One is an hour away at an RV dealer, with cosmetic hail damage, 2009 priced $15K and one is at a local TM dealer, 2005 good shape inside and out with a tentative price of about $13K(this will depend on several factors once the TM dealership gets a good look at all the systems).
A quick look-up on NADA values says that the 2009 is priced only a couple thousand above average retail, which is consistent with our state. I've been watching prices for almost a year now. But the dealership knows next to nothing about the unit or TM in general. I know a fair amount but things like age of the tires and salvage/standard titling were things the dealer couldn't tell me. We plan to go up to see that one on Saturday and hopefully he will have dug up that info.
The NADA value for the 2005 is only about $6500. I do know that this dealership is very well known for including everything in the price to get the TM operating like new. Their reputation is stellar both before and after a sale. But at almost twice the average retail? The dealer wants me to put down a refundable deposit for right of first refusal. I won't get a chance to look at it for two weeks. But I have a feeling that even if I love it and think the condition is fantastic, I wouldn't go higher than $9K on a 2005. Am I being stingy? I want to be fair and pay for the services they would provide but it's hard for me to guess what those will be and how much they are worth.
At this point we have been searching every week, 3 models that would work for our family, for 6 months. We search all the major online RV sellers, all our regional Craiglist ads, and all our semi-local RV dealership websites. Most of the ones I see posted online are sold before I get a chance to see them. The 5 or so we've seen privately were in poor shape or had iffy modifications. The ones on the lot are priced way over NADA. Our search radius is one day's drive(about 400 miles)so it would be feasible to pick up on a three day weekend. We asked the TM dealership to call us whenever they had one of our desired models in our price range. We finally got a call. :/
My husband just want to throw caution to the wind and just buy one, then repent over the expense at leisure. I manage our finances and am the one who has done all the research so I'm not too keen on that idea. It seems to me, the best option between these two is to buy the 2009 and fix anything that needs fixing. We could spend several thousand bucks on the repairs and come out way ahead of the older model. The hail damage was probably going to happen anyway since most of the places we would camp get such storms often. There are no garages when you are out camping.
What would you be thinking about the prices of these two, before you even went to look at them? How much can I reasonably bid below asking?