If you’re selling your static caravan holiday home, you’re going to want to get your unit accurately valued. However, gaining this accurate valuation is not always easy, as the process is a complex one.
We get regular requests from our audience asking us to help with their static caravan valuations. As we are unable offer individual valuations, we decided to produce a guide, detailing some useful information to help you to accurately value your caravan.
Unit Only Valuation
The most reliable way to find the value of your static caravan is to consult the Glass Guide. This is a comprehensive guide that lists basic valuations for a variety of different caravan units as well as motor vehicles.
The Glass Guide is a trade only publication, so you will need to access the guide by signing up online, or by asking your caravan park owner to allow you access if you do not have an internet connection.
Bear in mind that a Glass Guide valuation is based solely on the value of the unit itself. It does not take into account the value of the pitch it is likely to be sited on. Consequently, this valuation is of most use to people looking to sell their caravan to a buyer who will subsequently take it off the site.
This generally occurs when a caravan has come to the end of its usable life as a holiday caravan and is being removed from the park. Often, the caravan will then be used as temporary accommodation for construction workers, or something similar.
Remember that, as time progresses, the value of the caravan will be subject to depreciation. This is particularly applicable to the value of a caravan in the first three years of its life, when its value decreases most rapidly.
Caravan + Pitch Valuation
If the caravan you are selling will be remaining on its pitch on the caravan park, calculating the value becomes rather more complex. A customer purchasing your caravan is effectively purchasing access to the park itself, which adds to the overall value of the unit. If access to the caravan park in question is highly sought after and difficult to come by, this adds to the cumulative value of the unit.
Acquiring a used van – as opposed to purchasing a new one direct from the park – allows customers a cut-price way to gain access to the park.
The following checklist of factors will all have a bearing on the value of your unit if you are planning to sell it as a holiday caravan on the park:
The condition of static caravan
The age of the static caravan
The location of the caravan on the park
The annual running costs incurred on the park
The potential rental income that the unit could attract if sublet
External factors affecting the wider economy
Park Criteria
While the above advice is useful as a general guide to valuing and selling your holiday caravan, each individual park will have its own requirements and criteria which you will need to be aware of. Read through your ownership agreement carefully before embarking on the selling process. This ensures that you are abreast of what the park requires of you and enables you to keep within their guidelines.
This is vital because you will need the agreement of the park in order to sell your caravan unit. Many parks will also require you to sell the caravan directly through their sales and marketing team, a service that the park will charge a commission fee for.
In recent years there has also been an increase in the amount of web-based sales platforms available to caravan owners in the UK, offering owners yet another way to market and sell their holiday caravan. For more information, take a look at our guide to Marketing Your Caravan For Sale.