A camper van from a professional shop holds roughly 70 percent of its combined value at 3 years and 60 percent at 5, and the two halves of it fall at different speeds. The chassis has a commercial buyer pool underneath it that has never heard of van life. The conversion is worth whatever one buyer thinks of your taste. Here is what closes the gap between them.
The short answer
- A camper van loses about 15 percent in year 1, 30 percent by year 3 and 40 percent by year 5.
- The chassis and the conversion depreciate separately: a used high-roof Sprinter has a commercial market, a bespoke interior does not.
- An itemised build invoice, a wiring diagram and service records move the sale price more than any single upgrade.
- First Citizens Bank funds RV loans on vehicles less than 5 years old, so a van sold at year 6 meets a cash market.
- Removable cabinet kits from $18,000 put a floor under resale, because the van goes back to being a cargo van in an afternoon.
- A van still titled as a cargo van sells into a smaller market than the same van retitled as an RV.
What a used camper van is worth
Start with the whole vehicle, because that is how it gets listed. A camper van loses roughly 15 percent of its value in the first year, 30 percent by year 3 and 40 percent by year 5. Across every class of recreational vehicle the first year alone runs 18 to 21 percent, so a camper van on a commercial chassis is one of the slower falling things in the category. That is the good news, and it is most of the good news.
The curve flattens after year 5 and then keeps going down. At 10 years a van has typically lost around 55 percent and at 15 years around 70 percent. None of it is a straight line and none of it is a promise. The only number that matters to you is the one on the day you sell, and the point of the table below is to tell you roughly where you are standing before you get there.
| Years owned | Value lost | A $150,000 van | A $75,000 van |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 year | 15% | $127,500 | $63,750 |
| 3 years | 30% | $105,000 | $52,500 |
| 5 years | 40% | $90,000 | $45,000 |
| 10 years | 55% | $67,500 | $33,750 |
| 15 years | 70% | $45,000 | $22,500 |
Set that against what a custom conversion costs new, which runs $18,695 to $600,000 in the United States, and the loss stops being abstract. On a $150,000 van, 40 percent at 5 years is $60,000 gone.
Divide it by the years you owned the van and it is $12,000 a year, which makes depreciation the largest line in a van life budget and the one that never gets written down. Fuel, insurance and campsites are the numbers everybody tracks, and together they rarely reach what the van quietly loses while it is parked.
The chassis and the conversion do not depreciate together
Every depreciation table in this category treats a camper van as one object with one value. Your van is two objects: a commercial vehicle with an established market, and a conversion with none. They come apart on the day you sell, they are valued by different people for different reasons, and knowing which half you are looking at is the whole skill.
The van underneath
Mercedes publishes the Sprinter Cargo Van from $48,990 to $75,830, with the 170 inch high roof starting at $57,540. Used, that same vehicle sells to plumbers, delivery fleets, mobile welders and shuttle operators, none of whom care what the interior looks like because the first thing they do is remove it. The commercial pool is the floor under your van, and it is the strongest single reason the top of this industry builds on a Sprinter and nothing else.
The Transit does the same job through a wider dealer network and a lower service bill, and the Transit's factory all-wheel drive is a build-sheet fact a used buyer can verify rather than an aftermarket claim they have to take on trust. The ProMaster is the cheapest of the three to buy and the cheapest to fit out, and a Sprinter runs roughly $12,000 above a ProMaster at base list, wider once the specifications match. DM Vans at $97,000 to $105,000 and Glampervan at $30,000 to $65,000 build on the ProMaster exclusively and price that advantage rather than apologise for it.
The conversion on top
The conversion has no book value, no commercial pool and no fallback. It is worth what one buyer, on one weekend, thinks of the layout, the finish and the wiring. That is why two vans that cost the same to build can sell $30,000 apart, and why almost all of the risk in the numbers above lives in the half that came out of a workshop rather than a factory.
The practical consequence is that resale is decided at the order form and not at the listing. Every choice that narrows the next buyer's pool is a choice to pay for it later, and by then the money has already been spent. None of that is an argument against building the van you want. It is an argument for knowing which decisions are free and which ones have a price attached.
A 5-year-old build, valued in two halves
Total$60,000 to $74,000 with the paperwork
The chassis half is close to predictable, because a used high-roof van has a market that has nothing to do with camping. The conversion half is where the entire spread lives, and documentation moves it further than equipment does.
What holds value
Six things move the number up. Only one of them is equipment, which is the opposite of how most people spend the last $10,000 of a build.
