More San Diego County RV dealers closing but not us!

I just heard today that Camping World in San Marcos has closed its sales department and moved all its RV's away. It happened about a month ago - I don't know how we missed that news! The only large new RV dealers left in San Diego are La Mesa RV and Holland RV, next to each other off the 52 freeway in Kearny Mesa. Travelon in Santee closed last weekend and 10,000 RV closed a few weeks ago. Vacation Station and Beaudry RV left town months ago. Revolution RV went down with a scandal last year and many small RV lots have closed their doors since last summer. Another independent dealer in El Cajon is closing soon but is selling off what they can before the inevitable happens.

Rice RV is holding its own, partly because of our busy rental season, which gives us a cushion for the slower times, and also because our overhead is low. The dealers that have gotten into financial trouble took on large loans for "flooring" new units (encouraged by the RV manufacturers' strict purchasing rules). When sales slowed down, they still had to pay for those units. At this point, our sales are all consignments or units we purchased ourselves.

There is still a large market in San Diego for recreational vehicles (though not large enough right now to support the huge inventories some dealers took on) and, as the U.S. economy picks up, RV sales in San Diego will likely boom again, but with a very different business model than that previously run by the RV manufacturers, dealers and lenders.