Best Time & Place To Buy an AS?

[Rounder44]

Howdy!

That simple!

Within the next year looking for a 27' +/-. Still considering models.

I suppose if buying used not a good or bad time of year but since I will probably buy new what's the best time of year and nationwide is there a best place to start looking?

If I decide used is there a go-to dealer for that and is it as "easy" to finance used as new?

Thanks!

R44

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Price wise, buying "last year's" trailer new right now is probably the right time. The factory discounts the old stock still on dealers lots about now.

If you shop in "snow country" the prices for used trailers will dip this time of year. Folks are looking at putting them into storage. That cost can be non-trivial in some areas.

In any case, the best deal is to get the right trailer for you. Buying one that does not turn out to fit your needs is expensive. If you can find exactly what you are after, great. If not, move on. It might cost you another 5% to do this. That's not much spread over a 10 to 15 year ownership.

Bob

[Gary W]

When opportunity and preparedness intersect. Be ready to travel some distance if buying used or if buying new. Know what you want and what you can compromise.

We had been looking at new 27' Globetrotters at the local dealer and talking price. My wife happened to search RV trader Friday evening and found a used 2019 27' GT in California that just was just posted 5 hours earlier. Had been slept in four nights and stored inside a large warehouse. Emailed dealer at 8:30 PM and had a response within 30 minutes. We slept on it overnight and called the salesman back for more details Saturday morning. He offered us a video tour for almost an hour from his phone in the lot to our computer. Told the salesman that we would be at his door Monday morning at 9 am and was on our way home with the rig by 1:30 that afternoon. Price was less than a base model locally. Rig was spotless with factory stickers on everything. Acquired all added accessories and extended warranty until 2024 in the deal. Best 1,500 miles round trip ever.

So zero in on which model(s) you like and start hunting. Good luck. You'll know when's its the one!

Gary W.

[wulfraat]

The best time and place was March, 2009 when the US economy was in the tank, the cold snowy midwest winds were blowing across Nebraska and Iowa, nobody was buying trailers or much of anything, and the dealer needed to sell something to keep the lights on. 45% discount - boom!

Other than that between now and March - go get a deal on a 2019 while the 2020s are coming out. Another forum member posted 26% discount on a 2019 classic.....

[mojo]

Best place is a dealer that only sells Airstreams...

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Missed the financing question ... sorry about that.

Financing on anything "old" is a problem. With cars, trucks, boats, and RV's that seems to kick in around 8 years or so. The magic number varies from bank to bank so if you are right at the limit, it's worth calling around.

With a dealer, they generally have a fix set of people they work with. They will have a cutoff point. Indeed this may impact the used trailers they will have for sale on the lot.

So the first question for "used" wold be: how old used? If we are getting into the "past 10 years" range, financing (with the trailer as the sole collateral for the loan) will be a bit of an adventure. On something 2016 or newer, this side of things should be a non-issue. The problem there is that the cost of a 2016 vs a 2001 is substantial.

Next question gets very personal ( so no need to respond to this part ). Financing $120,000 of car / truck / boat / RV depends a lot on your financial situation. Credit rating is only part of it. Income also matters. In a lot of cases, working this out in advance saves a lot of heartbreak further down the road. The big auto companies do some tricks in this area. That does not happen in the world of used (or new) RV's.

The price you pay for used at a dealer will always be noticeably more than what you should pay on a private sale. Is it 10% or is it a bit more? Every sale is different so there is no way to put an exact number on it. It's a good bet that on average the dealer markup is indeed pretty significant.

If you look at the "asking price" on most private sale ads for newer Airstream's, the numbers warm the heart of a seller and should curdle the blood of a buyer. The typical listing starts out trying to sell it for what they paid for it. One would *guess* this is just an opening gambit and the sell price is a bit lower.

The gotcha is that there is no formal record of "how much lower". Ten percent is a pretty safe bet. It twenty percent a more accurate number? There is no way to really know across a range of sales. You certainly can come across examples of people doing a deal at the asking price, you can also find random examples at lower prices.

With any used sale, condition matters. "Only a the rear end crushed by the falling tree" is not a minor issue . Far more minor damage than that can still be a very expensive thing to fix. Hail damaged RV's, cars, and trucks often are written off by the insurance. They still are functional. With Airstreams floor rot can be an issue.

So yes, it's complicated.

