RVs (recreational vehicles) are becoming increasingly popular. A motorhome is essentially a hotel on wheels, and even the most inexperienced drivers may travel and sightsee in the luxury of their own RV. The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) handbook is a valuable resource for value, pricing, and other essential information when purchasing or selling a used motorhome. NADA is an American trade group that offers price calculators for new and used motorhomes and RVs of all varieties. We refer to NADA RV as a division of NADA dedicated to recreational vehicles via the NADA motorhome guide, which gives price recommendations for vehicles constructed in the previous 15 years. For motorhome assessments, NADA is the most reliable source recognized and relied on by recreational lenders. In this post, I’ll show you how to get the NADA Used Motorhome Values, how to use the free NADA Motorhome online service and how to find the NADA Motorhome Value by VIN Number.
Table of Contents
Why is Good to Know the NADA Motorhome Value?
Whether you are looking to sell your motorhome to a dealer or a private buyer or seller, it is important to know what value each will place on your used motorhome. What is my motorhome worth to sell? How much is it?
The dealer will offer what we call the trade in value which will be a lower value offered than what you can get if you want to sell your used motorhome according to the private party RV value.
It is advisable to know both values, calculate the depreciation of the motorhome (which fortunately is not as drastic as with other types of RVs), and weigh all these values plus other market factors such as fuel type, and time of year, etc.
When purchasing or selling a motorhome, you want to be sure you get the greatest assessment to determine the fair market worth of the vehicle in issue. NADA Connect collaborates with a network of member dealers that submit their sales to NADA to collect and distribute data to deliver the finest desktop assessment system possible.
Read the manufacturer’s comments regarding what equipment is considered standard with the coach when figuring out the value in NADA. When adding options, avoid including items that are mentioned as standard in the manufacturer’s notes because this will result in an inflated rating.
NADA Used Motorhome Values
In the following paragraphs, I’ll show you what is your NADA Used Motorhome Values and how to use the free NADA Motorhome online service.
The free online NADA guide for Motorhomes provides a projected straight-line depreciation that is independent of market considerations. A subscription version is required if you want better precision. Even if this is simply a little better prediction since each brand and model lacks sufficient statistical data to provide significant conclusions.
Let’s look at How to Use NADA Motorhome Online for Free and Understand What are the NADA used motorhome values that you are looking for?
- Navigate to the NADA Motorhomes NADA Official Website by clicking on this link (or paste this in your navigator: https://www.nadaguides.com/RVs/Motorhomes)
- Determine the manufacturer
- Next, choose the year, model, or series and trim
- Enter a motorhome’s mileage.
Let’s see how to calculate this with an example.
NADA Motorhome Value for 2017 Coachmen by Forest River Cross Country Series M-404 RB 340hp
In our example of how to determine the NADA used motorhome values, we are going to look for the NADA value of the 2017 Coachmen by Forest River Cross Country Series M-404 RB 340hp, in 10 Steps, step-by-step with pictures.
- Step 1: Go to the Motorhome section (here)
- Step 2: Select the Make: Coachmen by Forest River
- Step 3: Select the year: 2017
- In our example, we choose the 2017 Coachmen by Forest River Cross Country Series M-404 RB 340hp for pricing calculation
- Step 4: There is an option for “Show Specs”. Be sure to be “On” all the time.
- Step 5: Scroll down looking for the model and trim that you are looking for. Use the specifications to be sure the right series, and trim is selected.
- Step 6: In our example, we select: Coachmen by Forest River Cross Country Series M-404 RB 340hp
- Step 7: Enter a motorhome’s mileage.
- Step 8: Click on each cross to display the menu and mark according to the motorhome features. Remember to go through each section. Motorhomes can have several important customizations when we are looking to determine their price. And this is very valuable when adjusting the final price.
- Step 9: Walk through each section and choose according to the spec and features added to the used motorhome. Once you fully added every feature, scroll down and click on continue.
- Step 10: You obtain the NADA Suggested List Price for the used motorhome. Prices are separated into three categories: suggested, Low Retail, and Average Retail
- In our example for the 2017 Coachmen by Forest River Cross Country Series M-404 RB 340hp, including all the features and upgrades added to this used motorhome, NADA values this motorhome at $271,140 (suggested list price), $150,500 (low retail), and $181,350 (average retail)
Choose whether to compute the wholesale or retail pricing. Please do not pick any options if you want to calculate the wholesale or RV trade-in value. We will not entertain trade-in alternatives since dealers will not. Select “Continue.” Continue with the “low retail” amount. Then, as a recommended proportion, deduct 10%. This will get you near to the most accurate use of the NADA Used Motorhome Values. You now have the motorhome’s wholesale or trade-in value.
