Your motorhome will be your home for many wonderful holidays, but what about when it’s not in use?
You can leave it sitting on the drive, but did you know it can actually be a valuable asset, helping to pay for itself?
We know the feeling; we know it better than most as motorhome enthusiasts.
Your new motorhome is a thing of beauty; it’s pristine both inside and out and if there’s one thing you don’t want it’s someone else driving it.
You probably don’t even want extended family members driving it, or good friends, let alone someone you’ve never met.
But then time passes. The motorhome still looks pristine (you’re cleaning it every week, aren’t you?), however it does just sit there in-between holidays.
Increasingly, people are renting their motorhomes out, making hundreds of pounds for every week it is out, giving another family or couple a great holiday.
Essentially, it is a part of the new type of economy; the sharing economy, whereby people use their own assets to raise extra funds.
We have seen it with Air BNB, people renting out their homes – who would have felt comfortable doing that a few years back?
There is also renting out of spare storage space, people earning extra income by giving lifts (either as car sharing to work, or through Uber).
However, there are very natural concerns over renting out a motorhome; it isn’t quite the same as the other ways of sweating your assets (if you’ll excuse so horrible a term).
One concern for the owner, it’s a concern we would have as motorhome owners, is the depreciation.
You’re renting the motorhome out, presumably that’s to people who want to drive it somewhere rather than spending two weeks in their lounge looking at the vehicle parked on their drive.
If they do a few hundred miles, that obviously has a small impact on any resale value, and the more you rent the motorhome out, the more this depreciation could be a factor.
However, the depreciation per trip is minimal, so low as to be almost inconsequential.
If you were to rent the motorhome out four times a year, earning perhaps a couple of thousand pounds, however great the mileage put on it is not going to hit resale value by more than a couple of hundred pounds. The rentals will still all be hugely profitable.
Maybe a bigger concern is damage to the motorhome, what happens if there’s a crash, or fixtures or fittings break?
These could happen and it might be that the thought of damage to your motorhome occurring at someone else’s hands is enough to make the rental idea a complete non starter.
For those who do rent, insurance is available.
You can try to go it alone, or there are third parties out there who will sort much of the rental process for you – potentially finding people to rent the motorhome and taking care of the fully comprehensive insurance and other concerns.
If you go to Google and enter ‘rent out my motorhome’ you will see a number of companies offering exactly this service – of course it’s up to you to do due diligence and find one you feel comfortable with.
Renting out your motorhome is a big leap and one many will feel uncomfortable making.
For others it will be as obvious a thing to do as renting out a holiday cottage, or picking up a hire car while on holiday.
And if it is an option it can make a huge difference as to the motorhome you can afford to buy.
Renting it out a few times a year for five or 10 years could bring in a five-figure sum.
That might just be enough to get you that top of the range model you’ve always wanted!
Emm-Bee is a leading UK family-run motorhome dealership based in Bury, Greater Manchester.
As well as stocking the latest models from leading makes such as Burstner, Chausson, Bailey and Laika, we also have an unrivalled stock of used motorhomes for sale.
We pride ourselves on customer satisfaction and offering unmatched levels of service – we have been in business for 25 years and have flourished on word-of-mouth recommendations.
Please have a look round the site to check our range of used motorhomes and do get in touch with any queries, or just to pick our brains.
