What happened to the used vehicle market...
 

...is going to make some interesting things happen in the RV industry, obviously. Posted this in reaction to the "We want your RV!" ad by Camperland on this forum.

Sales have driven high demand since the 90's putting the RV industry in the same position that cash for clunkers did to the used car market. Bring on the pandemic, we've had high PCO's for vehicles, and the RV dealers are following suit.

My hope is that we will have a vaccine in a year, and all those that bought RV's just to stay out of hotels will dump them back on the market, along with visits to parks getting back to normal, and I'll be able to pick up a slightly used trailer for a song.

What are your aspirations for benefitting from these crazy times?

We will probably pick up a newer rv when people start unloading all the ones that recently sold. Once everyone realizes that the virus isn't that bad, unless you are frail or really old.

That's my plan. Almost new RVs unloaded by those who wanted to avoid the 'Rona and didnt realize they were cut out for dumping tanks. Months the flip side, the used vehicle market was projected to have an extreme surplus during the pandemic. That never seemed to be the case. I thought I could take advantage of a dealer for a used Super Duty, but there hasnt been anything out there.

Maybe it's just me, but "benefiting from these crazy times" isn't something top of mind for me - with 160,000 Americans dead and possibly 300,000 dead by end of this year. Yes, when things return to something more normal (they will never be normal again), there will be "opportunities" for those with capital. But the term "benefiting" seems inappropriate.

It's a sellers market for RV'ers. Sell yours now and then wait a year or less and buy a newer one for the price you sold your old one lol. Why? Cause folks out there that hasn't RV before will realize it's not for them and they'll end up selling it in a year or less so they'll take a depreciation hit and it's their loss and your gain :). I'm tempted to sell ours and get a few feet longer w/ twin beds. I'm getting that twofootitus syndrome lol.

Don't bet the ranch on that bolded part. We’ve only managed to completely eradicate smallpox (a rather easy virus to stamp out as it turns out) and that was in the late 1970s, before any schmoe was rubber stamped into a job at the CDC, which doesn’t have the inertia to do much beyond recommend closing borders, like they should have done during the Ebola outbreak in 2014 (before a fellow from Liberia hemorrhaged to death in Dallas...).

Besides, did folks really do this to avoid hotels or did they just find other hobbies out of necessity? I haven’t watch a sporting event on TV since the Roughnecks were playing. I stayed in plenty of hotels on my vacation a month ago. I’m not staying home to watch cardboard cutouts on TV and if the “fit hits the Shan”, so to speak, the travel trailer is getting hooked up and Houston is fading in the rear view mirror quick!

Don't go overboard. By the CDC’s own count, “only” 43% of said deaths were solely attributed to CV19. Plenty were of the “died from motorcycle crash, possibly coughed and lost control...call it Corona!” It’s all but flamed out in the USA and “cases” account for 0.09% of the population at large. One of those is my boss, who tested negative the day after a positive test and I had to get a birthday cotton swab to the nose for it. That’s not a news story, though.


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Plus how many people have died from cancer, strokes, heart attacks, etc due to the fact that they can't get the preventive care that they need....because Coronavirus. They won't tell you those numbers.

You do realize approx. 2.8 million people died last year? So, you are saying you won't buy anything from someone who has lost someone?

Life goes on.

yeah....just 160k dead and counting. What’s all the fuss about? I’m sure it will ‘just disappear’

So in 2017 approximately 7700 people a day in the US die daily. COVID19 is averaging about 1,000 more additional on top of that.
Looking at the graph nov, dec, jan, feb and march are the highest usually most because of the additional flu cases leading up to death. So currently we as a nation are in a downward curve naturally from the fall/spring high. Hopefully compounded with the flu season coming up COVID19 and the flu doesn't overwhelm the healthcare system again. Hospitals around here, like in Allentown Pa the hospitals had to set up extra MASH (100 extra beds because the hospitals were at the max) style tents to handle just the flu in previous years. Hopefully this fall/spring won't be so bad. So bottom line COVID19 is about 1/7 of the daily deaths in the US.