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SeeTheUSA · 05-04-2015, 04:49 PM

Our son is anticipating buying a new park model home. He has looked at Athens and Rustic River brands at a dealership in Texas. Maybe Cavco, too. He asked me if I had any idea how much off MSRP could be anticipated.

I shared what I know about the RV world, but have no idea what might be customary for park models. Any thoughts or experience you can share will be appreciated.

By the way, the salesperson is telling him there really isn't much margin on Park Models, so discounts off MSRP shouldn't be expected.

Gordon Dewald · 05-04-2015, 04:56 PM

No knowlege either about discounts.

However the resort we are in decided they would install a few park models and then sell them. They eventually sold them for about a third of what a regular park model would sell for.

djbmsu · 05-04-2015, 06:41 PM

Tell you son to do some research on depreciation on park models as well as the insurance costs. Both factors to consider.

SeeTheUSA · 05-05-2015, 08:55 AM

To make matters more difficult, the park model manufacturers don't seem to provide any MSRP information. About all I've been able to learn from anything online is that dealers who sell these new operate on an 18 to 26% margin.

Might be all my son has to go on, unless others here have any insight.

GaryWT · 05-05-2015, 09:52 AM

It has been a few years but be sure he looks around as dealer list prices all over the board depending on there market. Some dealers will have list prices of $20K or more than another dealer. We had a Canterbury which was very nice, bought it as a leftover I guess so it was marked down some, probably started in the 50K range and we got it for 42k at the time, it was a 2003. After we bought ours, prices seemed to skyrocket to 60-70K for many. Ten year later we sold it aonly with a golf cart and a few other things for 20K. Supply and demand. Hard to sell as it is a lot of work to have someone move them for you.

SeeTheUSA · 05-06-2015, 01:59 PM

Thanks Gary, good info.

My son looks at this as a somewhat long term disposable asset ... maybe after 15 years or so it will be pretty much used up. Recognizing that, even a high quality RV, TT or 5er, would probably be about shot and have little value after setting there that long.

His property is very rural, more like a ranch. Hot Texas summers! A metal-roofed park model should fair out okay, it seems. The big advantage is to get one categorized as an RV and stay ahead (or better said "behind") a bit on the property tax assessments.

Sure is tough to determine what sort of margin a park model dealer is operating on, therefore tough to "bargain" with them.