- The chassis. A high-roof Sprinter or Transit sells to two markets. A minivan conversion or an unusual platform sells to one.
- A named builder. A van from a shop with a website, a warranty and a phone number that still gets answered sells faster and higher than an identical anonymous build.
- A conventional layout. A fixed rear bed with storage underneath fits the widest pool of buyers. A layout drawn around one owner's hobby fits that hobby.
- Documented systems. A wiring diagram, an itemised invoice and service records turn the buyer's largest unknown into a known quantity.
- Reversibility. Z2Overland sells removable cabinet kits from $18,000 that come out in an afternoon and leave a cargo van behind.
- Certification. DM Vans at $97,000 to $105,000 and Storyteller Overland at $160,000 to $220,000 are RVIA certified, which means the build was inspected against the industry's electrical, propane and egress standards rather than self-attested.
Layout is the item people underrate, because it is the only one on the list that cannot be changed after the sale. A fixed bed over a usable garage is what the widest pool of buyers is searching for, and a van that has one gets compared against other vans instead of explained. A pull-out sofa bed, a bathroom that eats the galley, a desk built for one person's job: each of those is a conversation you have to win at every viewing.
Reversibility is the underrated one on the other end. A removable kit is worth less than a fitted interior when the camper market is strong and worth considerably more when it is not, because the van underneath can be sold to a trade buyer in a week. That optionality has a value even in the years you never use it, and it is the only feature on the list that pays out precisely when everything else is going badly.
From the desk
We watched two Sprinters from the same model year list within a week of each other, one at $118,000 and one at $89,000. Same chassis, mileage inside 4,000 miles of each other, comparable equipment. The difference was that the first came with a build invoice, a wiring diagram and 5 years of stamped service, and the second came with 40 photographs. The folder was worth $29,000, and it cost nothing to keep.
What costs you on resale
Personal finish choices cost the most and are the easiest to talk yourself into. A bold cabinet colour, an unusual worktop, a mural on the sliding door, a ceiling somebody spent 3 weekends on. Every one of them is a reason for a buyer to negotiate and none of them is a reason to pay more. That is a genuine tax on individuality and it is worth paying if the van is staying with you for a decade. It is not worth paying if you already suspect it is not.
An undocumented self-build is the second, and the discount is steeper than most builders expect. The buyer is inheriting a stranger's wiring behind a wall they cannot open, and the only honest response to an unknown is to price it low. A finished self-build with a diagram, receipts and photographs of the work in progress recovers a good deal of that gap. An unfinished one recovers almost none of it, because the next owner is buying somebody else's abandoned project along with the van.
Weight is the quiet one. A build that has eaten its payload cannot legally carry what the next owner intends to bring, and Mercedes publishes 3,450 to 3,814 lbs on the 170 inch high roof 2500 before a single cabinet goes in. A buyer who runs the van over a public scale and finds 300 lbs left will walk away from an otherwise perfect vehicle, and the ones who never weigh it find out on a mountain pass instead.
Then paperwork, which is the cheapest of the four to fix and the one most often left undone. A van still titled as a cargo van sells into a much smaller market than the same van retitled as an RV, because the buyer's insurer and the buyer's lender both read the title before either of them looks at the photographs.
Costs money to get wrong
A cargo title costs far more than the retitling fee
A converted van still registered as a cargo van is insured as a commercial vehicle, and a commercial policy does not cover the $65,000 of conversion inside it. Most RV lenders will not fund it at all. Retitling runs $200 to $600 plus a state inspection in most places. Skipping it removes every financed buyer and every RV insurer from your market, and you find that out on the Saturday somebody finally wants to buy the van.
Why year 5 decides your buyer pool
First Citizens Bank publishes RV loan terms covering new or used recreational vehicles less than 5 years old, from $2,500, over terms of 5 to 15 years, with 20 percent down and a minimum credit score of 670. Its own worked example runs at 6.80 percent fixed with a $100 origination fee. That is one lender's product rather than the whole market, and the age limit is the part worth writing on the wall above your desk.
A van past 5 years old falls outside a large share of RV loan products, which leaves the buyer bringing cash, borrowing against a house, or taking a shorter and more expensive vehicle loan. Each of those removes people from the room. An RV loan on a used conversion is what turns a $95,000 asking price into a payment somebody can say yes to, and the month it stops being available the price has to fall until it meets whoever is left.
So the practical read is that year 4 is a better time to sell than year 6, and the difference has almost nothing to do with depreciation. It is the size of the room. A van that 200 people could finance and a van that 20 people can buy outright are not the same asset, whatever a depreciation table says they are worth.
