Trailer a Bad Idea!
by Dave Ramsey
| My little brother is getting married soon. Together, he and his wife will make about $35,000 a year. The other day he told me he’s working on a deal to buy a $70,000 trailer, and has already put $500 toward the purchase. The deal isn’t final yet, so what can I do to convince him this is a bad idea? |
Dear Dave,
My little brother is getting married soon. Together, he and his wife will make about $35,000 a year. The other day he told me he’s working on a deal to buy a $70,000 trailer, and has already put $500 toward the purchase. The deal isn’t final yet, so what can I do to convince him this is a bad idea?
Doug
Dear Doug,
Go knock him in the head and stop him!
Seriously, take this kid on a ride around town and let him have a good look at the trailers people bought in the last few years. You can practically see the money draining out of them.
A trailer is just about the largest purchase you can make that will go down in value. It’s like a car you sleep in! If you bought a $70,000 trailer three years ago, it would be worth about $30,000 now. That’s not what I call a wise investment.
If it were my little brother and I had the money, I’d pay him $500 just to walk away from the deal. He’s looking at the trailer like it’s a dinky little house, but here’s the difference. If he buys a small $70,000 home, at least the thing is going to go up in value.
I’m not badmouthing people who live in trailers here, Doug. I’m badmouthing trailers. Call them trailers, mobile homes – whatever. They’re a bad place to stick your money!
Dave
Posted by Mike
from manitoba, canada
Sorry Dave , but you must have no idea of what, is now correctly called modular homes, are ! In fact for 70,000 you would get one that you would be very hard pressed to differentiate from a so called regular house. Please check it out before you try and sway someone. they are NOT built the way they used to be built , and DONOT go down in value as you say! Poor research , try again !
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Posted by Jackie
from Tully New York
I agree that this young man should walk away from this deal. He will be paying on it for years and the maintenance on a mobile home can be daunting.
I know, I raised 3 kids in a mobile home. Some of the problems are water damage, if you have a shingle roof, you have to keep snow off of it if you live in a snow area, they are very expensive to heat and very dusty to live in. I paid $21,000 for mine, in 89 and lived in it til 2005. I sold it for $3500 and was glad to be out of it.
Jackie Soliongco
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Posted by Valeri
from Logan, Utah
Buying a trailer might seem like the only thing you can afford at the moment. It may even sound good because you can move it, but let me tell you, I bought one years ago and it's still haunting me to this day. I can't get rid of it and it's not worth moving any longer. I only borrowed about $25,000 to buy it, but have already paid over $25,000 and still owe over $13,000. I've had it almost 12 years. It's not worth $5000 at this point. Then you have the space rental fees on top of that. So far, almost $71,000. That all adds up to over $90,000 that you could have put toward a house. Trailers are such a bad idea!!!
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Posted by Claudia
from Utah
When my husband worked building the freeway system, we got tired of living without him and bought us a nice 70,ooo.00 trailer so we could go too. We moved every 2 years like clock work and when he changed jobs we sold the trailer for 65,000.00. We had lived in it for 7 years. I think we got our money out of it. And we were able to put that money down on a nice home. So it just depends on where you are, and if you take care of it.
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