Caravan Valuation

[fasteddie]

Hi I am wondering where i can get a good, honest valuation for my Caravan as I am looking to sell and upgrade maybe?

[Griff]

Hi there fasteddie and to CT, it's a great place to find answers to all of our questions and problems.

[Guest]

Good morning FastEddie, welcome to Caravan Talk

 

Basically I would recommend that you avoid all companies that offer to buy a caravan unseen as each caravan in unique, and a true valuation will depend not only on model and age, but its service history, condition regarding any possible damp ingress, whether any extras are fitted above standard, and of course what the caravan is worth to you as you may prefer to keep it if the valuation is lower than you can accept.

 

For an independent valuation seek out a company that is ultimately not going to buy your caravan as they will have no ulterior motive for giving a false estimate. Glass' guide is used by traders for cars, motorcycles, caravans etc. , but unless they've changed their policy is not available to the public. There is also an online valuation listing here but I've already checked and your caravan model is not listed

 

Gordon.

[Pheasant]

Hi I am wondering where i can get a good, honest valuation for my Caravan as I am looking to sell and upgrade maybe?

Just go to a reputable dealer and get a good part exchange price, sell it to the dealer who has what you want and forget it, no comebacks, no worries about payment fraud etc. The deal you get could amaze you, and you avoid all the hassle of advertising, selling etc. Believe me I've proved it many times, now loads of eBay fans will blast me in a minute!!!!

[CommanderDave]

Hi I am wondering where i can get a good, honest valuation for my Caravan as I am looking to sell and upgrade maybe?

 

 

You can only get an idea off places like Caravan finder, Auto trader,and eBay what others are selling for . Any valuation quoted in books is not always correct as your competing with others .

 

 

I have just put my caravan up the weekend after looking at adverts .

 

 

 

Dave

[Black Grouse]

This may help to get an idea - http://www. caravanpriceguide. com/ - if your exact model isn't shown use the nearest - it's only a guide as prices vary across the country and do depend on your negotiating skills, or lack of them.

[Steamdrivenandy]

Try and find your model and year on the Caravan pages of Autotrader and/or Caravansforsale. co. uk (who are duplicated on the CC/CMC Classifieds). With luck there'll be several offered by dealers and that provides a base line.

 

Generally dealers look for a margin of about £2,000 on their buying in cost. So a van being offered by a dealer at £10,000 will have been bought into the business for £8,000 or thereabouts, either by part exchange or through the trade. A private seller doesn't offer the same level of buyer protection as a dealer so it makes sense to offer that same van at £9,000 as a private sale. That means the seller makes £1,000 more than if they'd part exchanged and part of that extra will cover any cost of advertising etc. The buyer gets the van for around £1,000 less than purchasing from a dealer and that helps cover the risk that there may be work necessary on it.

 

There will always be the private seller who tries to get the same price as a dealer asks and if the van is rare enough it may sometimes work. However generally if the van is rare and in demand the dealer's price will already have that factored in.

 

There are also some dealers who perpetually advertise at high prices that are out of line with the market. I've never understood why they do it, except that they think that an occasional mug may turn up and buy at a silly price. Whether that adequately compensates for the potential sales lost from people put off by the high prices I couldn't say.

 

PS if you can't find examples of your van for sale, look for an alternative, possibly assessing the price on Autotrader of similar vans of a similar age. So 4 berth 2001 vans for instance. They'll all cluster around a price point.

[CommanderDave]

You also have to take into account a dealer might be £1000 more than private but if the caravan model and layout is right and priced the same and the dealer is 300 miles away further the private but is going to be a better option .

 

 

Dave

[joanie]

when we were trading in our last caravan, we went to 3 different dealers and got 3 different prices. It depends if you are trading your 'van in for something else and also what you are trading it in for. The glasses guide changes every 3 months, so if you leave it too long you will find that what you are selling has gone down in price.

[Crannoghome]

Just go to a reputable dealer and get a good part exchange price, sell it to the dealer who has what you want and forget it, no comebacks, no worries about payment fraud etc. The deal you get could amaze you, and you avoid all the hassle of advertising, selling etc. Believe me I've proved it many times, now loads of eBay fans will blast me in a minute!!!!

 

Yes, the deal our dealer offered us was amazing! When he said only a couple of hundred pounds for our van in p/x for a new one, we decided to sell it ourselves on Gumtree. We did a Google for all the vans like ours which had recently sold on Ebay, then averaged their sold prices and advertised it at that. There was plenty of serious interest and it went within a week to the first person who viewed it for the £1500 asking price.

[chad]

Just been offered15000 pix for Bailey 2015 Bailey Cartagena and one on his forecourt same year same spec 22000

Good business to be in.

[Steamdrivenandy]

Just been offered15000 pix for Bailey 2015 Bailey Cartagena and one on his forecourt same year same spec 22000

Good business to be in.

 

The consensus on Autotrader is £21,000 asking price for a 2015 Cartagena and you might get more on your part exchange if you seriously haggled. Someone would probably bite your hand off for it if you offered it at £19,000 or £20,000 as a private sale. They'd get the van for £2,000 under the price dealers are asking and you'd get £2,000 to £3,000 more in your pocket.

