Selling Our Motorhome!

We did it! We sold out motorhome. Why you ask?

First – Why We Bought a Class C

With our previous motorhomes (Class B and Class A) we had traveled from Florida to Alaska and many points in between. But I had never been to the east coast of Canada and I very much wanted to explore that part of North America. My husband had been multiple times but was willing to take me and give me a thrill!!

We bought our 2019 Winnebago View 24D in February 2019 after selling our 40’ diesel pusher. We wanted to explore the Maritimes and Newfoundland in Canada and knew that it would be much easier and more efficient (both in cost, time, and fuel) to have a smaller motorhome to travel to the east coast and back. Campgrounds and roads tend to be smaller in the east and there is so much more traffic.  Plus we knew a few ferry rides would be required and the cost is usually determined by the length of your motorhome plus tow vehicle.

We are so glad we made that decision at that time because it enabled us to spend the spring/summer of 2019 on a trip of a lifetime by driving from Arizona to Newfoundland and across Canada and back to Arizona. (Details of of that journey begin with this post.) If we had waited another year we probably would have never been able to do that with the pandemic and lockdowns. We had a fabulous trip and the View suited us just perfectly for a long haul trip. There were no limitations for campgrounds with having such a small RV. 

There are a variety of reasons for loving our View and also a variety of reasons why we sold our View. We had posted our Initial Thoughts on the View here, almost 2 years ago. Not much of that has changed but here are our thoughts after 2 years.

Why We Liked our View (not in any order)

• Small and Compact – The rig is small and compact which means it is easy to drive and maneuver, easy to park in campsites, etc.  It opened up a whole new set of campgrounds where we can fit in and allowed us to explore areas that were more awkward in a big rig.  It also meant we spent less time loading and unloading when setting out on a trip or returning home.
• Simplicity – With the rig being so small it didn’t come with many of the bells and whistles which may be found in the higher end, larger, more expensive motorhomes.  This has its’ pluses because there is less to go wrong and less to have to try and understand.
• Mercedes Sprinter – The sprinter is smooth running with a quiet engine. It is very easy to drive and handles quite well.
• Fuel mileage (compared to a Class A Diesel Pusher) is pretty great especially compared to a Class A – Who doesn’t love spending less on fuel!
• Kitchen – the View 24D has a very large kitchen for a motorhome of its size with lots of counter space and drawer space.
• Onan Diesel Generator – We prefer diesel to LP for a generator simply because we find that filling LP is sometimes a chore.  It isn’t always easy to find LP for sale (at a decent price) and especially finding an LP qualified employee on duty at the time we want to fill.  The diesel generator uses fuel from the main RV tank so has potential for very long endurance.  It also saves the limited amount of LP for the cooktop, furnace and hot water heater.  And after my husband installed the Auto transfer Switch it made the use of the generator so much easier.  He no longer had to get out of the coach and plug in the generator.
• Cargo Carrying Capacity CCC – The CCC for this motorhome is 1,077 lbs and many rigs of a similar size have much less capacity.  One can never have too much CCC, especially when you are on the road for several months at a time.
• Truma Water Heater – We were hesitant at first about liking the Truma because even when we were hooked up to shore power it still runs off propane.  But after using it for 2 years, we love it!  It heats up immediately and uses very, very little propane.  The propane issue turned out to be a Non Issue.
• Norcold Refridgerator DC 0061-RH – This fridge is capable of running on AC or DC but Winnebago hooked it up to only work on DC.  This also means, since it is a 2 way, it does not work on propane.  We found that while boondocking/dry camping the fridge drew down the supplied (small, cheap) house batteries over night. My husband added additional solar panels and replaced the house batteries with lithium iron batteries and the problem was solved.  We never experienced any issue with the fridge even when dry camping and on cloudy days.  Plus the size of the fridge seemed just right for the 2 of us.
• Dinette – The 24D model of the View has a dinette with under seat storage. We can honestly say that after 2 years of extensive travel in this motorhome we ended up loving the dinette. Not only did the storage come in handy but the dinette is very comfortable and we have great memories of many, many, many dinners on the road in comfortable seats, great food and wine, great conversation, and fantastic views! We will miss that dinette.
• Overhead skylight – We weren’t sure if this would be a plus or a minus but we ended up loving it. It is great way to get more fresh air into the motorhome, provided lots of additional light, and allowed a selfie stick to be stuck up in the air for some rooftop and surrounding scenery photos. It saved me from climbing onto the roof for photos!
• Awning – We thought the awning size was more than adequate and liked that it was electric.

I am sure there were more items but the above lists the major likes.

Also my husband quite enjoyed all of his time and effort (and money) he put into upgrading the View to get it exactly how we wanted it.  See his list of upgrades and modifications here.

