I keep hearing about financial help for refinancing mortgages at http://www.makinghomeaffordable.gov/ and wonder if anybody knows if there is help to refinance an RV loan. We bought our motor home in 2006 and our work has slowed down so much that it's choking us to pay this high interest loan. Any suggestions are much appreciated.

So, since I didn't get any replies I'm thinking the answer is no. I guess financial help is only available for those that live in houses or condos and not in RVs.

You ask a good question Rangiebob...
There is an RV Travel, News and Information site I keep tabs on periodically. Check it out. I remember an article talking about this very question.
www.rvtravel.com
Cheers!

Did you take the "are you eligable quiz" on the web site you referenced? Automatically, if you are not a full timer and the RV is not your main residence you will not qualify. Even then I am not sure of the answer but the site will put you in touch with a counselor if you wish and they should have the answer.

I did but the questions were related only to home ownership. However I will go back and see if I can fake it and get somebody to respond.



Well, that didn't work. I was told I was not eligible.




Thanks, Foster, but I couldn't locate a search feature. It is a huge website and I have no idea where to find this info. If you recall anything about where I might find it, I'd be interested.

Right off the bat. I have no facts or expertise in this matter, but I would certainly guess that you would not qualify even if you full timed. A RV is a depreciable asset, where a home is an appreciable asset. With recent history, this sounds incorrect. Homes bought in the hyper valuation period of 2003 to 2007 definitely have depreciated due to a lot of stupidity of borrowers, appraisers, builders, lenders, government officials, and so forth. A house wisely purchased in the early part of the new century or before is probably worth more than it was purchased for and a RV bought in this same time period is probably worth about 25% to 40% of it’s original value depending many factors. It is much easier to get “upside down” (owing more than the value) on a RV than it is on a house. Most of my life, it was almost impossible to get upside down on a house. Only when government policy put lots of people who should have been renters into qualifying for a house and driving up prices, did upside down even apply to housing. When we bought our first house it was 20% down and the loan couldn’t be more than 2 ½ times your yearly gross. I have seen the government do a lot of stupid things recently, but I sure hope loaning money on a depreciable asset isn’t another one.

Couldn't agree more, Lindsay. When we bought our first house in the early 80's, we knew what we felt comfortable paying but the bank and the realtor tried to get us to borrow more. Fortunately, we didn't fall into the trap that has gotten so many people into deep dodo.

We also could afford our MH loan payment easily when we bought it 3.5 years ago. But our business has slowed down and we would love to just refinance the loan, but have found it not possible.

While I agree with most of the statements there can be extenuating circumstances . I bought a house in 84 after transferring to Alaska and financed it with no problems but 4 yrs later lost my job in the downturn of the oil patch and couldn't find another job so it went back to the bank and when they got rid of it I was almost 100k under water on it because the market had dropped so when purchased was well with in the 2 and 1/2 times salary but then once the job was lost couldn't make the payments
PS the bank did demand the 100K even thou the market dropped so I had to come up with it