Paddy's "Things that cheer you up"

[Genie]

2 hours ago, Rugeley Villa said:

We’ve been on about getting a static caravan for last few years. Just can’t bring myself to part with the money, even though it wouldn’t be a new one. Also the site fees are a big put off. I know you can rent them out and that pays for your site fees and then some, but that’s another hassle renting them out. If I won or came into a substantial amount of money, kind of life changing money, then that’s one of the first things I’d buy . In our position though, it seems like a bad investment.

We had one for a couple of years, I’d say avoid it for a number of reasons. 

They depreciate like cars.

The parks will kick you off after a few years if it’s deemed too old.

The prices are generally much higher than market average and they can do that because most parks won’t let you put your own caravan on or move it.

If you bought one for say £15k (which is super cheap end of the market) after a couple of years you want to sell, they’ll offer you next to nothing for it. So you can either accept it, buy another one or find a buyer yourself which can be tricky too. A nice caravan is north of £50k (used).

They also sting you for very expensive gas, electric and water. No shopping around it is what they say it is.

You need insurance too, which can be expensive.

Obviously you have to keep going to the same place on holiday.

All things considered just use your money for holidays without all the strings attached.

[Seat68]

Agree with all of that @Genie both parents and friends have had vans on parks and it is true in my experience aside from the gas element, then my experience comes into play. I worked at Calor for a while and gas to park customers is actually a lot cheaper as its a single large purchasing agreement. 

[Rugeley Villa]

8 hours ago, Genie said:

We had one for a couple of years, I’d say avoid it for a number of reasons. 

They depreciate like cars.

The parks will kick you off after a few years if it’s deemed too old.

The prices are generally much higher than market average and they can do that because most parks won’t let you put your own caravan on or move it.

If you bought one for say £15k (which is super cheap end of the market) after a couple of years you want to sell, they’ll offer you next to nothing for it. So you can either accept it, buy another one or find a buyer yourself which can be tricky too. A nice caravan is north of £50k (used).

They also sting you for very expensive gas, electric and water. No shopping around it is what they say it is.

You need insurance too, which can be expensive.

Obviously you have to keep going to the same place on holiday.

All things considered just use your money for holidays without all the strings attached.

I know a bloke who has one and he said be very careful when buying one because the parks only give so many years on old caravans and you have to either move parks or upgrade which costs a lot of money. 

[Genie]

1 hour ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I know a bloke who has one and he said be very careful when buying one because the parks only give so many years on old caravans and you have to either move parks or upgrade which costs a lot of money. 

When we decided we wanted to sell up the park offered us 10% for the caravan of what we’d bought it off them for less than 2 years prior.

We got lucky and found someone who really wanted to get onto that site and sold it to her (the park also take a cut).

My children love caravan holidays but I’d never buy again. 

[Rds1983]

3 hours ago, Genie said:

When we decided we wanted to sell up the park offered us 10% for the caravan of what we’d bought it off them for less than 2 years prior.

We got lucky and found someone who really wanted to get onto that site and sold it to her (the park also take a cut).

My children love caravan holidays but I’d never buy again. 

That sounds like a right dodgy set up. 

[bickster]

4 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

That sounds like a right dodgy set up

Absolutely standard Caravan Park behaviour. That isn't a rogue site, that is the way they all behave

Caravan Parks are a right dodgy racket

[Davkaus]

50k to buy a used caravan, then loads of other fees and nonsense on top? That could buy an awful lot of much nicer holidays in some very nice hotels.

I'd rather stay home than stay in  a caravan to be honest, and that's when I thought they were cheap  

[Genie]

32 minutes ago, Rds1983 said:

That sounds like a right dodgy set up. 

This was a Parkdean resorts park. I feel sorry for people that buy in with £40/£50/£60k caravans then try and get out. It’s extremely difficult to do without taking a huge hit on your “investment”.
You get to the end of the season and they start asking for the next years fees (£5-8k). If you can afford it or want to sell they’ve got you by the balls. 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Genie

[Davkaus]

26 minutes ago, Genie said:

 the next years fees (£5-8k). 