He loves to tinker and make things better; it’s the engineer in him. With that job done and our trip to the Maritimes/Newfoundland behind us he needs a new project and is itching to get his hands on something else.

Why We Sold The View

After having a Class B at 22’, a Class A at 40’, and a Class C at 25’ and weighing the pros and cons of each, we decided it was time to move on to our next adventure. This was be detailed in our future posts.

How to Sell An RV

How are we going to sell our motorhome?  Options:

A – Trade it in when buying a new motorhome. This option is the easiest but also means the least amount of money would be had for our current RV.  Dealers tend to offer rock bottom prices for a trade in.

B – Sign on with a Consignment RV Dealer and have them sell it while we pay the Consignment RV dealer a commission.  This may offer a little bit more money on the sale than a trade-in but you just never know how long it will sit at the dealer and how much you will get.

C – Sell it in a private sale.  This option provides the best potential for a decent selling price but it also means personal time spent preparing the motorhome for sale, taking photographs, taking time to show it, responding to questions and show times, determining payment options including deposits and terms of sale, completing the paper work for the title transfer and the DMV sold notice. All this and trying to figure out the best way to show an RV during COVID times.

We weighed the pros and cons of each and with the RV market being as hot as it is we decided to go with Option C, a private sale.

How to Advertise an RV Sale

Next we had to decide the method of advertising  and determined that RVTrader.com, RVT.com, and Autotrader.com seemed to be the 3 main RV online selling websites. All 3 have unique, but very similar, pricing plans.  We decided to try RVTrader.com first and if no luck then we would open it up to RVT.com. We put Autotrader on the back burner and would use that if all else failed.  

We emptied our motorhome completely, scrubbed it from head to toe including full sanitizing, and took it out in the desert for some photos. We wanted to make sure our photos showed as much as we could utilizing the maximum number of photos allowed with our RVTrader plan (20 photos). We also ensured all manuals and maintenance records were in order along with any associated DVDs and all other items/parts that go with the RV.  We also wrote a document which provided all the part numbers, component serial numbers, and operating instructions for any of the modifications/upgrades we made to the motorhome. Next we wrote the advertisement, to be included with the photographs, ensuring we emphasized the most important features. With a word limitation that meant we had to be clear and concise with the limited amount of text while trying to show why this RV stands out from the others.

We joined RVTrader, selected our package plan and paid, and then uploaded the photos and text late one evening.

Our RV Sale Goes Live

Our response from RVTrader was that it takes 1-3 days to go live. The next day our ad still was not live but around 2pm the phone rang. It was an RV Dealer (the one we bought the motorhome from) wanting to buy our motorhome sight unseen with the promise of us receiving the wire transfer, confirming we had the money, and then they would send a driver to pick up the vehicle. Of course, they were offering a little more than 10% less than our asking price. We said no thank you. BUT we now knew our ad was live. (RVTrader does send you an email when it goes live but the first phone call came minutes after going live). We had not published our phone number online so the RV dealer got our phone number from their sales/service records (we assume).

By early evening we had a string of emails with interested parties asking questions and/or wanting us to call them. The first one we called asked a few questions and then they offered us a deposit with the intention of buying it after they viewed it if it was as advertised. They were offering full asking price and made plans to come view it. The ad had been live for only a few hours and we had it potentially sold.

In the meantime we continued to get more requests even though we told people we had a sale pending.  By evening the effort to reply to all the emails was getting a bit crazy. We had a long list of people who wanted us to contact them should the sale not go through. We even had some people offering us more than the asking price. It was pretty crazy!  We called RVTrader and had them update the offer as “Sale Pending” (you can only change your ad to Sold not Sale Pending without their help) but that still didn’t stop people from wanting to buy it. Over the course of the sale we continued to get emails with offers to purchase it even with the Sale Pending notice.

We, of course, would not even consider reversing our commitment to the first buyer and their deposit. They came and took a look at the RV. 

We spent around 3 hours with them giving them a tour of the RV, explaining how things worked, and answering questions.  They told us they were sold on it and confirmed the sale.

They wired the money to our bank account the next morning, we had the money confirmed by early afternoon, we then went to the bank and had the title and bill of sale notarized, and then we went and delivered the RV to them at their motel (they were from out of town).  We sent the DMV of a Notice of Sale. They drove to the DMV and got the RV registered and off they went with their new RV. It could not have gone more smoothly. We wish them fun and safe travels in all their new adventures and know our beloved RV went to a nice and loving home!

But in the back of our minds we had another plan for us and knew it was too early to implement back in 2019 and saved it for now. More on our “future plan” in our next post!