You have an old RV parked down at the local storage yard. You haven’t used it in years, and you are tired of paying monthly storage fees. How do you get rid of it? No one is going to pay you tens of thousands of dollars for it, so selling it outright probably isn’t going to work. Where do you go from here?
Your eventual solution depends a lot on the kind of RV it is, its age and general condition, and where you live. The first thing you should do is strip the unit of any accessories you think you can sell separately.
For the purposes of this post, an accessory is something you added after you purchased the unit. It is not something installed at the factory or by the dealer. A good example would be the RV skirting you bought a few years ago. According to AirSkirts, a Connecticut company that makes inflatable RV skirting, RV owners are more than happy to buy used if they can get a good price.
1. Offer It to a Food Vendor
Once you have removed all the accessories, it’s time to figure out how to get rid of your old RV. One thing you can try is offering it to a local food vendor as a means of providing mobile service. Simply put, not all mobile food service has to come from a truck. Food vendors are known to utilize old RVs that, while not worthy of camping trips, still work perfectly fine for their purposes.
2. Sell It to a Scrap Yard
A local scrap yard might be interested in your RV for its metal components. If nothing else, its steel frame is probably worth some money. As for how much you would get, there is no way to know for sure. You can only contact a local yard, tell them what you have, and ask for an estimate. But if your only other option is giving away the RV for free, even a few hundred dollars might be acceptable.
3. Donate It to Charity
Speaking of giving your RV away, you might consider donating it to a local charity. Of course, it has to be in fairly good condition to make a donation worthwhile. Local charities are not interested in taking old RVs they cannot resell. If your rig is a pile of junk, no charity will want it.
4. Turn It into Housing
Believe it or not, a growing number of municipalities are beginning to pass ordinances allowing property owners to use RVs as tertiary housing. Such ordinances are one way to combat the affordable housing problem so many cities are facing. If your city has such an ordinance, you might be able to park your RV in your backyard and use it as a permanent housing solution for guests or a full-time renter.
5. Sell It to an RV Park
One final option is to sell your rig to an RV park that offers the camping equivalent of an Airbnb. These types of parks are springing up all over the country. Land owners buy old RVs, permanently park them, and offer them as short-term accommodations for tourists. They are pretty popular in suburban and rural areas close to tourist hotspots.
You have options for getting rid of that old RV you no longer use. If you cannot sell it outright to another weekend warrior or full-time RVer, the options described in this post are certainly on the table. There may even be others you thought of yourself.
