08 September 2017
Love the lifestyle that comes with owning your own holiday home? Perhaps you love the freedom of having a home away from home you can visit at the end of a busy week? Or maybe you’re happy with everything about your holiday home experience… except for the park. Or maybe you just want to upgrade your holiday home Where does this leave you?
You have three choices to choose from when wanting to move from one park to another, these are: part exchanging, selling privately or moving your caravan.
PART EXCHANGING
If you’re thinking of buying a new holiday home to be able to move onto a new holiday park, you have the option to part exchange your current static caravan. Many factors will come into part exchanging your current holiday home and how much you’ll receive towards your new model, including; the age of the caravan, the condition and whether the caravan can be resold.
It’s worth bearing in mind that when part exchanging your holiday home, you may not receive what you paid for it. Parks/dealerships can't always afford to buy your caravan in at what you paid for it and you’ll usually find you are offered the trade price, so that they can resell at a retail price in order to make a profit, as expected from any business with overheads, wages, and other business costs.
When part exchanging a holiday home, we as the dealership always ask you to offer the holiday home back to the park you are currently on (parks tend to have the right of first refusal) and we will never bid on the holiday home if the park wants it. If the park decides against buying back your holiday home, we at Lloyds Caravan & Lodge Sales can now make a bid for the caravan. The price again, which you’d receive depends on the condition, age and specification, as well as whether it will be able to be sold onto another park, or if it will only be of use as ‘offsite’, on private land for instance. And if a caravan has been tampered with e.g. furniture removed etc. this will devalue your holiday home because sometimes the furniture - especially the fixed furniture, is designed to add strength to the structure of the caravan, so removing this may weaken the structure. However, if you decided to upgrade the central heating and double glazing, you may not get more money for your caravan, but it certainly will be more appealing to buyers.
Getting a quote from your dealer:
If you are looking to part exchange your holiday home with us, for a new caravan on your chosen holiday park, we as the dealership will come to view the holiday home first to give you the best possible price so we can see better the condition and specification of your static caravan. If you are happy with the quote we will arrange transportation off the park using our in house transport team - a factor you don’t need to worry about! However, bear in mind, if you have decking around your holiday home, we won’t normally buy this off you, so you will need to seek other arrangements, and again, factor in the cost of disconnecting the decking. And depending on the park, you will most likely be charged a ‘disconnection fee’ which is usually a pretty standard practice on parks too.
The price you receive against your part exchange can then be put against a brand new static caravan holiday home. We have a great variety on display at Lloyds Caravan & Lodge Sales, to suit different wants, needs and budgets. Depending on the new holiday home you pick, you may even get a better exchange rate. Our sales team is always on hand, to help answer any questions you may have!
Outstanding finance?
When thinking of exchanging your static caravan holiday home, please take into consideration any finance you may have left on it. The trade price offered for the holiday home, may end up being less than the finance you have left to pay on it, meaning you’ll still be paying it off when you no longer own it!
SELLING PRIVATELY
When you’re considering upgrading you might want to think about selling your holiday home privately rather than part exchanging - if your park allows this and doesn't want to purchase the holiday home themselves!
However, you will want to consider; what time of year it is and whether you can afford to cover the site fees whilst your holiday home is still on the plot and also impending site fees for the new season. You will also need to look into the marketing and promotion of your holiday home in order to find a buyer. The internet is probably the best place to start and sometimes the park may help you too. There are lots of different websites where you can sell your caravan, which are specifically for the resale of holiday homes. Social media platforms like facebook selling pages is also a great place.
Promoting your holiday home
When promoting your holiday home, make sure you include good clear pictures and description of the holiday home, don't forget to include the condition. This will help you towards the sale. Local papers can also be a good location to include an ad at a relatively cheap price. The more places you publicise the holiday home, the more people will see it.
You will need to take into careful consideration the price you sell your caravan for. You will be able to make more money selling privately, however, you will have to invest more of your time into it making it sell. And don’t forget to include the commission costs to the park and terms of agreement, again a standard practice for you to bear in mind. But do your research! Look at similar holiday homes to yours and what they are re selling at, no one wants to be overcharged!
Maximise the sale!
It is also important for you to try to maximise the resale of your holiday home. You can do this by preparing the holiday home for any viewers. A clean, tidy and clutter less holiday home is more likely to entice a buyer, than a caravan which looks lived in. To retain the resale value, regular maintenance is key. Ensuring the van is winterised, the boiler is serviced annually and inspecting for any rust or corrosion on a regular basis, will all help when it comes to selling.
MOVING YOUR CARAVAN
If you find yourself in the position where you haven’t owned your holiday home for long, or already own your dream holiday home, you may not be in the position to sell your static caravan, so prefer to move it to another holiday park instead. In this case, some holiday parks will allow you to move your current holiday home onto their site. But there are also some stipulations too.
If you’re thinking of moving your current holiday home onto another park, there are some considerations you’ll have to think about. When a holiday park has a plot available, this plot is often viewed as a new caravan sale, as this is how parks make their money, by selling caravans...the same as any trader selling products. By moving your current holiday home onto one of these plots, essentially you are taking up a potential sale. And since we deal with private holiday parks instead of the bigger corporate organisations (who can go directly to the manufacturers themselves -(bigger buying power)), these parks we represent do tend to be smaller which usually means fewer bases available...so usually you may find that parks will prefer a caravan sale over allowing you to move onto one of their vacant plots. However, in some cases a park might decide to let you bring on your holiday home, but you will more than likely be charged for the privilege! But it depends on how many plots they have available really and the demand for their park!
It’s good to bear in mind though that in some cases a park may not accept ‘bring ons’ due to many different factors... Many parks enforce an age limit on the static caravan holiday homes on their park, to keep it looking current and aesthetically pleasing for their owners, meaning your holiday home may not meet the criteria of the park. Other parks also may want to ensure the caravans they have onsite are in keeping with the look of the park, for example, some holiday parks will only accept enviro green holiday homes, so you would not be able to move your onto this park unless it met their standards.
However, this shouldn’t deter you. Some of the larger holiday parks, such as Haven and Parkdean Resorts may have more vacant bases, so may allow you to move your current holiday home onto their park, as they may prefer the site fees over nothing at all. Take Parkdean Resorts for example, as an incentive to move your holiday home they offer free delivery of your caravan to a selection of their parks, with included stipulations, so read the fine print! To see which of the holiday home parks allow this, search ‘move my caravan for free’ in your chosen search engine and the relevant parks will come up!
In some cases it may not seem worth it to part exchange, moving or selling privately... but remember, holiday home ownership is an investment into your leisure and well being, you are paying for the lifestyle and the lifelong memories for you, your family and friends!
If you would like to part exchange your existing caravan onto a park we deal with in North Wales and Cheshire, come in and see us, or get the ball rolling by filling in the form here and finding out how much your caravan could be worth.
You may also want to take a look at our current stock at the showgrounds;
Lloyds Caravan & Lodge Sales
Lloyds Caravans Pensarn
Lloyds Caravans Talacre
Factory Order
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