The Motorhome Business

Here Andrew Hughes talks to Vanessa Warwick about 3 ways to get involved with the Motorhome Business.

Vanessa: You are watching Motorholme TV and more from business owner Andrew Hughes right now. Andrew, Motorholme is not a convention hire company and there are a number of ways that you can help people get involved with motorhomes cannot you? Can you talk us through the three ways that you help people get involved?

Andrew: Well that is right Vanessa. What we have cooked up as it were over the past years is a way for owners and potential buyers of motorhomes to earn an income from the vehicles when they are not using it. That is the key and most people have not got the luxury of being able to go on holiday all year round so what do you do with your motorhome when it is sat on your driveway? From our very early start I was approached by a local guy who had a motorhome in that sort of position and we offered to market it for hire on his behalf. From that early sort of one we now operate an identical service, a free service to motorhome owners to offer to rent out their vehicles whenever they are not using them and they can earn on average around £500 for each booking that we take on their behalf. As I say there is no cost involved to them, they just register it for free and we put it up on our website and we offer that service until they wish to cancel.

Vanessa: So you are like a kind of marketing engine and you manage the bookings and take the money and make the pay outs to the owners and so on. So it is very hands off really for the owner is not it?

Andrew: Absolutely. The only thing they have got to do is provide the motorhome in a clean and obviously safe and presentable fashion for each and every hire and generally as we find that owners are very fastidious about their own vehicles and therefore the experience for both the hirer and the owner seems to work very well. We have been that now for over six years and during that time what we found was that a lot people were actually going out and buying motorhomes in order to get involved with our service. We thought we are missing a trick here and why dont we sell them the vehicle in the first place and then at least we know and they know that they are getting a rental spec motorhome from day one. So we selected a specific range of motorhomes that are ideal for motorhome hire and we’ve categorised them into small, medium and large. We steer away from motor techspeak as it were, we keep it simple. Most people can work with small, medium and large we find and we offered what is called buy to let. They key difference between an owner vehicle and a buy to let is we provide whenever we sell a buy to let vehicle an income guarantee. So for every year that they are involved with the service then we pay them a minimum guaranteed amount whether we get the bookings or not. That is how confident we are about the business model that we offer.

Vanessa: And can they use the motorhome themselves if it is not being rented out?

Andrew: For sure yes, as I say the first priority of all of them is it is their motorhome and they go an enjoy it as much as they like and second to that is our service of marketing it in the downtime as it were. And then we do come across a lot of people who love the idea of our business, love the concept of what we do, but really do not want a motorhome on their driveway in any shape or form. That is where we now come up with Motorholme Invest, which allows people to effectively lend us the money to buy a rental specification motorhome and then a very good income off the interest of the loan that we will repay with a service to them for a minimum term of three years.

Vanessa: So talking about the Motorholme Invest Scheme Andrew, that was launched in late 2011 and there is another video on this channel that documents the open day and gives you a lot more information about what the scheme entails and how you can get involved. But to me it seems absolutely ideal for people that have funds sitting in a low interest bearing account to actually leverage that and get a free holiday and maybe an introduction to motorhoming.

Andrew: For sure. That is as I say the key reason why I think anyone would look at the invest product is the high return that we are paying, which is over 10% per annum, the monthly repayment that we make and the fact that it is secured with a brand new motorhome worth considerably more than their investment in the first place. And of course as you say the sweetener of three weeks holiday in a motorhome there is very few saving schemes that offer that.

Vanessa: It might be a nice way to dip your toe in the water if you are thinking of getting more involved in motorhoming and just see if it is for you or not without making too much of a commitment to it.

Andrew: That is right and what the strange thing is a lot of people who have already invested in our buy to let scheme are now actually getting involved in our invest scheme. So it is quite interesting that we seem to appeal to both existing buy to let owners and new investors at the same time.

Vanessa: I just wanted to clarify something about the buy to let scheme. Does the person that is bought the buy to let vehicle, is it actually sat on their drive or is it something that you take control of?

Andrew: Yes exactly like you going out and buying a motorhome and putting it on your driveway. It is just that you are buying a rental specification motorhome and it is has what we call a rental income guarantee attached to it. So it is still your motorhome so it is your name on the document, it is just that it is more geared towards the rental market, but you do get to enjoy it as often as you would like, but obviously the more you are in it the less money you could potentially earn.

Vanessa: So you do not expect a certain commitment from a buy to let owner that their van is going to be available to rent particular in the high season?

Andrew: No not at all.

Vanessa: Oh okay. So could you just sum up then the three things that we have talked about again?

Andrew: Basically we offer a free marketing service in the same way as a holiday cottage agency for anyone who already owns a motorhome. If you are thinking about buying a motorhome, the best way I think to own one is just to go in with your eyes open, but invest in a buy to let model, choose from one of our small, medium or large vehicles. Or if none of that really appeals to you but you would still like to get in on what is the Golden Age of motorhome hire, there is an easy way to do that, which is to invest in motorhome in the form of a secured loan to us and then your savings could be over 10% a year.

Vanessa: Fantastic. So if anybody is interested in any of those three options do get in touch with Motorholme and we will put the number on the screen for you. And presumably you are more than happy to talk to people and work out which is the best option for them and their particular circumstances?

Andrew: Oh absolutely, we do that all the time.

Vanessa: Alright thank you very much Andrew and thank you for watching Motorholme TV.

If you would like to get involved in the motorhome business, call Motorholme on 0800 612 8719 anytime.

Topics: Motorhome Depot Locations, Motorhome Investment Plan, Motorhome Owner Rental, Motorhome Tour Ideas 2012, Motorhome Business 2012, Golden Age of Motorhomes, The Motorhome Business, Motorhome Invest Scheme, Motorhome Hire