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| Pent-up RV demand - wishful thinking or believable |
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In RVIA's December edition of Media Buzz was an article that touched up the RV industry's recent transition from shaky and unpredictable to recovering. The article cited RVIA president Richard Coon as saying, "it does appear the worst is finally over".
The author goes on to write that if the industry is to follow historic patterns and makes a steady climb out of this slump it will be, in part, due to pent-up demand, and that the worry now is that the industry too quickly and manufactureres will not be able to fill consumer orders.
This leads me to ask a very simple question...is there really a pent-up demand? And if there is pent-up demand, is consumer confidence now strong enough to unleash this demand?
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| Re: Pent-up RV demand - wishful thinking or believable |
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If history is any indication of the future, then the RV industry should do very well in the next few years. After the industry took a beating right after World War I and then again after the Great Depression, it picked right back up within a few years.
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| Re: Pent-up RV demand - wishful thinking or believable |
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Angela, I couldn't disagree with you more.
To truly believe that this industry is rebounding is nothing short of wishful thinking. Let me explain. While economists are saying that the economy is out of the recession and is beginning the recovery does not mean that people are going to be able to go back to the lifestyles they had prior to the recession. People, myself included, have lost large portions of their retirement funds. Few will retrieve those losses. Many people, then, are going to be living much more humbly than they had prior to the recession. While there may be pent up demand for a new RV or trailer, people are not going to unleash that demand because they no longer have the means to do so. They are going to continue to use their old RV or trailer.
While history is often the best predictor of the future, in this case it's comparing apples to oranges. In the 1930's RV's were not selling for the price of a home. Today, as I'm sure you know, some RV's go for hundreds of thousands of dollars, and some even go for more than a million! So to think that people are going to go back to buying rv's in droves because they heard that the economy is in a state of recovery just does not jive with logic.
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| Re: Pent-up RV demand - wishful thinking or believable |
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True. People may not have the means necessary to allow them to buy a brand new, top of the line, class A motorhome. But people who need a new motorhome will still buy one, they will just downgrade.
I think the RV industry will recover, but their bread and butter will be the small to midsized rv's and especially the lightweight trailers. |
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| Re: Pent-up RV demand - wishful thinking or believable |
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| Recently, there have been quite a few articles predicting the recovery of the RV industry. The main barometer of this recovery being an increase in jobs in Elkhart County, Indiana, also known as the heartland of the RV industry. Let's hope there is some truth to it! |
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