Well, I was entering a review today for a campground I stayed at a while ago. I did a new review since they had some major upgrades and thought it was a good idea. It is one park that many stay in. Well in looking at the older reviews on this park and then on others I reviewed I noticed a trend. The daily rates have gone up. Now in three years the daily rates have gone up in the one park I looked at over 38%. Not that I am complaining but this seems to be a trend and they have increasing costs too but I know my income did not go up 38 percent in 3 years. I guess we will all have to live with it but I wonder if this is a result of lower occupancy even though people say they see units there when they are traveling.
John S, Every park I have looked at over the past three years has gone up. Our food, fuel, ins, has all gone way up in cost. FL has no money, our County has no money, and before long we will have no money at this rate. Our income is close to flat. Our dollar is very poor now at around 63 cents. As we travel overseas people do not like our money anymore. We are moving the wrong way in life here in the USA.
John Blue, You are right things have gotten much more expensive all over but to see a 30 dollar site hit almost 50 bucks in less than three years and the place is only 20 percent full is interesting. I know the dollar has fallen overseas but here in a campground you have your stuff in the ground already so you have to pay increases in taxes and insurance and the electric rate is capped by the state so it can not go up that much every year. If they do improvements that is one thing but the same old CG almost doubling in 3 years is going to hurt their business some in the long run.
QUOTE(John Blue @ Aug 25 2008, 09:53 AM) [snapback]12902[/snapback] John S, Every park I have looked at over the past three years has gone up. Our food, fuel, ins, has all gone way up in cost. FL has no money, our County has no money, and before long we will have no money at this rate. Our income is close to flat. Our dollar is very poor now at around 63 cents. As we travel overseas people do not like our money anymore. We are moving the wrong way in life here in the USA. I'll agree w/ everthing, and here we go w/ the politics. 1st, I'm a Republican, but did you notice that when "Mr. Morality" was the Pres, we had money in our wallet, and everyone had a job (those who wanted one). Now, things seem to be just awful. The Big 3 auto makers even THINKING about going under is an eye opener. I could go on, but everyone has heard it all before. I'll take a stab at the CG rates. It could be the ins has gone up so much, because of all of the frivolous law suits. Who knows. I do know this, however. My house was valued at over 500K, a few years back, and my taxes went up accordingly. Now a few years later it's down to 350K, and NO, my taxes HAVEN'T gone down to adjust to that evaluation. Makes you wonder. Anyway, food for thought. Robbie
It is human nature to remember the past with fond memories. The fact is, under Clinton the unemployment rate was higher than it is now. The real estate bubble collapse is isolated to areas where the prices rose at a rate much higher than the rest of the country (Florida, Califiornia, Nevada Etc.) As a responsible banker, don't even get me started on the lunacy of Subprime lending. While the property tax issue is true, property taxes are a local issue and the only solution to the problem is local activism. RV parks are not immune to rising prices and taxes. A little economics lesson may be in order. If a park has 100 spaces and keeps a 90% occupancy at $30.00 per night it's revenue is $2700.00 per night. If they raise the price to $45.00 per night and occupancy drops to 60% the revenue remains $2700.00, yet they only pay utilities on 60 sites instead of 90. Net income will actually increase. Economic theory teaches that if you are selling 100% of your product and there is demand for more you must either increase the amount of product you have to sell (hard to do in a fully built out campground) or raise your prices. The best measure of fair pricing is to compare the prices of nearby campgrounds. If a campground is considerably higher priced than the others and offers no significant advantages it is over priced. With gas prices as high as they are, we are putting a higher premium on location when we choose a campground. I will pay considerably more for a site located very close to my destination. Paying $15.00 more for a site 25 miles closer to my destination is a bargain, since it costs me 4 gallons of gas to drive that 50 mile round trip. I still find RV travel to be a bargain. Just check the cost of a hotel room these days. Believe me a Motel 8 is not $8.00 per night. $30 to $50 per night in my own RV is cheap compared to $100+ for a basic motel room.