WTF.

How often are people going to make that "worthwhile"? I don't know how much I thought owning a caravan would cost but it's nowhere bloody near that.

[Genie]

Just now, Davkaus said:

WTF.

How often are people going to make that "worthwhile"? I don't know how much I thought owning a caravan would cost but it's nowhere bloody near that.

I just looked at a site we’ve been to a couple of times in Burnham on sea and it’s “from” £5863 a year. That’s going to be a shit pitch right outside the bar or on a main junction. You can probably double that if you want to be out the way of near the lake / beach.

Then you need insurance which is around £200 a year, water was £450 a year when we had ours, gas and electric were metered and very expensive compared to home. Usual repairs and maintenance, if you want the park to do stuff it’s expensive. 

I bet a lot of people get into trouble with them. First year the site fees are included in the purchase. After that it becomes a real drain on the finances unless you’ve got money to burn.

[rjw63]

We recently moved, and both my wife and my car insurance went down a bit.

I was therefore quite shocked when her annual renewal quote (from Ageas) came in this morning at just over £300, which means they've put it up.

One Meerkat search later and I got it from Lloyds bank for £159. Quite a saving!

[rjw63]

15 hours ago, Genie said:

We had one for a couple of years, I’d say avoid it for a number of reasons. 

They depreciate like cars.

The parks will kick you off after a few years if it’s deemed too old.

The prices are generally much higher than market average and they can do that because most parks won’t let you put your own caravan on or move it.

If you bought one for say £15k (which is super cheap end of the market) after a couple of years you want to sell, they’ll offer you next to nothing for it. So you can either accept it, buy another one or find a buyer yourself which can be tricky too. A nice caravan is north of £50k (used).

They also sting you for very expensive gas, electric and water. No shopping around it is what they say it is.

You need insurance too, which can be expensive.

Obviously you have to keep going to the same place on holiday.

All things considered just use your money for holidays without all the strings attached.

We recently sold our 6 berth in Pennal, mid Wales, due to using the cash for our house move.

It was a great pictureque site, no shops, no pub, no pool. Just quiet.

Site fees were 2k per year. There is always a waiting list of people who want to buy. Ours went for 15k after being up for sale for a matter of days.

We will miss it but we live in a better place so you can't have everything.

Oh and this site is also very popular because the owner doesn't have an age limit. If you have a 40 year old van, as long as it looks tidy he doesn't give a shit.

It was cheap to run because we shared it with my sister.

Edited August 7, 2021 by rjw63

[Seat68]

I have been on a few sites without an age limit and site fees of around a grand. Must say though, they have been the exceptions. 

Edited August 7, 2021 by Seat68

[Genie]

I guess it depends what you want from the site.

If you want super quiet, caravan in a field then it’ll be a lot cheaper than one with a bar, restaurant, show bar, pool, park, beach access, fishing, entertainment, kids activities etc.

If you plan to let it out then you’ll want one with lots to do. 

[Rugeley Villa]

Well any ideas I had left in my head about getting one have now gone, so cheers VT. We’ve just got back from a Parkdean site and brand new ones started at 58k and went up to over 100k. If you wanted to pay in instalments, you had to put 6-7-8k down depending on price of caravan, then it was 800-900 etc a month depending on what caravan you had. The thing that cracked me was if you pay in instalments , then you have to pay around 20k interest on top of the original price. There’s some great sites about , but I’ve always imagined them to be money grabbing clearings in the woods, and reading on here and also from what I’ve heard off other people it’s cemented those thoughts. I know you can rent them out but the hassle that comes with it just isn’t worth it, plus do you want other people in your caravan all the time. Think I’ve had to be wealthy before I entered into buying one. 

