onto most European campsites.

 

[The Lobster]

It took us three three years to finally decide on the layout we wanted in our first MH, and we ended up buying a 10 yr old Burstner - why?

1. The only significant technical improvements in newer ones were in the chassis - they mostly had cosmetically better internal fit and finish, which we could live without. All the fittings work just about exactly the same in a new Burstner as they do in ours (although the past couple of years are starting to see a bit more innovation).
2. We chose a family-friendly layout to suite our intended use - with the family (including young kids) - so didn't want to worry about a highly expensive/new MH getting dented and scratched.
3. Even at 10 yr old its easy to get a (by car standards) very low mileage van (ours was a little over 20k miles). We wanted something we could rely on mechanically to take us around Europe and anything much older looked an increasing risk of breakdown.

In retrospect (now in the second year) we're very happy with that choice. We'd have much preferred an A-class to an overcab - but the German manufacturers generally don't do "family" layouts in an A-class (in our case that meant having bunk beds at the back and a further double bed separate from the lounge).