A couple of weeks ago, My Holiday Caravan had the pleasure of attending The Beaulieu and Lawns Caravan Show 2013 where we had the fantastic opportunity to talk to you, the holiday home owners! With the allure of a complimentary chilled glass of Prosecco we were able to have a chat with a few of you and ask some questions on your experience of ownership; one aspect in particular being the buying process. In this article we’re going to have a look at some of the feedback from you, the customer, in order to provide any prospective buyers with some advice from those who have actually been through the very process themselves.
We found over half the owners we spoke to spent over 6 months looking for a caravan, and whilst some did not take quite as long to search for their perfect holiday home, it hints to us that most would advise spending that bit longer doing your research to ensure you make the right decision for you.
Another question we were eager to ask was, what is more important, the park or the caravan itself? A staggering 81% of you contended that the park was the most crucial factor in making your decision. This demonstrates that location is key and an element not to be overlooked when choosing your holiday home.
To gauge how much use you get out of your holiday home, we asked how many times you would plan to visit your caravan over a twelve month period. 87% said they would plan to visit their holiday caravan more than 10 times in the year. Many felt you have to visit at least this many times in order to really get the potential out of the caravan and justify the costs incurred in buying a holiday home. The majority would also let your family use your holiday home, getting more use and potential out of the holiday caravan.
A frequently considered option when buying a caravan is whether to sublet your holiday home or not, in order to subsidize costs. However nearly all of you said that you did not plan to sub-let your caravan, not wanting to compromise any precious time relaxing! One owner said that in order to really subsidize costs and see a difference you have to sub-let regularly, again jeopardizing your own time in your holiday caravan.
We would like to thank everyone who spent the time to stop and have a chat with us and answer a few questions. It really helped us to understand the buying process through the eyes of a consumer.
For more owners tips, why not view our TV page and see for yourselves what they had to say!