Bob

[Rgentum]

Better time: November & December
Best time: Last week of December
Even better: Last hour of last day of the year

[uncle_bob]

Originally Posted by Rgentum

Better time: November & December
Best time: Last week of December
Even better: Last hour of last day of the year

Hi

Other "interesting" time (roughly the end of May):

Last hour of the last day before Airstream totals up the yearly sales numbers and works out who wins the "biggest dealer in the universe prize" for the year.

I tripped over that one totally without knowing.

Bob

[mkcurtiss]

I see folks trying to sell fairly new Airstreams for very high prices sometimes.....For sure, in most cases, they are trying to sell it for what they owe on it.....But like a new car, if you decide to sell after 2 or 3 years, you are screwed....
So don't assume their asking price is fair.....You decide what the price is.

[n2916s]

There has been a recent surge in the number of nearly new units hitting the Airstream Classifieds and RV Trader with remarkable asking prices.

While Airstreams do hold their value well, I can’t imagine paying 90 - 95% of MSRP for a year-old unit, especially when some of the mega-dealers seem to routinely discount new units 20%.

I realize that “asking” and “getting” are two different things but, holy mackerel...

[kb0zke]

Best time to buy? When you have the money and find the right Airstream.


Best place to buy? Where the above Airstream is.


<grin>


Seriously, spend some time with all of the available information to decide which Airstream(s) fit(s) you needs, wants, and budget. Get your financial package in order so that you can jump when the right one appears.


Consider the location, too. If you are in southern California and the ideal Airstream in in Maine you will have a pretty hefty travel bill to add to the purchase price. The one 100 miles away, but $2000 more, may be the better deal.

[guskmg]

This coming year Airstream will be moving into the new trailer factory. Production may be slow or behind during Jan-Feb 2020 period. That means on hand dealer and order inventory will be interrupted so buyer demand could increase for a few months. This may change your designs on new verses used.
guskmg

[uncle_bob]

Hi

Consider that "picking up" a trailer isn't a trivial sort of thing.

There is a *lot* to learn up on if this is your first Airstream. Even if it's not the first, there will be new this or that on a trailer that is a decade or more past the one you had. In a dealer setting you get a couple hour intensive dump of info as part of the delivery. Head spinning you stagger off to find a beer. Next day you ask a lot of questions about what you already were told but forgot ....

If you will be using the trailer on the "drive back", there will be a stocking process. Loading up food and water is pretty obvious. Things like bedding and kitchen items need to "fit" the trailer. For most of us, this involves a few "try it and see" guesses. All that takes time.

Simply tossing a random trailer on a random ball on the back of a vehicle is probably not what you want to do before you drive for a week to get home. At the very least the ball height should be matched to the trailer. That takes some *big* tools. For roughly 99.9% of us, a WD / anti-sway hitch is in the mix. Installing one properly takes some time / skill / measurement. It also takes some really big tools.

For most of us, trailers get matched up with pretty big tow vehicles. For a few, customized smaller vehicles seem to work out. Either way, you need some vehicle before you haul the trailer. Renting this or that may be possible. Since you have to have a TV to *use* the beast, most people buy what they need ahead of picking up the trailer.

If you will dive right into camping in it the next day ... errr ... how clean is it? Some people are a lot more picky about this stuff than others. Even a not so picky person probably will want to do a bit of scrubbing on a used trailer. That takes time and cleaning supplies.

If the trailer is on the other side of town, you probably can get away with a lot of things. When it's on the other side of the Rock Mountains, probably not so much.

One of the things a dealer *should* do is make the above process a bit less "exciting". There is never a guarantee that all dealers are going to do a fine job every time. Indeed there are a few forum members that appear to be better set up that several dealers I've visited . In 95%+ of the cases, you likely will get better delivery support at a dealer lot than from a random private seller.

To me, the combo of "never towed" + "private seller" + "California to Maine" + "never seen the trailer" + "need to be back at work in X days" sounds really scary. It would indeed be an adventure.

Would I do a cross country on the basis that the trailer price is $2,000 less .... nope .... I'll spend more than that even if everything goes 100% perfectly. Things never work out 100% perfect

Lots of fun !!

Bob

[Overstreet]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Hi

Consider that "picking up" a trailer isn't a trivial sort of thing.

There is a *lot* to learn up on if this is your first Airstream.



Bob

The OP, Rounder 44, is not new. Look him up he used to post a lot from Quartzsite.

[Alumaholic]

Where: Airstream of New Mexico.
When: Now, if he has any 2019s left.
Dan Dissmore gave us a fantastic deal.

