EarthCruiser is closing!?!?!

[Ozarker]

even with great credit, the bank is going to want its collateral worth something. A 15 year old RV on a 20 year note isn't worth much. At 8% on a $200K rig in 15 years you still owe $82K.

Have you seen what people are asking for a 20 year old vehicle that is "expedition ready" on this site? lol

I didn't mention terms, how about a 20 yr. amortization with a 5 year balloon?

But, seriously, there is more to such a note, credit score is only part of it, ability to repay is the primary concern, income over a period of time might be limited, that's where a balloon may be necessary. Loan reviews annually can bring about any call feature. 8%, lol!

Is someone making 20 year fixed rate loans on RVs that are fully amortized at 8%? Folks ought to jump on that if you find that lender.

 

[Dendy Jarrett]

Gents - I don't know what is happening ... or what you think is happening in this thread but I'm throwing down the warning gauntlet. Pull it back together and start treating each other like gentlemen ... or face being perma-banned. Act like you got some smarts.

 

[ReluctantTraveler]

I’m confused about what’s happening right now? I saw some bickering over loan terms but nothing overtly hostile.

 

[utherjorge]

Wow. The mod comments are another one of those things that is prettttty peculiar about this whole entire situation. Permaban? One might think some things about all this.

 

[Ozarker]

I’m confused about what’s happening right now? I saw some bickering over loan terms but nothing overtly hostile.

Me too, I'm totally clueless and I've read the financing posts 3 times and still can't see any bickering or rudeness going on.

@plh I don't know what that collateral would be worth in 20 years, but judging from ads on this site, there are folks that seem to be pretty proud of 20+ year old vehicles.

Sometimes the collateral isn't the determining factor in making a loan, it could be the borrower. I had a 6 figure loan with a medical doctor that was personally guaranteed by him and his wife that was unsecured, paid off as agreed, no issues. Here's why;

high income earnings, over ten years on the job, excellent credit, both borrowers were active in community affairs, Acid Test (assets/liabilities) 3+ to 1, life insurance assignment, sufficient professional liability coverage and personal risks coverage.

All this meant the likelihood of default was slim, under contract he wouldn't lose work, income and debt to income, considering business risks, this guy wasn't going bankrupt in the next 5 years! Even if he did, there were enough assets to sell off to pay unsecured creditors. Evaluating risk is what loan underwriting is all about, it's an art as well as a science.

BTW, EC could also be heading to Chapter 15 bankruptcy as they may have foreign debt, if so, they could be hung up for several years.

 

[ReluctantTraveler]

On further thought...

I suspect that there may have been some posts that were eviscerated that most of "us" don't know about.

I get notifications by email whenever there’s new posts here, I didn’t see anything come through.

 

[TheDeliverator]

If I was an EarthCruiser owner I’d focus some energy on getting the private support forums and all the valuable information out to a public forum. I can’t imagine all that info being lost.

I imagine future owners would appreciate as well.

 

[waveslider]

Yeah. It’s a shame the owners didn’t create and join an independent owners forum to store all that valuable information. That would have been smart.

 

[Adventr.us]

Regarding the forum: I seem to have found it - at least the one hosted on groups.io if that's the secret stash. However, membership is restricted to current Earthcruiser owners (or employees) only. Fair enough. I understand the difficulty of a wide open group full of non-owner keyboard warriors - and the forum moderator's desire to preserve the utility of the forum for actual owners. But unless that forum content is opened to prospective buyers - such as myself - it's not doing anything to help owners support the resale value of their investment. In that case, as buyer demand further erodes, I'm not sure who the joke is on, actually ...

 

[wfv56]

So what’s the story on the customers that had big deposits on builds in progres? Did Earthcruiser steal their money?

 

[Howard70]

Regarding the forum: I seem to have found it - at least the one hosted on groups.io if that's the secret stash. However, membership is restricted to current Earthcruiser owners (or employees) only. Fair enough. I understand the difficulty of a wide open group full of non-owner keyboard warriors - and the forum moderator's desire to preserve the utility of the forum for actual owners. But unless that forum content is opened to prospective buyers - such as myself - it's not doing anything to help owners support the resale value of their investment. In that case, as buyer demand further erodes, I'm not sure who the joke is on, actually ...

It's called the "EarthCruiser Owners Group" (ECOG) for a reason. You could easily start a "Potential EarthCruiser Owners Group" (PECOG) if you wish. Once done an announcement could be posted on ECOG informing members that they're invited to join PECOG and those that are interested would do so.

Howard Snell

 

[utherjorge]

But unless that forum content is opened to prospective buyers - such as myself - it's not doing anything to help owners support the resale value of their investment. In that case, as buyer demand further erodes, I'm not sure who the joke is on, actually ...

Yeah, man, you're not going to get any information out of those guys, and that's just fine. This is a whole ownership level beyond Raptor and TRX owners; these people have disposable income, and your posts read like you're trying to find out what they're doing.

Same level of interest on their end as those guys with private jets who had that kid tracking their movements.

 

[Adventr.us]

It's called the "EarthCruiser Owners Group" (ECOG) for a reason. You could easily start a "Potential EarthCruiser Owners Group" (PECOG) if you wish. Once done an announcement could be posted on ECOG informing members that they're invited to join PECOG and those that are interested would do so.

Howard Snell

Well, fair enough. But you're missing the point. The forum community is only hurting themselves by not sharing the info with a broader audience at this point. A buyer doesn't know what they don't know ... and a smart one sure won't buy a newly obsolete product that no longer has an operational company behind it unless they can do some due diligence and gain some assurance they can support that product. So the tighter that information is held, the less demand there will be, and the lower the resale prices are going to go.

A "potential" owners group would simply be the blind leading the blind ...

Doesn't matter to me. I think highly of the design and implementation of the Earthcruiser. But I don't have to have one, I'm just exploring it as an option, and there are plenty of other alternatives. I really don't care what the owner's group does, it's their forum after all. All I am saying it has a big impact on their ability to eventually sell their rig at a price they hope for.

 

[waveslider]

I kinda thought the Expedition Forum here was the de facto "potential" owners group for these vehicles. That's how I used it when I was researching.

Howard - is the ECOG independent and run by the owners or is it hosted/paid for/intertwined with EC? I got the sense it was the latter - hoping it was the former.

 

[Howard70]

I kinda thought the Expedition Forum here was the de facto "potential" owners group for these vehicles. That's how I used it when I was researching.

Howard - is the ECOG independent and run by the owners or is it hosted/paid for/intertwined with EC? I got the sense it was the latter - hoping it was the former.

Waveslider:

ECOG is completely independent of both EarthCruiser Australia and EarthCruiser USA. The group was started by an Australian before EarthCruisers were produced in the USA and is currently adminstered by that bloke and two Yanks. EarthCruiser USA has a proprietary web portal and owner’s forum which is still up. I think a lot of current Australian owners communicate via a Facebook group.

I agree with you - I’ve always treated Expedition Portal threads as “potential owners groups”. Several EarthCruiser owners have posted here quite a bit in the past both in direct responses to questions asked by interested folks and as general information. Several have also responded to many direct messages about EarthCruisers. Someone interested in that information could search for it via usernames, etc.

Howard Snell