Quote:
Originally Posted by tnedator
That's not what I read. I know I read one study that indicated that there were a million new RV owners from 2005 to 2011, going from I think 8 million homes with RVs to 9 million.
A quick google shows that that trend is continuing or increasing.
YEAR RV SHIPMENTS
2016 430,691
2015 374,246
2014 356,735
2013 321,127
2012 285,749
2011 252,300
The Recreation Vehicle Industry Association: Business Indicators
That's a massive increase in units shipped per year. |
those are not all new RV owners, lots of repeat/trade up customers. However, seems reasonable that the total owners is increasing, especially with demographic changes in this country. Lots more 20-40 year olds than there were 15 years ago. Baby boomers are still here in force. In a decade, expect baby boomers to be less of the marketing focus.
Those build numbers are heavily weighted to the TT units, about 2/3s of this years builds. Likely more skewed to first time buyers. Class A production really have not changed much in the last 3 years, so they should not be seeing as much production pressure as even the Class C, and could focus more on quality. Class B is increasing, but I suspect there may be new players and additional manufacturing infrastructure supporting it, the product prices seem to justify an investment.
Travel trailer quality would really scare me today. I dont know how they do it, to put nearly as much hardware into a 15k trailer as they do in a 40k fifth wheel and a 100k motorhome. Something has to suffer.
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