That's why I stick to state parks...prices there even when they do go up don't really make that much of a dent in my pocket. But, I do know what you mean about the prices rising and our income isn't....I even hate going to the grocery store anymore, because I have never seen prices rise so quickly than I have while grocery shopping over the last few years.
One other thing, the campground industry is rapidly consolidating. I almost never see a new campground, but everywhere I go, campgrounds are being replaced by development. This lowers the supply of sites which lead to higher prices. There are also considerably more campgrounds that are not owner operated but are owned by large Real estate investment trusts who have sophisticated pricing models that also lead to higher pricing. Finally, KOA, Jellystone and similar franchises are advising and dare I say, pressuring, their Franchisees to price their product as high as possible. Higher prices mean higher revenues and higher franchise fees paid to the franchiser. Agian the net effect is each RV site costs more. We may not like it, but it is a fact we have to face.
QUOTE(kcmoedoe @ Aug 25 2008, 09:37 AM) [snapback]12909[/snapback] Finally, KOA, Jellystone and similar franchises are advising and dare I say, pressuring, their Franchisees to price their product as high as possible. Higher prices mean higher revenues and higher franchise fees paid to the franchiser. Agian the net effect is each RV site costs more. We may not like it, but it is a fact we have to face. I refuse to patronize KOA and Jellystone. I went to a KOA once and I ended up on a KOA junk mail list. Fortunately, I stopped them before they could spread my name even farther. I assume Jellystone would do the same thing. I stay only at State Parks and Mom and Pop parks. They don't spread your information around. On the other hand, State parks usually have contractors running them. So, if I'm allowed to do "self check in," I limit the information I provide when checking in to State Parks. Haven't had an issue so far, cross my fingers. I'm fussy about junk mail. JJ
I can't go into a detailed explanation like kcmoedoe (good information BTW), but I do know that when we first started RVing in 2000 we could get a full hook up site in the $20-30 range. Today that same site is in $35-45 range if we're lucky. AND my retirement annuity has not increased at all. :angry: Go figure. I'm wondering if kcmoedoe can explain that one. JJ, about junk mail. I hate it, too. However, sometimes there are catalogs and other "junk mail" that we want to get, but if we give them our name we get put on bunches of lists for mail we don't want. So what can you do? :blink: We just keep a paper shredder and a big paper recycling can handy. Then we don't have to buy packing material if we have a package to ship. So junk mail can be worth something! I also heard Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes say that if you want to stop the junk mail to take all the paper and send it back to the company in their post paid envelope. He said if everyone did this companies could not afford to send out junk mail. Course that was just his opinion, and I've never done it, but I have been tempted by some of the worst offenders.
Texasrvers, if your retirement income has not kept up with inflation, I suggest you re-examine your investment strategy. Inflation has been running in the 3-5% range in the past few years and you can reasonably expect a 10 to 12% annualized rate of return on a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. If your annuity was not indexed to inflation, you should plan for decreased annual buying power. Annuities that are not inflation indexed pay a higher yearly amount at the beginning knowing that the higher payout will be offset by the long term value of not needing to increase the payout due to indexing. Now the inflation rate does not hold true for ALL items. Gasoline is up 50% from a few years ago, however High definition TVs are down a similar percentage. Again people tend to focus on the issues most close to them. Also, please remember inflation is not a totally bad thing. Would you have wanted to work 40 years for the same wage? Would you want your investments to not increase in value? Would you want your home to sell for the same price you paid for it in 1950? All these items figure into inflation. I know my financial position in retirement is considerably better than that of my parents, and I will bet that holds true for the majority of today's retirees.
kcmoedoe, Gosh I was really joking when I asked if you could explain why my annuity hasn't gone up, but I do appreciate your information.
QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Aug 25 2008, 06:00 PM) [snapback]12922[/snapback] kcmoedoe, Gosh I was really joking when I asked if you could explain why my annuity hasn't gone up, but I do appreciate your information. LOL
QUOTE(Texasrvers @ Aug 25 2008, 11:09 AM) [snapback]12913[/snapback] JJ, about junk mail. I hate it, too. However, sometimes there are catalogs and other "junk mail" that we want to get, but if we give them our name we get put on bunches of lists for mail we don't want. So what can you do? :blink: We just keep a paper shredder and a big paper recycling can handy. Then we don't have to buy packing material if we have a package to ship. So junk mail can be worth something! I also heard Andy Rooney on 60 Minutes say that if you want to stop the junk mail to take all the paper and send it back to the company in their post paid envelope. He said if everyone did this companies could not afford to send out junk mail. Course that was just his opinion, and I've never done it, but I have been tempted by some of the worst offenders. I've done that, shredded it and sent it back to them. However, they have no clue who did it. Also, there is a web site called PRO QUO (I'm not endorsing it, just saying it's there....), I think it's proquo.com, if you sign up, you can CHOOSE which junk mail you want to get. Supposedly. I haven't tried it. When I lived in my RV, I kept a shredder, too. JJ
QUOTE(kcmoedoe @ Aug 25 2008, 12:43 PM) [snapback]12915[/snapback] Texasrvers, if your retirement income has not kept up with inflation, I suggest you re-examine your investment strategy. Inflation has been running in the 3-5% range in the past few years and you can reasonably expect a 10 to 12% annualized rate of return on a balanced portfolio of stocks and bonds. If your annuity was not indexed to inflation, you should plan for decreased annual buying power. Annuities that are not inflation indexed pay a higher yearly amount at the beginning knowing that the higher payout will be offset by the long term value of not needing to increase the payout due to indexing. Now the inflation rate does not hold true for ALL items. Gasoline is up 50% from a few years ago, however High definition TVs are down a similar percentage. Again people tend to focus on the issues most close to them. Also, please remember inflation is not a totally bad thing. Would you have wanted to work 40 years for the same wage? Would you want your investments to not increase in value? Would you want your home to sell for the same price you paid for it in 1950? All these items figure into inflation. I know my financial position in retirement is considerably better than that of my parents, and I will bet that holds true for the majority of today's retirees. I agree with everything you said but the 10-12 percent. There is no balanced investment that will return that over a long period of time backtested. Even the stock funds of the 90s will now only give about 8 percent if you include this decade. The interest rates a 2 percnet and the treasury bonds under 4 and high grade corp at 5 make 10 percent or highe very hard to get. Even small cap stocks in a diversified portfolio have not done so in the last 10 years. But your thesis is correct except for that interest rate assumption.
Before I hit the road again this weekend, I'd like to clarify the use in an earlier post about recent inflation being only 3-5%. While that range is the figure we hear from the government and then the media, we need to understand that for decades the costs used to determine that inflation figure do not include many true costs of living. Correct me if I am wrong, but that inflation figure does not include, among other things, food, medical expenses, housing costs, and (here's the biggie) energy costs (including gas, heating, and electricity). In the past 5 years or so, these cost have risen 10, 15, 20 percent and more per year. When these items rose at rates similar to everything else, it was no big deal. Today, it is riduculous to tell folks that inflation is 5% when the cost of acually costs of living have sky-rocketed.
So true Jerry S. and the good part is our money coming in is flat line or dead. Power company ask for 47% raise, house ins. rates are so high we dropped them, places we like to eat all up and very small number of people around now. Shops owners now tell me no one is looking at anything. Shops that work on cars around here are empty lots of the time. I guess the good times are here! More to come soon, 700 billion to pay back to banks who messed up in first place. Print more money and that will fix it. An RV friend has a new Foretravel from 1998. We worked out the numbers and was depreciating at the rate of $100 per day. Fuel prices are cheap if you think about it.
