Static caravan advice

Malthusian

racey wrote: »

Do the same considerations apply to lodges? Or do they maintain their value?

Like these ones?

Bravepants

Brian65 wrote: »

Precisely.
And when it finally did it effectively gave private companies the power to issue parking fines for tiny infringements of their hideous terms and conditions :mad:

They are not fines, they are invoices, which you don't have to pay. Don't fall for the fake yellow/black plastic stickers on your windscreen or the fake letters from their equally fake lawyers.


You only need to pay council or police parking fines.

Brian65

Bravepants wrote: »

They are not fines, they are invoices, which you don't have to pay. Don't fall for the fake yellow/black plastic stickers on your windscreen or the fake letters from their equally fake lawyers.


You only need to pay council or police parking fines.

Tell that to the 'Can't Pay we'll take it away' baliffs you see collecting £thousands in unpaid private parking 'fines' 'tickets' whatever.
My understanding is what you say used to be correct, you didn't used to have to pay private parking 'fines' but when the English Government were finally forced to outlaw rogue wheelclampers they gave more powers to private parking companies instead. :mad:

MataNui

Owning a static caravan isnt a bad thing to do, though it wouldnt sit well with the frugal MSE brigade. We own one on a Haven site (so pretty expensive site fees) and its probably the best purchase we ever made.


What is wrong though is your reason for wanting one. You will never make a penny in profit from it. It would be pretty easy to cover your site fees but once you factor in the depreciation, interest on the loan (financing one of these things is one of the dumbest ideas ever) and maintenance you are going to be losing money. Rented vans have a hard life. Its one of the reasons Haven for example will only allow you to rent your van out through their scheme for its first 5 years. After that long they need a full refurbishment (another several grand).


When we bought ours the sales manger actually said something we have since found to be totally true. He said the happiest people on the park are the ones who are there every weekend. The more use you get from the van the less like a financial burden it will feel. If you go into it already planning to rent your van because you dont have the time to use it or need to make a bit of money to cover the costs then basically you have made a very bad choice in buying it in the first place.



Just a couple of comments regarding the often quoted statement that you could just rent instead of buying. We use ours almost every weekend and for half terms and a few weeks in the main holidays. If i tot up that use at the rate Haven would charge for that grade of van then we would of already covered our site fees and then some. Obviously though, if we didnt have the use of it wee wouldnt be going away so often.
Secondly renting one isnt even remotely similar to having your own. We can go any time we want (even just for the day) without any planning just because we feel like it. It takes seconds to pack (since we leave loads of stuff there) and know we are going to be in the same great caravan on the same great plot with full cupboard and a fridge full of cold beer and wine.


Its worked out great for us but i still wouldnt recommend it to everybody.
I worked in the industry for a while so knew exactly what i was getting into.
We didnt need to finance the van at all. Not saying the money was disposable or it couldnt of been spent/invested in more MSE manor but buying the van wasnt a problem at all.
Site fees again are something thats affordable without limiting us in any way.
We dont rent and never intend to. Its our second home and we use it almost every weekend.
We took our time buying. We knew the park we wanted and the sort of van we wanted and our max budget. We didnt let the sales guy pressure us and looked in a variety of sources. In the end (after 6 months of contact with them) the park offered us a deal that i know from a buyers point of view was a pretty unbelievable one. I know the park still made a nice profit but as a buyer it was a great deal.


Turning up, buying new on finance and hoping you can rent it out to make a profit because you admit your not going to use it enough really is wrong in every possible way.

PasturesNew

In the main, people who "make money" from renting caravans have a twist to their tale.

1/ They didn't do it to make money, they do it just to cover their site fees - and could afford it in any case. They were just lucky.
2/ They are quite often local B&B/hotel owners offering different accommodation to people, so are in a position to do changeovers and service the needs of their guests. They're also "in the trade" and know everybody else on the site who is doing this + probably are members of the same Clubs as the Directors/owners of sites.

You're not creating an investment, you're potentially creating a huge liability, a problem, a pain in the butt and a money pit.

And, if you decided after 1 year it's not for you, you still have to pay the following year's site fees to entice the next owner in .... and you have to pay £000s to the site owner when you sell (for them doing nothing).

iglad

The number of times I keep seeing this 'static caravan' in the threads you'd swear it had wheels!!

Alistair31

iglad wrote: »

The number of times I keep seeing this 'static caravan' in the feeds y'd swear it had wheels!!

And yet the original poster has never returned.

Odd.

iglad

Alistair31 wrote: »

And yet the original poster has never returned.

Odd.

odd indeed but the thread seems to have taken on a life of it's own :rotfl: