Static Caravans... I guess this is a "warning" to a tiny minority of people... and also a rant.

vacheron

Every year the BBC seems to trot out a story like this expecting readers to be shocked or surprised.

BBC News - Buying a caravan left massive hole in finances

So this couple have bought a static caravan, (which for those who don't know is a limited life, depreciating item that costs £4,800 per year just to keep in one place, and which many sites clearly explain cannot remain on the site after a certain age)... and were then "surprised" that when they sold it years later that they got less than they paid for it!

They bought it as a holiday home "and an investment".  

"It's left a massive hole in our finances," said Mrs Kitching.

"That was all we had, we'd saved up everything."

How is the story of one deluded caravan owning couple who paid over the odds, didn't do any research, didn't read any of the contracts they were given, and apparently spent far more than they could comfortably afford, newsworthy? 

Would this be on the BBC News front page if they had instead bought a car.... or a boat..... or any other depreciating liability without doing their own research or understanding what they were getting into, but instead just going along with whatever the SALESperson told them? 

Albermarle

vacheron said:

Every year the BBC seems to trot out a story like this expecting readers to be shocked or surprised.

BBC News - Buying a caravan left massive hole in finances

So this couple have bought a static caravan, (which for those who don't know is a limited life, depreciating item that costs £4,800 per year just to keep in one place, and which many sites clearly explain cannot remain on the site after a certain age)... and were then "surprised" that when they sold it years later that they got less than they paid for it!

They bought it as a holiday home "and an investment".  

"It's left a massive hole in our finances," said Mrs Kitching.

"That was all we had, we'd saved up everything."

How is the story of one deluded caravan owning couple who paid over the odds, didn't do any research, didn't read any of the contracts they were given, and apparently spent far more than they could comfortably afford, newsworthy? 

Would this be on the BBC News front page if they had instead bought a car.... or a boat..... or any other depreciating liability without doing their own research or understanding what they were getting into, but instead just going along with whatever the SALESperson told them? 

I know what you mean, but the extent of the losses and the brazenness of the sites in question, were still quite shocking.

vacheron

Albermarle said:

vacheron said:

Every year the BBC seems to trot out a story like this expecting readers to be shocked or surprised.

BBC News - Buying a caravan left massive hole in finances

So this couple have bought a static caravan, (which for those who don't know is a limited life, depreciating item that costs £4,800 per year just to keep in one place, and which many sites clearly explain cannot remain on the site after a certain age)... and were then "surprised" that when they sold it years later that they got less than they paid for it!

They bought it as a holiday home "and an investment".  

"It's left a massive hole in our finances," said Mrs Kitching.

"That was all we had, we'd saved up everything."

How is the story of one deluded caravan owning couple who paid over the odds, didn't do any research, didn't read any of the contracts they were given, and apparently spent far more than they could comfortably afford, newsworthy? 

Would this be on the BBC News front page if they had instead bought a car.... or a boat..... or any other depreciating liability without doing their own research or understanding what they were getting into, but instead just going along with whatever the SALESperson told them? 

I know what you mean, but the extent of the losses and the brazenness of the sites in question, were still quite shocking.

The losses are certainly high, but I wouldn't say the site was particularly "brazen" in any way:

• The couple willingly signed on to the £4,800 site fees when they bought.
  Yes, these have increased to £5,600 in 4 years, but this works out to less than a 4% rise per year. Given what the world has been through since 2021, I would consider this rise far from extortionate. And to name this as the primary reason why they had "no choice but to sell" shows either an incredible lack of budgeting on their part, but to be honest, it sounds far more like a simple case of buyers remorse to me.

• Almost all static caravan sites will have a clause that the site must be offered first refusal should the buyer wish to sell, and a 15% commission (justified or not) is about standard in the industry and applies to all the other owners who seem to be able to budget for this as a part of the lifetime cost of ownership.

