NADA Wanderlodge Listings

[davidbrady]

I took a moment to read up on NADA. From the NADA Wiki page:

"Consumers are served by their NADA Guides which provide information about vehicle pricing for new, used, and classic automobiles in addition to motorcycles, boats, recreational vehicles, and manufactured homes."

I'd guess if NADA can provide data for a 1962 MGA they can also do so for a Wanderlodge. In Wanderlodge's heyday they built and sold maybe 50 coaches per year. I'd be willing to bet that BBBB and BirdConnection sell at least that quantity and they can certainly update NADA with selling prices. If NADA has a protocol/algorithm to handle the pricing variance of a 1962 MGA (my first car by the way ) then they can also handle the pricing variance of a Wanderlodge.

If I take a moment it's not hard to put together a pricing picture for used wanderlodges. From BBBB, BirdConnection, and WanderlodgeTrader I gather the following:

M450: ave: $220K, hi: 265K, low 170K
M380: ave: $132k, hi: 135k, low 130k

2 slide LXi: ave: $173K, hi: 175K, lo: 160k
1 slide LXi: ave: $154k, hi: 180k, lo: 123k
no slide LXi: ave: $87k, hi: 118k, lo 77k

1 slide LX: ave: $140k, hi $140k, lo: $140k
no slide LX: ave: $99k, hi $100k, lo: $98k

1997 WB: ave $124k, hi $129k, lo: 119k
1990 thru 1996 Wide Bodies: ave: $58K, hi: $79k, lo: $42k

Single Pushers: ave: $41k, hi 52k, lo 30k
Pusher Tags: ave: $44k, hi: $75k, lo: $35k
Forward Controls: ave: $26k, hi $30k, lo: 20K

BMCs: ave $50K, hi: $50k, lo: $50K

Fifty-five buses in total. As you can see the prices are fairly well grouped. There's a few outliers but not many and they'd quickly filter out as more data is collected. Most folks will look at this and say, "yes, the averages are about correct". These numbers are easily represented in NADA's: average, hi, and low retail numbers. They've been doing it for decades for classic cars, there's no reason it can't be done for birds. It's not that complex; some groups of people want it to be complex, but it's not. All we need to do is lobby the brokers/dealers to funnel their data into NADA and everyone wins. The answer isn't to kill off NADA. There's a wealth of information there, there's free advertising, there's a portal for the common man into the world of birds, there's bank financing and insurance numbers, there's legacy and history there that we shouldn't give up too easily if we can manage. Now, Greg might be correct. Randy may simply be taking credit for something that NADA was going to do anyway, but I don't think so. Given the classic car resource that NADA is they certainly are demonstrating a willingness to hold on to all brands, current and defunct. This is the discussion that should have taken place before someone took it upon themselves to contact Parliament and call NADA; this is absolutely the cause of the anger you've seen, and I think justifiably so.

I don't want to trade barbs, I don't want to point fingers, and I'm glad you guys don't want to either. That's not what WaGu is about and it certainly doesn't continue in the philosophy of yahoo:groups:wanderlodgeForum as propagated by Ernie, Mike, Ralph, and Ron. Let's keep it civil and try to find a solution.

(more to come...)