Good afternoon! At least where I am - good ol' south-eastern USA
Anyways, back to business -
My girlfriend and I are brand new to the skoolie community (or any other alternative living community for the matter) and are in major need of some advice.
Here goes:
We have been searching for the perfect bus for the past 6 months (preferring something that is already converted since we live in an apartment currently and don't have the space to convert ourselves). Well, after a long search full of dead-ends and false hope, we have finally found "the one". She is a 2006 Ford F350 V8 Turbo Diesel with 128k miles and a beautiful bright turquoise paint job (pic provided below).
She is fully converted with lots of insulation, a generator, gravity-fed water system, A/C, and a camping potty which, though very simple and not preferential for many, is exactly what we've been looking for.
The current owners (who were also the ones to do the build) are asking $15k (which, before you ask, is the negotiated price as they were originally asking close to $20k).
Since I don't know many people with fifteen thousand dollars in their pocket (including myself, unfortunately) - that leaves us with two options.
1) Apply for a bank loan to cover what we don't have in cash
or
2) Pay the full amount in cash
Option number 2 is obviously our preference, but there are a few strings attached. Let me explain.
We have an inheritance coming in the next several weeks that will cover the cost of the bus. The money is coming from a property sale within the family. The only problem is that we have to be moved into the bus by March 26th (when our apartment lease ends) which gives us only six and a half weeks.
We have no definite date as to when the property will sell - it's entirely dependent on the bank and the buyer which is out of our hands. If it sells in the upcoming weeks, leaving us enough time to fly out to get the bus, great. But if it doesn't happen during our preferred timeline, we're stuck with the bank as our last resort.
(Disclaimer: Secret option number 3 is to move into some sort of temporary housing while we save up enough money to buy a skoolie out of pocket. But, it wouldn't be this bus, the bus of our dreams, so it's kind of a last resort).
We have been denied by one bank so far for two reasons:
1) The total value of all our assets is not enough to cover the loan amount, should we decide to bail and not pay what we owe.
2) We shared with the bank that the bus is "liveable" and can be titled as an RV (which may have been our biggest mistake as it poses a greater risk to them since we can live in the vehicle off-grid).
I should also mention that the bus is currently titled as a commercial vehicle - that is how the current owners secured a loan for the build.
So here is my quandary to you (wow that was a lot of words):
Should we lower our asking price for the auto loan to $10-12k (which is the estimated value of the vehicle pre-conversion) and tell them that it is going to remain titled as a commercial vehicle for personal use? We're thinking that the less they know about our plans to live/travel in it, the better. We're also wondering, should that method prove successful, what address to give them if we're going to be full-timers in the bus. We're buying the bus in FL, currently living in SC (planning to stay in this state, boondocking in the bus, from late March until September), and then planning to title in TX using her parent's address.
I know this is all pretty confusing, but we would appreciate any and all advice on the matter. We're in a bit of a bind, and would love to know what you would do if you were "in our shoes".
Thank you, Skoolie Community!!
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