Looking to start our first skoolie build

[Ercflyer]

My wife and I are weekend campers and love to travel when we have time available. We’ve owned several travel trailers and sadly the build quality on them just isn’t there. We want to try our hand at a full sized bus conversion. Things we want are full sized stand up shower, nice seating area to lounge and watch tv, a queen sized full bed just to name a few. I went and looked at. 2003 Bluebird 78 passenger flat nose rear engine this evening and really liked it but am just very apprehensive about purchasing. It looked to be in goo general condition. The owner claims it has been maintained very meticulously as he owns a bus line and hires private drivers for local school districts. The engine is 203k. He also said he had his CAT mechanic put a highway (motorhome) tune on it help it get better fuel economy and a little faster highway speeds. He took me for a test drive and it felt good. New tires, new brakes (rear), recent turbo replacement, and a small exhaust leak was repaired. It just came out of service last week as the guidelines for using a bus here are max 200k mileage so they allowed him to finish the school year. I’ve got him down to $4000. Just wanting to know if that’s a decent price. Our total build budget is 10-12k and we will be doing all the work ourselves. I also have a donor 2017 5th wheel camper that was totaled and the owner purchased it from an insurance auction just to get the fridge. He said I can rob anything else from it for free. 😃. Any advice would be much appreciated