Selling/Trading in a Trailer

[patriot07]

Parents have agreed to buy a new Coleman travel trailer, but they are not yet decided on trading in or selling yet. Their trade-in would be a Heartland North Trailer 21FX that's in excellent condition. Dealer is supposed to call back tomorrow with an offer for their trade-in (appraised at a dealer from the same chain). A few questions:

- What is approx value if I sell myself?
- What is the best place to list it if we decide to sell it? Can I list it on here?
- Dealer in Louisiana told them that they could set it up to be registered in Texas and that they would pay taxes to the dealer and no taxes in Texas. Is that accurate? Dealer is near the Texas border, so I assume they have done this before.

Thanks in advance for the help.

[mbranscum]

Would be extremely helpful if you listed the year.

[patriot07]

The Heartland they're selling is a 2013. I see one listed on RVtrader for $12,500, but I don't know if that's a fair value price or not.

The Coleman they're buying is a new 2016.

[Bob1340]

I wager trading into a RV dealer is not optimal. They have their stuff already pretty pricey and getting that price knocked down with a trade in instead of haggering may not be a good choice. Look at MSRP, take off 20%, then look at the NADA value of the trade in. If they come close go. If not list it yourself.

[Arch Hoagland]

Have you gone on Craigslist and priced them? I'd suggest listing it on Craigslist and see what happens.

[Randy the sly old fox]

Since you have already brought up the tax card. I know that in WA state you pay sales tax on the selling price of the new unit so it is to your advantage to get that as low as possible and to heck with the trade-in value. They also make it so you have to pay sales tax if you buy out of state (OR or ID) so there is no way out

Here in OR we don't have a sales tax so all we care about is the bottom line.

Generally if you sell it on your own you will be able to get more $$, but you also run the risk of not selling it - or having to deal with people wanting to look at it all the time when you could be camping in the new rig. Then there is payment - it is up to you to make sure the check is good - not everybody has 12 grand in cash.

Personally I trade just to eliminate the hassle.

[vsheetz]

Sell it yourself. Craigslist and RVtrader. Put it in good condition, everything working. Clean inside and out. Ask a fair price - not low, not high. It will readily sell. IMHO.

[patriot07]

Originally Posted by Arch Hoagland

Have you gone on Craigslist and priced them? I'd suggest listing it on Craigslist and see what happens.

CL prices seem to be all over the map. For instance, I have found a number of new bunkhouse TT models in the 26'-28' box range for around $20k new. The Coleman my parents are buying is in that range and they're paying $18k. But when you go look on CL, you see a bunch of used models that are 5 years old that are $20k-$25k. The prices aren't even logical.

So I really don't have a good way of knowing what units are actually selling for.

Originally Posted by vsheetz

Sell it yourself. Craigslist and RVtrader. Put it in good condition, everything working. Clean inside and out. Ask a fair price - not low, not high. It will readily sell. IMHO.

Thanks.

My parents were offered $7k by one dealership and didn't want to take that because it felt like a ripoff. My opinion is that I think a dealer would list it at $12k-$13k, so I think we should list it at $10,900 and take the first offer over $10,500. That would be a fair price IMHO.


My parents live in a gated neighborhood where it's hard to sell stuff like this, so it'll probably end up getting dropped off at my house and I'll be dealing with the hassle of selling, but I've done it many times before and it's usually not too big of a deal.

[schrederman]

I placed an ad in RVTrader for $24- and sold my 2011 Surveyor for twice what the dealer offered on trade. It lasted less than a week. The first lookers bought it. That allowed me to have more leeway when I bought our new TT. We looked at bigger ones than we had planned... but ended up sticking to our 2 years of research. Even though we didn't go bigger than we had planned, we went with a much smaller ($8,000- smaller) difference when we traded. I can do a lot of camping for $8,000-. Not as convenient, that's for sure, but I spent about 4 hours checking and fixing, cleaning and cleaning. It was like making $2,000- per hour...

[Cumminsfan]

If I were to trade in I would look at used trailers, maybe 1-3 years old to trade in on. They are already marked down from depreciation. You have a better chance of getting an 2 year old used TT at or near the trade in value than you do buying brand new.
If you trade in yours for wholesale and buy a new on at say 25% off MSRP you're paying $1000's more than if you trade in on a used TT thats already depreciated and more than likely the owner didn't get much more than wholesale when they traded it in. It's almost apple to apples. You still lose more trading in but your cost for the new one is cheaper. Probabaly not a wash but closer than buying new. Of course selling it on your own and buying a 1-2 year old TT is the optimum way to go.

[Paulunder]

I sold my Georgetown through a guy named Chris at RV Daily. Worked out pretty good actually. I spent a while on Craigslist and a friend of mine sold through him so I gave it a shot and it ended up selling. Try him out maybe... 402-403-5171