RV Awakening

There are some things that need to be fixed on our ten year old RV and we wanted to do a check on the market to see if we should pursue them. We took a drive to the largest RV dealer in the Phoenix area - La Mesa RV - at their location in west Phoenix. We spent several hours looking at other fifth wheels and getting pricing for a trade-in on ours along with checking out other RV options. It was a rude awakening when we discovered that our RV - $103K value ten years ago when we purchased it - is now only worth between 20-25K on a trade. It doesn't matter what kind of shape it is in, as a ten year old rig is not wanted by any dealership and must be sold at auction. Actually, the quality of ours is still better than most of what we saw yesterday for lots more money. The bottom line to the whole experience is that we decided our fifth wheel is worth a lot more to us than any other person or dealership.

That was a good experience for us because we were able to eliminate that option. Buying a new RV is not very cost effective for us. We love our fifth wheel and find it a very comfortable, and cost effective - place to live. For now at least, we will continue with our current rig and make the most important fixes that we need to make. A lot or piece of property on which to place the rig is now a viable option.

Our house in Glendale is scheduled to be listed today, although we have not had a conversation with our property manager since we met with him last Thursday. We expect to see rapid movement today toward making the home available to the marketplace. I hope to have good news to report tomorrow...