Private sale, dealer trade, or consignment
A private sale gets the highest number and costs you the most of everything else. You are selling a $90,000 vehicle to a stranger who has to arrange finance, insurance and often a flight, and the process runs in weeks rather than days. Expect to answer the same 6 questions 30 times, and expect at least one buyer to fly in and change their mind in the driveway.
A dealer takes it in a morning and pays less for it, and the gap is mechanics rather than greed. The dealer has to recondition the van, carry it on the lot with borrowed money, stand behind it afterwards and then find the same buyer you were looking for. Every one of those has a cost and all of them come out of the offer before it reaches you.
Consignment through the shop that built the van is the third route and the least known. A shop that already sells finished inventory can put a used van in front of the exact buyer who came in to commission one, which is a better audience than any classified listing reaches. Ask what the commission is, whether the van is stored inside, and how long the average consignment takes, because 3 months on a gravel lot undoes every hour of detailing you paid for.
| Route | What you get | How long it takes | What it costs you |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private sale | The highest price in the market | 3 weeks to 6 months | Your time, the viewings, and the whole reconditioning bill |
| Dealer or trade | A cheque and a finished transaction | 1 to 3 days | Reconditioning, lot time and warranty, all priced into the offer |
| Consignment with the builder | The right buyer without the legwork | 1 to 4 months | A commission, plus the van being somewhere you are not |
What a private sale actually costs to run
Total$1,550 to $5,350
Every line here is cheaper than the discount a buyer applies to an unknown. Run the mechanical inspection first, because a fault you find is a repair and the same fault found by the buyer is a renegotiation of the whole price.
The shops whose used vans have a market
A working secondary market at a stated price is observable rather than predicted, and it is the strongest resale signal available to you before you have even bought the van. Vanspeed keeps completed Sprinters in stock at a 26,000 square foot facility in Westminster, California, building at $115,000 to $175,000. The Vansmith runs a rotating inventory of finished vans in Boulder at $120,000 to $220,000. Outside Van produces over 100 Sprinters a year in Portland at $125,000 to $250,000 and backs them with a warranty that runs 3 years.
A warranty that outlives your ownership hands a real asset to the next buyer, and so does a shop that is still trading, still answering the phone and still able to service what it built. Certification does the same job from a different direction, which is why DM Vans and Storyteller Overland put an inspection record in the buyer's hands instead of a reassurance.
If resale is part of the plan, the question worth settling before the deposit is which shops at this level have a used market behind them, and comparing the premium builders side by side answers it faster than scrolling used listings for a month does. A shop with inventory, a warranty and a certification has already told you what its vans are worth in 5 years, because it is trading them today.
When to sell
Spring, if the timing is yours to choose. Vans listed in February and March meet buyers who are planning a summer, and the same van in November meets people who are not. The seasonal spread is worth more than most of the reconditioning you would do, and it costs nothing but patience.
Before the warranty expires, if the van carries one, because the remaining term is a number the buyer can price. Before year 5, if the buyer pool matters more to you than the mileage does. And before the first major system fails, because a van needing a $4,000 battery replacement gets negotiated down by more than $4,000 every time. The buyer prices the work and then prices the doubt about what else is coming.
The one timing rule that overrides the rest is to sell while you still want to. A van you have stopped using deteriorates on the driveway: seals dry out, the battery bank cycles down, mice find the insulation, and the photographs start to show it. Two years of not quite getting around to listing it costs more than any season you could have picked.
The folder that closes the gap
Everything above narrows to one habit, which is keeping the paperwork from the first day rather than assembling it in the last week. Most of it cannot be reconstructed later. Nobody remembers the serial number on a heater that was fitted 4 years ago, and no shop wants to write a wiring diagram for a van it delivered in 2022.
What to keep from the day you take delivery
- The itemised build invoice, with the conversion priced separately from the chassis
- The wiring diagram, showing battery capacity, every charge source and the fuse ratings
- Make, model and serial number for the heater, inverter, fridge and water pump
- A certified weight ticket from a public scale, taken loaded and empty
- Every chassis service record, stamped or receipted, including the ones you paid cash for
- The RV title, the current registration and the insurance declarations page
- Photographs of the build in progress, especially anything now behind a wall
A buyer who can answer their own questions out of a folder has nothing left to discount for. That is the entire mechanism, and it is available to somebody who built the van in their own driveway just as much as to somebody who paid $200,000 for it. The van that sells at the top of its range is almost never the one with the most equipment. It is the one with the fewest unknowns.
