I read this survey today by RV Travel. The survey was based on RV owners that believe they owe more than what their RV is worth. This is no surprise to me, especially since I'm in the industry.

How can anyone expect not to be upside down when they try to sell or trade in their RV. First of all when some one tries to trade in their unit after owning it for 2 years, you have to expect that your going to have negative equity. The thing is when they sign the loan from any where from ten to twenty years on a loan, you have to remember for the first 6-7 years the bank is going to get their money back first. So that's mainly all interest.

If you examine your home loan for example. Take a 100K loan at 6% for 30 years in the end you pay about 300K for that home, now take that same dollar amount and put it on a depreciating assets.

Then, there's the fact that so many people did those no money down programs. Once you roll off the lot the RV could drop by 20% plus all of the fees and accessories like tax, reg., hitch work, etc... All of these things are gone once you take the unit, the state takes it's fair share and accessories don't have any value. So that 20% drop, now that  equals more like 30 to 40 percent.

Also, for those looking for that cheap rate or payment and don't care how the dealer gets there, watch out. Dealers have a buy down program where you pay retail for the RV and they use their profit to buy down your interest rate ( you can do this on homes also ). This gets people that are focused mainly on payments, to get an RV they  normally could not afford at regular financing. This does actually work well if you plan on keeping the unit for the full length of the term. Other wise you'll have to come up with a hefty down payment.

For future reference, if your buying or planning on buying an RV soon. Remember the average turn around for an RV to be traded back in is 2 years.