Fulltiming while building a house- buying with resale in mind

Hello all,

My wife, 7 year old boy, 4 year old girl, and I are planning on fulltiming while building a house. We will be staying on my parent's 5 acres for most of it (at least during the winter) and possibly moving to the property for the spring (and summer if building goes long). Being at my parent's house, we will have a place to go for much of the time aside from the trailer we get.

Since we plan on buying for the time spent building and selling right when we move into the new house, we are looking at minimizing the difference between the price we buy and the price we sell. We have ruled out new for obvious reasons, so we are looking at a used bunkhouse trailer. The big question I have here relates to the best options for not losing a bunch of money. Should we go less expensive such as a 2007 Keystone VR1 310 BHS for $14k, or should we look at newer and nicer, such as a 2014 Heartland BigHorn Silverado 37QB for around $40k? What would hold value better for about a year, and be easier to sell on the used market?

Another factor could be towing. I have a Lexus GX470 with a baby tow rating of 6500lbs. My dad has a Titan with a 9000-ish tow rating but no 5th wheel attachment. If I got a large 5th wheel, I could just hire someone to tow it for me. I should only need that 2-3 times throughout the year. Does this seem like a bad idea?

I may be able to tie into their septic, but I think I will be too far away for it to work well. Has anyone had a septic service come out and pump their tank while staying stationary? Cost effective?

Thanks ahead of time for any input you could offer!
Shaun

Shaun,

First off, welcome to the Forum.

To answer all your questions we'll need a little more information.

1st. You mentioned spending the winter in the trailer. Where in the U.S. are you located? TTs are not very well insulated. I wouldn't even try to over winter in a northern tier area.

2nd. Depending on where your parents live (rural, city, etc.) local ordinances may or may not allow you to do what you want. Many towns and cities do not allow living in a TT fulltime except in a campground.

3rd. Sewage will be your biggest problem. You will be hard pressed to find a company with a pump truck that will service your TT. The only place I've ever seen one was at Quartzsite, AZ. where there are thousands of RVs. The biggest problem is that most pump trucks have too much suction to connect to a RV. The operator also has to know how to do it without imploding your holding tank. If everything else works out I would suggest you get a macterator pump for your sewage needs.

4th. Power and water will also have to be available. The opposite of the winter problem keeping warm is the summer keeping cool if you're in a southern state. Air conditioning needs lots of power.

I'm sure there will be many more members with more suggestions.

Good luck and again welcome to the Forum.

Thanks Don, I'll see if I can answer your questions.

1. I am located in the Pacific Northwest. Right outside of Tacoma, Washington. Winters rarely get cold enough to be too worrisome. We're generally in the 40s at night and rarely dip into the 30s.

2. I need to look into this in a little more detail, but I think we can skirt the rules a little since we will be spending most of our time in the parent's house, and mostly sleeping in the trailer. I know that where I'm building, I can get up to a 3 month permit to stay in an RV onsite.

3. I was worried about sewage. I need to call around and see if pumping it is a possibility, and look into the macterator pump. I was talking to my dad today, discussing how this would work, and he said to just use the house instead of the trailer for black water needs. I don't think that is a 100% reality, especially with kids. I need to work on this topic.

4. I don't think power and water will be much of an issue. I was planning on running a 40amp service (or whatever the trailer needs) off their fuse pannel as a dedicated line, and they have a well that we can use to fill up water tanks. We will have to be mindful of what we are running at a time, I'm sure an AC pump plus a microwave might be too much, but I'm a trained marine electrician, so I think we can figure it out.

Hopefully that gives a little more detail so anyone with a few extra minutes might be able to steer me in the right direction. I'm currently leaning towards the 2014 Heartland, but I haven't had any offers on my house yet, so I may be a little premature looking.

Thanks again everyone!

You can get a sewage cap with a garden hose adapter on it for the trailer.  As long as the trailer is higher than the septic, you can put the end of the garden hose in the septic clean out and leave the trailer's grey valve open. The grey water will accumulate in the grey tank and trickle out through the hose.