[Rugeley Villa]

2 hours ago, Davkaus said:

50k to buy a used caravan, then loads of other fees and nonsense on top? That could buy an awful lot of much nicer holidays in some very nice hotels.

I'd rather stay home than stay in  a caravan to be honest, and that's when I thought they were cheap  

I love caravan holidays. We try and have a caravan break and an holiday abroad, but obviously with Covid we’ve been restricted to caravan holidays. In all honesty going abroad with 3 kids is no walk in the park and caravan holidays are a lot easier in that sense. Not guaranteed the weather as much  in this country though, so a week away or a weekend away is ruined if it’s pissing down most days. 

[Genie]

9 minutes ago, Rugeley Villa said:

I love caravan holidays. We try and have a caravan break and an holiday abroad, but obviously with Covid we’ve been restricted to caravan holidays. In all honesty going abroad with 3 kids is no walk in the park and caravan holidays are a lot easier in that sense. Not guaranteed the weather as much  in this country though, so a week away or a weekend away is ruined if it’s pissing down most days. 

Same here. We’ve tended to have 3 holidays a year . 2 foreign (mainly enabled by the fact that the children’s school have some unusual holiday weeks which make going away cheaper a possibility) and 1 UK caravan break for a long weekend.

Last week 7 nights in a caravan nearly broke us all. Too cramped, too noisy, too uncomfortable. 

[Rugeley Villa]

11 minutes ago, Genie said:

Same here. We’ve tended to have 3 holidays a year . 2 foreign (mainly enabled by the fact that the children’s school have some unusual holiday weeks which make going away cheaper a possibility) and 1 UK caravan break for a long weekend.

Last week 7 nights in a caravan nearly broke us all. Too cramped, too noisy, too uncomfortable. 

Holidays abroad with young kids is hard graft. One family holiday abroad does me. The missus would like two , but it’s too much for several reasons. We tend to have the odd night away kid free, which is nice. We don’t usually go away in a caravan for longer than a weekend, but because of Covid we had 7 nights. Our caravan was too small and the sofa bed which I slept on was horrendous. Easy for everyone to annoy each other because of the cramped conditions as you say. Definitely ready to come home after 7 nights. We booked up for weekend next year but we’ve booked it in school time. They have the Friday and Monday off school which saved us £220. Sod it.

Edited August 7, 2021 by Rugeley Villa

[chrisp65]

4 hours ago, Genie said:

This was a Parkdean resorts park. 
 

We did a few years of Parkdean holidays when the kids were of that age, and for a week away, they are brilliant. We always had the good fortune of our kids’ school being slightly out of sync with the vast majority of schools holiday period. So we would have decent weather, everything on the site up and working, but not rammed full 100% occupancy, and not peak prices.

We stayed in one down in Cornwall and it was about 5 or 10 minutes from Mullion Cove, which being slightly out of season was the next nearest thing to a private beach. So daytime was on the beach all day. Evenings we were entertained by Sid and Lizzie. The caravan was strictly for crashing a night’s sleep before doing it all over again.

We had a couple of years where we got a great gig as first occupants for new or refurbished resorts. The schtick was, it was ridiculously cheap but we couldn’t complain and we had to give them loads of feedback. It meant we’d get a week in some top of the range caravan or chalet, but the first few days we’d have to point out the TV wasn’t tuned in or there was no cutlery or the door lock required quite a knack to get it locked. But then, we’d have a week’s holiday literally for £100. We did a few of those at a time when the kids were small and money was tight, so they were a well timed find. 

[rjw63]

I was going to dump a shitload of dirty old 45s, but last night I sat and cleaned them.

Now I am forcing myself to play-test them all. Most of them used to belong to my deceased father in law.

So I am now listening to Bobby darin, Joe Loss, the Black & White Minstrels, Andy Williams. And some stuff from my wife's past, John Holt, Alice Cooper, Paul Davidson, Gary Glitter (::))