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Priced out of traditional housing, more Americans are living in RVs

(www.nbcnews.com)
73 points bikenaga | 1 comments | 22 Sep 25 22:33 UTC | HN request time: 0.201s | source
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RandomBacon ◴[22 Sep 25 23:47 UTC] No.45341076[source]▶
If anyone is thinking about this, please do research into how crappy modern, mass-produced RVs are built.

Lemon Laws do not apply to RVs (except maybe in one state).

Many RVs can easily spend most of a year waiting to get a single item half-assed repaired multiple times while the 1 year warranty runs out and the 20 other things don't get fixed.

There is a relatively-new YouTube channel called Liz Amazing that showcases RV horror stories, including the most recent one where a luxury RV manufacturer didn't properly install VINs on the RV leading to a $600k fine for the user:

https://youtube.com/watch?v=zGOANydJURQ

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blackbell ◴[23 Sep 25 00:07 UTC] No.45341259[source]▶
>please do research into how crappy modern, mass-produced RVs are built.

Any brands you/Liz Amazing suggest?

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1. alistairSH ◴[23 Sep 25 12:59 UTC] No.45346428[source]▶
Depends what you want...

First off, a travel trailer make a lot of sense because you decouple the propulsion from the living quarters. But, then you might need a big truck (depends on size of trailer - most mid-size SUVs and compact trucks can only tow ~5000lbs). Another plus is you can drop the trailer at camp and drive to town/trail heads/etc. Downsides are total length, two registrations and insurance plans, etc.

If you don't need to live in it long-term, one of the fiberglass shell travel trailers (Oliver, Escape, maybe Scamp and Casita, though they're lower spec). The less plumbing, the better. The simpler the better. Less to go wrong/leak. They generally max out around 20 feet or so - plenty for a week here and there, but less than ideal for full-time living.

If I wanted full-time, I'd probably skip the Class B ("ship in a bottle van-based RV") and Class C (van/truck chassis and cab with box bolted on the back) RVs and jump straight to a Class A (bus or commercial truck chassis with custom cab). Something like a slightly used Prevost (though that's probably still $500k+, so won't help if you're priced out of traditional housing).