Then you can transfer the hose to the Macerator pump and empty the black tank as needed.  If you're showering in the RV the grey tank will fill long before the black, so it's handy to let the grey tank drain by itself.

I did this for a summer while staying on a ranch near Olympia, feeding into the septic system of an old mobile home on site and it worked well.  I'd use the largest hose you can find, at least 5/8 or 3/4 inch.

If it gets below freezing in the winter you'll have to use the macerator for both tanks and drain the hose between pumping sessions.  But in warmer weather letting the grey drain continuously works well.

The septic clean out port isn't the manhole over the septic tank, it's a tee somewhere in the sewer line between the house and the septic tank.  It's designed to let a plumber run a roto-rooter through the sewer line but there's no reason you can't use it for the trailer.

Don't dump directly into the septic tank, use the clean out so the tank baffles can function correctly.  If you dump directly into the tank you'll stir everything up and that's not good for the leach field.

On the old mobile the cleanout was under the front porch, at another cabin where I stayed it was in the crawl space under the house and I just got some PVC pipe and extended it through a vent opening in the foundation to get outside.

Your RV tanks contain about the same amount of fluid as doing a load of laundry in a washing machine, in case your father is concerned about stressing the septic tank.

I went to my father's house to see what their setup was. Unfortunately, they put in their septic long ago enough that they don't even have a clean out between their house and their tank. I think I will start calling septic companies to see what the chances are that someone will be able to pump the tank. We might have to resort to doing as much of our business in the house as possible, other than the middle of the night piddle.

Any thoughts on the resale aspect of the different RVs? Two years old 5th wheel vs a 10 year old trailer? I'm thinking the 5th wheel is going to be nicer to live in, but I don't want to lose $5k on the resale if I can get the other and only lose $1k (or whatever, I don't know). Anyone have any input on that?

1. The older & lower priced the RV is, the fewer dollars you will lose on the resale. After 10 or so years, RV prices tend to level out anyway, but the major factor is simple arithmetic: if the depreciation loss is 6%/year, then 6% of a smaller number is less of a loss. You also stand a better chance of find a buyer quickly if the price is relatively low, and you might even recover all your money.  That, of course, is traded off against your personal copmfort & enjoyment while you are living in it.

2. Towing: you aren't going to do anything with that Lexus or that Titan, so have somebody move it for you. If you buy from a dealer, have them deliver it.

3. Pumping from an RV tank is probably not available in most areas, but you can check around. What you really need to do is dump into a septic tank or temporary tank (cesspool), and then have a septic company pump that out as needed. That service is readily available in most areas. The septic system or sewer lines need not be close - you can use a macerator type pump to periodically move waste water between the RV tanks and the sewer system. A portable system like the Sanicon Tank Buddy works well (I use one to pump out my RV at home), but for regular use over 6+ months I would probably install the permanent model.
http://www.rvsani-con.com/order_online.htm
There are also simple pump systems that use water pressure to pump the waste, but they are more limited in distance and won't push crap uphill.

Thanks guys for the help.

I found a 2006 Keystone Copper Canyon 350BHS that I will be signing papers for on Friday. It is in nearly new condition with no smells or stains. It is a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath with 2 slides. It is big enough that we won't feel as cramped as most of the others that we saw, and it was by far the nicest one that we saw that was under $20k (and that was out the door with warranty, tax, title). We are getting them to deliver it to my parent's house, and they wrote into the deal that they would move it to our property when we want it moved.

We talked to a few local septic pumping companies, and we found one that will bring us a tank and come and pump it for about $100 whenever we call them. Also found a propane company that will rent us a large tank and come fill it up when we need it.

I will be putting in a dump station on my property when we install the septic tank also, and it won't be hard to put in a 30amp service for it also.

I'm pretty sure that at the price I paid, I shouldn't have too much troubles selling it for near what I got it for. I guess I'll see in hopefully a little less than a year when I try to sell it...

From one electrician to another I would suggest running a 50 amp line. Since you are doing the work yourself it won't cost that much more and if in a few years you decide to upgrade then you are all set.

Tom beat me to it.  As long as this is a new installation go for the 50 amp which you may want in the future.

ArdraF

Good point. I'll do a 50amp instead.