 

I notice a local dealer is selling 2017 Cartagenas for £23,000, that's £1,700 off the list price. Normal rule of thumb is to knock the VAT element off the list price after the first year to arrive at the asking price. So circa £21,000 for a 2016, then £1,000 off for each additional year. So asking price for a 2015 should be about £20,000 with a part exchange offer of £17,000 or £18,000.

[Dobloseven]

I would hope to get a new one for about £21500 in a straight purchase from one of the dealers that doesn't charge delivery.

[Black Grouse]

 

The consensus on Autotrader is £21,000 asking price for a 2015 Cartagena and you might get more on your part exchange if you seriously haggled. Someone would probably bite your hand off for it if you offered it at £19,000 or £20,000 as a private sale. They'd get the van for £2,000 under the price dealers are asking and you'd get £2,000 to £3,000 more in your pocket.

 

I notice a local dealer is selling 2017 Cartagenas for £23,000, that's £1,700 off the list price. Normal rule of thumb is to knock the VAT element off the list price after the first year to arrive at the asking price. So circa £21,000 for a 2016, then £1,000 off for each additional year. So asking price for a 2015 should be about £20,000 with a part exchange offer of £17,000 or £18,000.

That sounds a high price - I'd be looking at £2-3,000 off a 2017 and then working down from there

Edited April 24, 2017 by Black Grouse

[Omega54]

Look everywhere eBay, auto trader, caravan ads etc. Form a view as to what you think, bet realistic. Then go for your deal.

 

Good luck

[craigy85]

What Omega54 (and others) have said!

 

We were offered between £2,000 and £2,500 as a p/x on our old van. . had a scout around and dealers were selling them for as much as £5,500 and private going for £4,000 - £4,500.

 

I put it up for £4,250 on Gumtree and got full asking price on first viewing, within a week. .. It was immaculate though and cleaned to within an inch of it's life inside and out.

[LongTimeCaravaner]

We choose a caravan and ask what is the lowest price for cash and armed with that we then ask what we would have to add in cash to a px. That way we know exactly what the dealer is going to give us in px. We have then sold our last two caravans privately for £1500/£1800 more than the dealer was offering.

[Omega54]

What Omega54 (and others) have said!

 

We were offered between £2,000 and £2,500 as a p/x on our old van. . had a scout around and dealers were selling them for as much as £5,500 and private going for £4,000 - £4,500.

 

I put it up for £4,250 on Gumtree and got full asking price on first viewing, within a week. . . It was immaculate though and cleaned to within an inch of it's life inside and out.

Great job mate.

[Omega54]

Interestingly when we traded our previous caravan in a lovely Compass Omega, the salesman asked how much we were looking for and having looked around etc I said £4500. This was against a new Bailey GT 65 Genoa, in fairness he said the value of our trade in wouldn't change no matter which new van we wanted. Anyway he left and came back after a few mins and said that he would give us £5000 ! We agreed the deal and arranged a date to pick up the new van. He called us a couple of days later and asked if we could bring our trade in a week before collecting the new one so the service dept could check it over. We were happy to do so.

When we arrived to collect the new van he was busy and suggested that while he was with other folk we could swap everything over again we were happy to do so. About 45 mins later when we were just about finished he came to see us and said that the service dept had found a few faults, he were particularly big and he said they would amount to about £10 to fix then he said that the front windows had 'blown' and said it would cost £500 to fix and wanted a that amount extra. We explained that he had been in position of our Compass for a week and had never contacted us, we also explained that we were therefore not prepared to pay the extra. Much discussion then continued including trying to ascertain what a 'blown' window was. Eventually after nearly 2 hours we told him we wanted our money back and that we would take our original caravan back. By now both him and his manager and the regional manager were apoplectic. We held our ground and eventually they agreed that the original deal would stand.

The whole thing left us extremely uncomfortable but I guess we ended up with what we had expected.

The post script is that when we returned a few months later for some bits and pieces we discovered that he had 'been moved on'.

I won't name the dealer due to the rules on this site. Needless to say we won't be buying another van from them.

[CommanderDave]

Good morning FastEddie, welcome to Caravan Talk

 

Basically I would recommend that you avoid all companies that offer to buy a caravan unseen as each caravan in unique, and a true valuation will depend not only on model and age, but its service history, condition regarding any possible damp ingress, whether any extras are fitted above standard, and of course what the caravan is worth to you as you may prefer to keep it if the valuation is lower than you can accept.

 

For an independent valuation seek out a company that is ultimately not going to buy your caravan as they will have no ulterior motive for giving a false estimate. Glass' guide is used by traders for cars, motorcycles, caravans etc. , but unless they've changed their policy is not available to the public. There is also an online valuation listing here but I've already checked and your caravan model is not listed

 

Gordon.

I thought I would just see what "we buy" would offer as I know from adverts and sold adverts what the rough price would be and they offered 50% of the price .

 

 

Dave

Edited April 25, 2017 by CommanderDave

[Guest]

I thought I would just see what "we buy" would offer as I know from adverts and sold adverts what the rough price would be and they offered 50% of the price .

Dave

I went through the same exercise some years ago with a car but I couldn't bring myself to accept the derisory amount offered. I kept the car for a further five years, putting many more miles on the clock, and still sold it for significantly more than the online offer.

Gordon.

[fasteddie]

thanks to everyone for your replies, most informative and helpful