• The site didn't force the owners to sell to sell their caravan to them, quite the opposite, they allowed them to sell the caravan on the open market (albeit with the stated comission), so if all they could sell it for was £10K (25% of the price they paid just 4 years earlier) they either didn't market it very well, or that was the current fair market value of their caravan at that time.
  This then leads to the question as to whether the market had fallen in the intervening 4 years, or if they significantly overpaid when they bought, and looking at the caravan (as someone who currently owns one), I would say it was the latter.

To my mind, I feel that the site have simply applied all the rules the buyers agreed to when they bought, and to the couple in the article, caveat emptor!

kimwp

Don't forget that lots of people are not great with money and will interpret someone telling them "it's a great investment" to mean they'll make loads of money, with no risks.

angela110660

The Covid era saw a huge increase in folks wanting caravans, campers, boats selling at inflated prices.  Caravan sites have never been cheap. The contracts are always drawn up in their favour especially when the owners are wanting to sell up - nothing has changed.

vacheron

kimwp said:

Don't forget that lots of people are not great with money and will interpret someone telling them "it's a great investment" to mean they'll make loads of money, with no risks.

Completely agree, and "easily persuaded" people have been sold snake oil by financially motivated salesmen for millennia. The main issue I had that motivated me to post here is why the BBC considered this front page news?

Lets be honest, a static caravan purchased solely for someone's own personal use is a "luxury" purchase, in that it costs a significant amount of money to buy and run and is by no means essential for survival, nor would it be assumed that those buying one would silly enough to be using "all they had" to buy it! 


So instead change "Caravan" to "Luxury Car"..... (bold italic are direct quotes by the couple in the article).

A couple decide they want a luxury car, "spends years saving their money" specifically to buy one, and then takes their saved money to an independent luxury car dealer with the express intention of being sold such a car. The car dealer will no doubt sell them one, as this is their job. The salesperson may also be "talking like it was an investment", because that is pretty much what anyone selling anything will say as part of the standard salesman patter / "BS"!

Then, despite there being nothing wrong with the car, it turns out they hadn't bothered to research anything regarding the the costs of running a luxury car during all those "years saving their money" specifically to buy one.

They then also later decide "this isn't for us any more. We're not getting the use of it", but they apparently also didn't bother to take 10 minutes on google to research the potential resale value of a 4 year old used model should they decide to sell it either...  and guess what?..  it turns out second hand luxury vehicles depreciate fast in the first few years!

Would this have made the BBC News front page too?

Albermarle

Would this have made the BBC News front page too?

You could argue forever about what stories the BBC ( or other media outlets) should put on their websites/TV.
Personally I would consider this story vastly more interesting than articles about Strictly come Dancing, Harry and Megan and all that sort of celebrity/royal family drivel which regularly pops up. 

4justice2

This one also from the BBC - the headline couple bought a caravan as an "investment", then when they didn't get enough bookings, wanted to sell it after SIX WEEKS......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2016lxnepno

oldagetraveller1

And who, in their right mind, would believe anything from the B.B.C. without an absolute bucketful of salt?

Pollycat

4justice2 said:

This one also from the BBC - the headline couple bought a caravan as an "investment", then when they didn't get enough bookings, wanted to sell it after SIX WEEKS......

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c2016lxnepno

Not much different to putting £125K in bitcoin.
Or some pyramid scheme.
Or timeshare.

Caravans can work for some people.
My parents had numerous caravans on various sites for over 50 years.
They and my younger sisters had great holidays and so did the grandchildren when they came along.
When they retired, they spent weeks at a time there.
They never let the caravan out to strangers.

They didn't buy caravans to make money.
It's the 'get rich quick' people in the above articles who bought caravans 'as an investment' who got it wrong.

As for what any media site considers 'news'.......

Grumpy_chap

vacheron said:

They bought it as a holiday home "and an investment". 

Surely, with an item such as a static caravan, a large part of the "investment" return is the quality times spent and treasured memories of using the caravan for rest, relaxation and leisure.  Not all "investments" are in purely financial terms.  Quality family time is priceless.