I need an education on campers

I am in the process of purchasing land that I will eventually build on, but I want to take advantage of this hot market to sell my house. Before I sell, though, I must have a place for my wife and me to sleep at night. The quickest way to make that happen is to put an RV on our newly acquired land. I have never owned a camper before so I don't know good vs. bad brands/styles/features/etc. I do not plan to move around much with the camper. I will set it up on our land and live in it for up to a year, until we get something built that we can live in. Then, unless we catch the camper bug, we will most likely sell it. Of course we want as much room as we can get, but I also want to be able to tow it with my Tundra. I fully expect to get a WDH, but I don't know about anything else I will need to get.

Can y'all offer any advice?

 

Join some RV forums, they have forums just like this one for Tundras. You can research there, gets lots of good info, just as you would here, all for free...but it is all about campers/RVs.

My main suggestion is to know your trucks payload (on sticker in driver door sill). If you look at campers that weigh (tongue weight) within your payload capacity you are good to go. Payload is what your truck can carry and includes the weight of all cargo, passengers, whatever is in the bed and the tongue weight of the camper. Worse thing is having too big a camper and trying to pull it with a half ton when you really need a 2500 or 3500 HD truck. Can hurt your truck, is unsafe for you and everyone around you.

Check the towing forum here for starters, some good info on safe towing and Tundra's capability.

 

This forum below is a very active and good one. The Coachmen campers are great. There are many sizes and models obviously. Coachmens website has layout diagrams of some of their models to give you a good starting point.

https://coachmenrv.com/

https://www.forestriverforums.com/forums/f214/

 

I was told by several people when I bought mine that everyone usually gets a bigger one in about 3 years. I had mine for 3-4 years and sold it wanting a bigger one. Will you be dry camping at the site? If so you’ll need big tanks. Showers burn through gallons of water fast. Other than that, the warranties suck.

 

Dont buy one with wood framing,it will leak and the framing will rot and you will cry.

 

Weight distributing hitches are worth every penny.

 

Yeah, if you don’t have power, water and sewer ready on the site it will be really rough. Also living in a trailer for a year within the Tundra’s payload capacity won’t be fun.

 

Another vote here for either looking for a house or Air BNB to rent or going for a "park model" trailer if you don't have plans to camp with the trailer and the Tundra after your house is built

My friends are moving back to Canada and were looking to build a house but, when they saw the price of lumber, they quickly opted to rent for a year.

 

Years ago we had our previous house built. Was one of those affordable builders that only do their specific homes, I provided the land and was responsible for all site work and utilities. We stayed in a “less than ideal” rental nearby for almost a year. I would much rather do that again than stay in my camper for a year, and we have a 32’ and do about 10 trips a year.

 

If you have the power/water/sewer noted before you could go bigger and have someone move it into place for you. Depreciation stinks on campers so you could look for a used one and sell it after a year and really only loose about as much as a couple months of mortgage payments. Finding a used one might be better now anyway as the lead time for new ones is pretty long now. Local dealer here had only 6 new units on the lot that were not already sold and lead times were now pushing out to late fall or end of the year.

 

Thanks - I'll check these out.

I'm going to have electrical run to it, which will also be the electrical supply for the house once built, and will have a well dug, if not before moving into the camper, then shortly thereafter. I know a guy who does well water filtration so I'm pretty set up with that. He happens to work for a well company that does good work as well. I wasn't planning on buying new.

It's just my wife and me plus our two golden retrievers. I'm going to build a semi-temporary fence for them. We will be staying on the property we are buying. I'm going to have electrical run and a well dug. The back of my property runs off into some wetlands, so I can run a temporary drain pipe until I get the septic system installed. I had not thought about a larger RV like you mentioned. I kind of like that idea. I can also check into rentals, but the market has driven those prices up to insanity as well. That has been the case around here for several years. They can't build stuff fast enough.

We do have the option of staying with my in-laws for a short while, but not for long enough to build a house. And my commute from their house is about an hour and a half one way.

Thanks to you all for your thoughts. This is happening pretty fast so your input on this is VERY helpful!

 

Living in a camper sounds much much easier that it actually is. And for someone who doesn’t have a lot of experience with campers it is going to be a frustrating learning curve. IF you decide to do it - sewer, water and electricity are an absolute must. Do NOT but new especially if you think you’re going to sell it once the house is framed out. If you’re serious about doing this I think you’d be much more comfortable in a tiny house structure. You would still need water and electricity but could then use it as a “guest house” once your house is finished. Even shipping containers can be made into a livable structure for short periods of time…..

I have had campers for two decades and although the current one is 26 feet long and has a comfortable floor plan, there is absolutely no way I could live in it long term, especially with our two dogs

 

To bad you’re down south. We were going to do the same but are staying in a rental till we get a house plan together with the lumber prices it’ll be a bit.

We are going to sell our RV. We are hoping to break even or make a few hundred.
26’ that we have remodeled. Roof sealed and brand new tires. 7000lbs dry and I have a WDH. We are in DE

 

IF we do the camper thing, it will only be for a few months while we get the initial living space done - like a "barndominium" or a living space attached to what will become the garage for the house. My initial post said a year - I blew past this stage in that description because my son was pushing me hard to go watch the first episode of Bad Batch with him (just finished, and it's pretty good). I hope the camper will be the last resort, but we may well come to that. We're just trying not to miss out on this super hot housing market. I'm even selling a rental property that I've had for less than five years - because I will likely 4x my investment with just the sale! All of this will go into the new house of course, and then I'll try to get other rental property later when the market crashes.

 

Thanks for the pics Chris! What do you mean by "toy hauler?" Does that just mean there is storage space for an ATV or something?