Narrowing down the options?

Last Tuesday I attended a ServiceNow User Group meeting at the Jefferson County Fairgrounds.  Afterward, I skipped down the road to Camping World of Denver to do some RV comparison on a cool, cloudy day. I found a couple smaller Class A Gas RVs that I wanted to come back and look at with Audrey on Saturday, along with a 5th wheel.

More research shows that the 5th wheel has a pretty unique layout – I can’t find anything comparable. It has three slides, two in the very back that expand the living space with a couch and a coffee table curbside and a freestanding dinette, refrigerator, and cabinet space streetside. The rest of the kitchen is along the back wall of the trailer.

The third slide is for an east-west queen bed, leaving room for a large closet across the front, and lots and lots of storage curbside.

The upsides:

• It’s hard to believe how open and apartment-like this plan is.
• There’s clearly room for a proper gaming table right in the middle.
• This thing has got SO MUCH STORAGE…look at dem overhead bins!
• Audrey says that she’ll feel WAY less bad about customising this than she would about buying something newer and painting every wall right off the bat.

The downsides:

• It’s old. Camping World calls it a MY2000 Forest River Spinnaker 33RKT, but there is no such model – there is a 1999 Spinnaker M-32RKT, however.
• It’s listed at $17,000. Top Dollar NADA is $12,480.
• For not a lot more money, we could buy a *new* TT or 5er similar in size, but we haven’t been able to find something with this peculiar layout that gives so much room. Most other “Rear Kitchen” models have this weird attached island thing going on, so the space in the middle is intruded.
• It needs a fair amount of TLC – the carpet could be replaced, the cabinets are showing their age (a couple of them have clearly been repaired at some point, and the repairs aren’t top-flight.), and everything is dated.
• There’s no TV, when that was standard at date of sale.
• No Washer/Dryer, or room or hookups for them.
• Also, we don’t actually own a truck at this point, so that adds a fairly serious wrinkle to the plan.

It’s tempting. Maybe we’ll go look at it again, make an offer of $12,000 and see if they bite.