Black Book: Wholesale RV Values Rise with Temperatures

RV Business

Black Book, which publishes a family of vehicle appraisal guides, has released the Black Book RV market commentary for May.

“Spring is always one of the best seasons in the RV business,” reported Eric Lawrence, Black Book principal analyst – specialty markets. “The warmer weather brings winter weary shoppers into showrooms who are looking to either buy a new RV outright or trade up (or down) as their situations change. Auction volume is up significantly over last month, almost certainly due to an increase in trade-ins on new RV sales. Last year most of these trade-ins would have been kept for retail sale, but full lots enable dealers to keep only what they want and send the rest to the auctions.

“Taking a closer look at the markets,” Lawrence added. “We see that the average selling price for motorized units was $73,239 which is up $10,549 (16.8%) from the previous month. Towables came in at $21,154, up $77 (0.3%) from last month. One year ago the average motorhome sold for $76,418 and the average towable unit brought $20,361.”

The report also noted that auction volume was up: motorhomes increased 15.5% while towables rose 19.6% and the average age of motor homes was twelve years old (2011) and towables was five (2018).