Buying a caravan

[Erin-RF1989]

Hi,

Me & my husband are very close to buying a caravan at Hafan Y Mor. Our plan is to put down a deposit & pay the rest via finance. We are hoping to use the caravan for approx 3 weeks in a year (ourselves & family usage) & rent it out for the rest of the year. Our worry is that we would need the caravan to pay for itself (repayments, site fee's (which are in with the price for this year) etc. Our reason for wanting to buy is so that we can visit the site more than once a year as our children absolutely love it, as do we & it is only an hour drive from home.

So my question is, does anyone have any experience of a similar situation to ours? Is it possible to have a caravan pay for itself? We have done spreadsheets etc & according to those, it would be possible as long as we get the rentals.. We would be planning on renting it out through a company that would deal with all the advertising etc for us.

Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Thank you in advance.

[yorkshirebelle]

Hi there
Do your sums very carefully
I rent out as I now live only 2 miles from site although my caravan is usually fully booked I think if I had finance I would struggle to cover expenses and this is where a lot of new owners fall down
If you are going to be reliant on it being fully booked you will struggle
A caravan is a lifestyle you will make many lifelong friends and many memories but please go in with your eyes open
Get everything sales tell you in writing they may not be around for long and then you have no come backs
Good luck with whatever you decide

[PrivateSaleCaravans]

Bit late to the thread but here’s my thoughts on this. I worked at Haven for seven years, and I don’t think you’d be able to break-even with the finance payments. If you were only looking to cover the running costs I’d say you would be fine, but the finance payments will still be due even when the park shuts. Most of the year the holiday bookings won’t be great, and the peak dates probably won’t cover the quieter times. The only time I’ve seen people do well at renting was if they managed their own bookings, done their own cleans, and treated it like a small business. They also owned their caravan outright with no finance