You now have a reasonable approximation of the wholesale pricing without having to shell out hundreds of dollars for the RV NADA Guide.
If you want to know the retail price, please keep selecting choices that do not satisfy the requirements. Select “Continue.” Take 10% off the “average retail” price. To fulfill the demands of dealers, the online NADA value has been overstated. Subtracting 10% will cover the difference in price between online and print books. You now have an idea of what the average retail price is.
Even though the actual invoice prices are comparable, certain manufacturers’ suggested retail prices are always substantially more than equivalent models. According to the NADA RV criteria, their value is eventually greater.
Frequently Asked Questions About NADA, KBB, VIN, and Motorhomes Values
Why is NADA Value so Low?
Many times, our readers ask us about the prices of certain RVs, especially when they are not in the NADA guides and must estimate the value to make a sale to an individual, and often comment Why is NADA value so low? I will try to explain in the following paragraphs in a summarized way.
KBB vs. NADA vs. Edmund
When you look up the value of a used car on KBB, NADA, and Edmund, you will see that probably the lowest value of all is KBB and the highest is NADA. That’s why dealers always take the KBB values for the trade in value of the car you want to sell them, it is the most convenient for them, as well they always assume that the vehicle is depreciated and not in optimal condition.
On the other hand, the NADA guide for cars quotes better than the KBB and Edmunds (and even better than the black book in many cases) because it always assumes that the car, although depreciated due to age, is in the best maintenance conditions.
The banks use the higher values offered by the NADA guides, while the dealers take their cut using the lower KBB values which allows them to earn a few thousand more on each transaction.
Now, what about motorhome values? There is no Kelley Blue Book for motorhomes or any recreational vehicles. Fortunately, however, we have the NADA guide for RVs which is very useful for quoting motorhomes.
The NADA Motorhome guide is sufficiently up to date as it is updated three times a year. That makes it very accurate. Is the NADA guide for Motorhomes the most accurate way to calculate the value? No, it is not. It is the fastest and most useful. But you can evaluate certain points yourself to arrive at the most appropriate purchase value. I strongly recommend combining the appraisal value by NADA for Motorhomes combined with some of the tips that I explain in this article to arrive at the right motorhome value.
As we always recommend when quoting a used motorhome or any RV in general, it is convenient to use several tools, know the current market situation and time of the year to carry out the transaction, and weigh all the values found.
NADA Motorhome Value by VIN Number
Obtaining the NADA Motorhome Value by VIN Number is simple, although is not accurate.
How to Find the Motorhome Value by VIN Number?
To obtain the motorhome value by VIN number you just simply enter your VIN (depending on the system is possible to use a license plate) into the different websites you can consult for this. You can get a free value by VIN checking at the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB) https://www.nicb.org/vincheck.
The motorhome VIN number-specific value report considers all reported accidents or damage, the number of owners changed during the history of the vehicle, and some of the vehicle services histories that were reported.
The NICB provides a free VIN check to see if the motorhome has ever been reported stolen or damaged to the point where a salvage title was obtained. NICB provides up to five free VIN checks every day from a single IP address, utilizing data given by vehicle insurance providers. The data correlates only with automobiles insured in the USA.
Is it Useful to Determine the Motorhome Value Just Using the VIN Number?
No, it is not if you only going to use that information. You just going to be sure whether was reported stolen or damaged to the point where a salvage title was obtained, or not.
Why is it Not Recommended to Only Estimate the Motorhome Value by the VIN Number?
Here are some situations in which the value of the motorhome (and of any vehicle in general) may not be correctly determined just by calculating its value by VIN.
- Not all motorhomes and vehicles declared a total loss will be salvaged. Specific insurance firms make salvage determinations based on individual business rules and relevant state law.
- The NICB has not independently validated the information in the database and so cannot vouch for its correctness.
- Many more motorhomes have been reported stolen but are not included in this database.
- If a motorhome (or any type of vehicle) is reported stolen but not found in this database, you should check with the NICB or your local law enforcement agency to see if a stolen vehicle report is active before taking any action.
In this article, we summarize How to Get the NADA Used Motorhome Values, how to use the free NADA Motorhome online service and how to find the NADA Motorhome Value by VIN Number. Hope you find this information useful to get the most out of your used motorhome.
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