[fotoman1527]

Originally Posted by uncle_bob

Hi

Price wise, buying "last year's" trailer new right now is probably the right time. The factory discounts the old stock still on dealers lots about now.

If you shop in "snow country" the prices for used trailers will dip this time of year. Folks are looking at putting them into storage. That cost can be non-trivial in some areas.

In any case, the best deal is to get the right trailer for you. Buying one that does not turn out to fit your needs is expensive. If you can find exactly what you are after, great. If not, move on. It might cost you another 5% to do this. That's not much spread over a 10 to 15 year ownership.

Bob

Great advice, from first sentence to last. Just visited Airstream Of Nashua, New Hampshire on an eastern road trip. Very nice people and I’ll bet they’d love to talk to somebody interested in buying one of their used trailers right about now, if that’s the sentence out of those above that resonated with you the most. That advice applies to other cold-weather dealers as well

[Daquenzer]

I bought from a dealer in July. We got 15% of the asking price. I wanted to do it before Winter so that I could do some camping before the year ended. This was my first camper.

If I were to buy now I would do it differently only because I now have experience. I know my tow vehicle. I know how the WDH works. I’ve had experience with the systems.

I also didn’t have problem with financing. I had the money to pay for it outright, but my investments were getting a better return. And like anything else I finance I typically pay it off way early. Also at the time rates were really cheap.

So the “best time” of year somewhat depends on your experience with an AS. Now I would look for a deal at this time of year on last year’s model IF I could find what I want. And that’s the kicker. We wanted a specific layout and 2 AC/HP units. It often seems like the left overs on the lot are well...the left overs.

I wouldn’t pay less to get less. As stated above an AS is going to be a 10 to 15 year investment. Not willing to live with something that long I don’t want.

[DC Bruce]

I see the question; don't see who asked it. So, this is kind of a generic answer. Unless you know exactly what you want and are an experienced Airstreamer, I suggest visiting the biggest dealer that is a reasonable distance from you. There's simply no substitute for seeing these in the flesh. A big dealer will have lots of inventory. We drove 2+ hours to visit Colonial Airstream in New Jersey. They have a lot of inventory -- both new and used -- on site. Their used inventory is both consignment (where they serve as a broker) and used equipment they own. The dealer in Los Angeles (where we stored the trailer briefly and had some warranty work done on the stove) also seems to have a big inventory.

We were total newbies and really appreciated the opportunity to try out trailers of various sizes and configurations. For example, in our opinion, the additional space in the 30 foot trailers (much of which goes into a bigger closet and fridge) wasn't all that useful to us and therefore wasn't worth the extra money over a 27/28. Also the 27/28 was the only model that had a complete gas stove with oven, reducing our reliance on electricity. At that point, we didn't have a tow vehicle, so that allowed us to select an appropriate tow vehicle. (I think I would have wanted to use a 3/4 ton to pull the heavier 30-foot.). We also determined that for our size (we're both tall), a twin bed layout was much preferable to a so-called "RV Queen," which is meaningfully shorter than a regular Queen.

We shopped in the fall and didn't finance. At the time (2015) there already was an order queue, so if we had ordered something, it would be delivered "sometime the following summer." Fortunately, we were happy with what was on the lot. So, we baked a deal that included their storage of the trailer until the following spring, along with some custom work (installation of a cell signal booster that I bought and installation of a ProPride hitch that I bought).

I agree with other comments to the effect that the dealer's several hour walkthrough of the trailer upon delivery is invaluable. In addition, there's a state park campground (pretty nice, actually) about an hour away from Colonial. So, we were not in a rush to leave on delivery day; and had the ability to return to the dealership easily if there were any issues we discovered.

As it turned out, the trailer had been fully prepped properly; and we went on to metro DC the next day.

[Westcoast997]

In 2017 I purchased before the end of November and bought, with price
lock in, and got the upgrades of next year.
You buy new and order what you want. I got 20% off at Colonial (NJ).
Try Albuquerque, NM.
You may have to ask at several dealers to get the price down.
Get on line bid at RV One.
Took delivery in April.
Colonial installed 400 Watt AM solar Package, sent to dealer.
Best Wishes
Phil

[AMDO]

I just bought last month and got 29% off a 2019 model. However, I wouldn't have bought if the exact model I wanted wasn't available. This was a dead deal for the dealership, but they had to move inventory, so I benefited from this. I've had success in August getting 20% off, but obviously did better in the fall. Airstream is also throwing $1500 out there now to buyers of 2019 models