HI we bought our caravan earlier this year - it is very similar to yours a 2003 swift signature 17/4 (special of the swift 530) with all the extras for 6850 - we thought we had a real bargain and were - and still are very pleased with the purchase - so I dont think you are a million miles away with the price at all.
Forgot to say in my earlier post that we advertised our van for 6 weeks before we got a sale, we did start it off at a higher price and gradually bought the price down until we started to get interest in it.
Joty
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A bit of advice from the "other" side of the fence. After much debate about whether to buy new or second hand for our first van, we are now looking to buy a second hand 5 berth caravan around the £4K mark. I would advise any sellers to place lots and lots of photos (at least 10 good quality) to accompany the advert along with a detailed description of what is included.
Buyers generally (with a few exceptions) have to travel a fair way to look at certain caravans and so a detailed selling description certainly helps to attract interest and "sell" your product. You are wanting yours to look much better than the rest...
Also, caravans have many uses: from the careful owner that uses it for two long weekends a month to the builder that lives in it 5 days a week Mon-Fri (sorry builders out there!). It might be worth stating in the advert what the caravan has been used for (I know that may sound stupid, but it could make a difference). I'm also been made aware by a couple of dealers that have warned me against vans that have been used by families in the recent floods - just because of the hammering they have received.
Well, hopefully there are a couple of useful tips for you...
(P.S. On the builder front, we lived in a caravan for two years while we had a house built and the builders that lived on the same site as us were great!)
I would also suggest putting it on ebay as a classified ad. Normal ebay auctions and 'buy it now' items attract a final value fee which, for the price you are asking for your van, would be quite a chunk out of what you finally get for it. As Joty says, a classified ad doesn't attract these fees so would be ideal for selling your van. And if you don't know what to do then shout, someone on here will help you!
------------- Tigermouse
I have a very temperamental personality - 50% temper and 50% mental
Yes Anne, I did have to drop my original asking price but I was happy with what I sold it for. I'll echo the poster above who said some people will make you silly offers if they think you are desperate to sell, also beware the ones who'll give you a long sob story and then offer a lot less because they are so poor..
------------- Caz
If you can't see the light at the end of the tunnel, just keep going till you go round the bend.
The problem may not be with your van, or the price, particularly, but with everyone being so worried about 'The Credit Crunch' as it's being increasingly called. I know lots of people who are putting off buying almost anything until 'we see what happens', or 'when we're sure we're not going to lose money' or 'we'll have a look next year instead'. Perhaps this might be why things generally have gone quiet. Our local caravan dealer, doing record sales earlier this year, is now worried about how quiet things have gone - so it may be a general problem. My son says business with their firm has gone very quiet - and even OH is affected to a certain degree with firms holding off awarding contracts, and adding new clauses to contracts whilst they are being negotiated.
Putting an ad on e-bay as a classified ad isn't too difficult. You would need to register with them first.
I do think it's really important to be able to put lots of good photos on though. You are able to use up to 12 pictures, included in the price of the classified ad, and they are definatley worth doing. I was amazed at how far people were willing to travel to look at our van, but several of them commented that being able to see lots of pictures gave them confidence in what they were coming to look at. We ended up with several people wanting to look at it last weekend, and the first person to come bought it.
Thanks Joty, will have to take some more pictures and then try and attach to the ad. Not good at this, I am a technophobe, only had a digital camrea since last Christmas! I have registered with ebay btw.
The way I found the Classified ad section was to go to e-bay's home page, at the top righthand side click on 'help' then go down to help topics, open that up and then click on Selling. Go to 'Different Types of selling, advertising in classified ads.'
Choose 'list in car or other veichle' You will then get a box of various veichle types come up, one of which is for caravans. From there it will take you step by step through the process of placing the ad.
When you get to the 'downloading your pictures' bit. Click on 'browse' you should then be able to chose pictures stored on your own pc, when you find the picture you want, you then click on 'open' and then 'download'. When I have done it I seem to do one picture at a time, there may be a way of doing them all together but I don't know how! I just click on download another picture to do the next one and so on. Hope that makes sence!