pawatt
Brainerd MN / Mission TX
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Joined: 01/19/2005
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Don't forget that their real estate taxes & insurance, esp. liability insurance goes up each year too. Some of that rate increase is needed just to avoid losing money.
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Keith M
Cle Elum
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Joined: 07/28/2002
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I realize its the law of supply and demand. In areas like the Coachella Valley in Southern California a number of RV Parks have been torn out and replaced by houses and condos. The Coachella Valley and Palm Springs is now a relatively pricey area. Parks there can be relatively choosey on who stays there with age limits and some only allowing Class A rigs. However in Arizona its a totally different story.
The home prices have collapsed by 50% or more in some areas around Phoenix. With prices so low people who are looking for a winter getaway may decide a condo or small house makes more sense than an RV. There are any number of homes in the 40K-80K range in the area of Sun City in Arizona. Snow bird RVing while not in its death throws certainly will be scaled back in the future. Looking around at the manufacturers that made snowbird rigs some of the big guys have disappeared like Alpenlite, Alfa, Travel Supreme, and National.
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jamminalong
Pacific Northwest, Wa.
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Joined: 12/22/2007
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I'm curious how many RV Parks are being built??? This goes back to the supply & demand theory.
If the population is increasing, more people are retiring yet space available in the parks stay the same, it only makes sense that rates will increase.
Plus it doesn't help when state & county parks are closing.
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rocmoc
AZ/Mexico
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Joined: 09/30/2006
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One thing that has not changed is the increase in Property Tax in Arizona. Since the State is broke, along with the counties & cities, they have pushed more services down to the county level. Thus our property taxes have continued to increase even as Market Value of the property values have gone down. The assessed value is always under the Market Value and under AZ law the county can raise the assessed value until it is the same as the Market Value. This means our Property Taxes have increased to insane levels. Not at any level of government has anyone stepped up with budget cuts so property tax increases continue. Also none of our utilities or fuel has gotten cheaper. On top of everything else they just raised sales tax and are taxing more items. They may have increased the bed tax a RV park pays or placed one on the park. Maybe this helps as I don't know of any parks doing great, just OK.
rocmoc n AZ/Baja
rocmoc n AZ/Mexico
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1fastdad
mo.
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Joined: 08/27/2007
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The park we stay at in Florida didn't raise the rent last year and had a party to anounce that they wouldn't raise the rent next year and this park is full most of Dec. and all of Jan.,Feb. and March.
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bstark
Ontario, Canada
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Joined: 05/02/2004
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You've just hit on the reason we decided to hang up the RV'ing for good! We couldn't reconcile the rising costs for fuel, maintenance, insurance and other stuff on a depreciating asset after having travelled to all of the areas we wanted to see - against - the dropping prices of real-estate in one of our favourite locations to snowbird. We bought a new place at very depressed value and while some costs will undoubtedly rise, the main investment will also, over time, appreciate on average to keep pace.
Getting off the terrible highways won't bother us much either.
Today is just the tomorrow you worried about yesterday!
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rockhillmanor
On the Road
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Joined: 12/06/2003
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Wait, wait for it.....
Give it another year and you will see a lot of things changing.
The first year of this recession the lower/medium income people who only had maybe 2 weeks in savings took the first plunge. And they usually were not able to have luxury toys such as RV's. So no change in snowbird resort costs.
The second year will get the middle income people who try to have a year or maybe 2 in savings. They will start falling off and they usually have the RV they use on weekends. So we didn't see a change in the Snowbird numbers or resort fees there either.
This year I suspect it will hit some of the people in the upper income bracket who can afford the luxury toys and have burned thru their 2 year savings+ safety net, market losses, loss of pensions, higher health care costs, etc. I predict this coming year the number of snowbirds, campers, and CG and Resorts WILL feel the drop off in numbers and will have to adjust if THEY plan on making it. 
We must be willing to get rid of the life we've planned,
so as to have the life that is waiting for us.
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