FC 30 values - weird or real?

[ZeviB]

Greetings, oh wise ones!

In my search for a trailer, I am using NADA as a general pricing guide. Yes, I am painfully aware how divergent it can be from reality, but it's a general guide nevertheless.
One thing i have noticed is a significant value change in 2017/2018:

Year -- M30 base "Average Retail" ($, rounded to nearest 1000)
2020 -- 90,000
2019 -- 86,000
2018 -- 81,000
2017 -- 103,000
2016 -- 94,000
2015 -- 86,000

Is this some bad pricing error on the side of NADA or did something changed (for the worse) between 2017 and 2018?

(Of course there's always the possibility of "user error" on my side in querying these data... , but I thought it's worth asking the infinite general knowledge of this community.)

Thanks!
Zevi

[Wazbro]

All those prices are higher then what I believe the trailers are worth. If you checked the prices 2 years ago they would all be lower (except the 2020 since they would be new) dew to very limited supply of new trailers now. Many people are selling their 2-4 year old trailers for more then they sold for when new. Just a crazy market now, this bubble could burst anywhere from now till 1,3, 5, 10 years or who knows when.

[Rich Jenkins]

Wow, I guess we should have kept our '17 FC30.

I have no idea why this would be the case. There was ducted air introduced around that time, if I recall correctly, but that wouldn't seem like that big an impact on prices. (although I would not want a FC30 without it.)

Maybe there was a single sale in the database that had gold plated faucets or something? Otherwise it seems like an aberration of some kind, but AS prices are nuts these days, that is for sure.

[jondrew55]

I know this is apples and oranges, but I was offered $90k in trade for my 2021 25' Globetrotter by the dealer and the guy I bought my 30' 2021 GT said the dealer offered him $113k.

That does not explain the "blip" and downtrend in Flying Clouds you show. I assume you are looking to buy and I would expand my research to KBB and asking prices you can find on RV Trader and FB Marketplace.

Are you looking for a specific FC model like a bunkhouse? Or any specific features? Queen or Twin? You never know what you'll find. We were so fortunate to be able to get our new 30' GT for basically what the dealer was offering for a trade. We were also lucky to get exactly the colors we wanted and the Oven Delete option. It had solar, which I really was not interested in and it also had a Queen. We kept changing our mind every 5 minutes on the Queen/Twin configuration so it was good to have our mind made up for us.

Good luck, keep asking questions. It's a really weird market out there. I thought our GT would get snapped up right away, but I'm guessing gas prices and the war and all the other crazy stuff going on made a crazy market even crazier.

[SilverPal2]

What year trailer are you using for your NADA data?

[Atwebs]

Those prices are based on what sold, but do not reflect other stuff that might have been done to the trailer or the focus of the overall market. At purchase add-ons can be solar, Lithium batteries, lift kits, ceramic coating, bigger tires, better hitches, awnings...lots of stuff.

And then, it isn't unusual to have one that had the bathroom remodeled, the dinette swapped out for 2 lounging chairs or a dishwasher, desk or wine cabinet added, even in a relatively new Airstreams. I've seen a couple of older Airstreams where they were completely gutted and professionally remodeled- to the tune of thousands of dollars!

And, having done $5,000 or $25,000 worth of upgrades, the owner is probably not going to sell it the same price as an untouched version of the same model.

[uncle_bob]

Hi

To answer the original question, no nothing was done to the FC to create that blip. The MSRP climbed year after year, just like on the other AS products. A 2017 most certainly is *not* worth more than a 2020 ( at least not on planet earth / comparing trailers with a similar lack of hail or crash damage ).

Just why NADA came up with that strange pattern, who knows. My guess is the one implied above. The only newer trailers sold had significant damage issues.

Bob

[ZeviB]

Thank you all for the replies!
Given that other than the ducting of A/C (which happened way before - around 2016/2015), no dramatic changes took place in 2018 to justify that pricing "blip".

My theory is that something got messed up in NADA's databases.

Being an engineer, I like visualizing the data. The attached figure (Airstream_30ft_pricing.jpg) is what I see:

• Blue line - original standard MSRP.
• Gray line - NADA's avg. retail pricing.
• Green line - NADA's values of the gray line, shifted (along the X axis, assigned to a different year) so as to match the MSRP trend.

I believe the green line better represents the (sane...) average retail value.

Cheers, Zevi.

[drewcwsj]

subscribed - We are on the hunt for a GT 27 and the PDX dealer is offering just a few thousand in discount on a '22 with MSRP of $130k. Right now we are waiting to see what changes are coming on the '23 GTs and hoping to find a '21 or '22.