Wow! The Private Seller that has an RV is truly a strange animal.

When you find an Rv of interest that is privately owned, you can find that dealing with private sellers can be a challenge. In addition, you do need to understand a few things about them so that you can deal with them properly.

First of all, seeing and possibly purchasing the RV may be your goal but handling the private seller is the true challenge in front of you.

Most private sellers  of RVs have essentially established themselves as being very money conscious (read tight) just by the fact that they  are bypassing the world of Consignments sales and dealerships and handling the sale themselves.

Their reason for selling is their own business. And when I am talking with a private seller, I try to avoid this subject.

Once you get sucked into some horrible story about things like; death in the family, potential bankruptcies, foreclosures, poor personal health, etc.you learn your lesson and try to keep the conversation focused on the RV itself.

Here are some of the things about a private seller that you should consider because you will often run into such situations that will affect your potential purchase;

1- The seller really doesn’t want to sell his RV and he is acting belligerent as you try to get more information from them and when you try to negotiate a price.

2- The seller remembers what he paid years ago for the RV and feel that the “real value” is much higher than the actual market.

3- The seller always thinks that his RV is in “Good Condition” and only has a couple of things that might need fixing often when it has some serious problems.

4- The Seller will not be a good negotiator. You will need to have your numbers ready to show them about such things as NADA values, known design problems with some models, tire life versus tire tread, effects of high mileage, effects of high generator hours, costs of appliance and furniture replacement, and more.

5- IF you reach an agreement on the price, the seller will probably not be familiar with such things as writing a formal Bill of Sale, how to fill out a title, what are acceptable payment methods.

There are other subtleties to dealing with private sellers, but in reality, the persistent buyer can eventually find one of those great deals on an RV that ends up well worth the problems.

The key is, that the private seller is not a professional like you will find ad a dealership, but also, they will often be ready to accept a price that does not have to carry the overhead of a large dealership.

So, remember these things and you could be a winner.

by Don Bobbitt, 2014