Southern California RV sales face bumpy road ahead

The circuit to showcase RVs is coming to life this month in Southern California as anxious dealers wait to see if consumer sentiment is shifting their way after four years of flagging sales.

Camping World, which runs the largest recreational vehicle network with more than 200 stores, on Wednesday rolled out hundreds of new and used RVs at a campground behind the Pechanga Resort Casino in Temecula.

Most of the lookie-loos were curious but few were buying.

Wildomar resident Kris Hobbs, 73, was looking for a towable RV he can hook up to his 2024 Ford 150 pickup. He wants to sell his 26-year-old, 40-foot long, diesel-powered motorhome and hopes to buy something new within the next year.

“I want to start my 48-state fishing trip before I get too old,” said Hobbs, a retired nuclear weapons technician with the Navy. “My body is getting too old to crawl under the motorhome to make repairs. I’m looking for something easier to maintain.”

Craig Kennison, an analyst who tracks the RV industry, says the market is challenging for shoppers.

“The whole inflation and interest rate dynamic has made it hard on the RV consumer,” he said. “If you look at last year, just as the RV season was getting underway, the whole tariff topic hit, and that weighed on consumer confidence. That really put a good dent in demand last year.

Kennison said there’s more optimism with new tax policy and some people getting higher refunds. “Maybe they’re not so anxious about tariffs, and we could see a better spring. That’s really the hope.”

The five-day Temecula event, which ends March 8, is the second one organized in over a year and a half, following Camping World’s expansion into California in May 2022, according to Mike Ancich, the market manager for the chain’s Fresno to San Diego region. That’s when Camping World bought out Richardson’s RV Centers.

Since then, the chain has assembled an RV empire of stores in Colton, El Cajon, La Mirada, Menifee, Riverside, San Diego, Temecula and Valencia — and in Northern California with stores in Morgan Hill, Redding and Roseville.

The Pechanga campground on Wednesday was crowded with dozens of motorhomes — each one the equivalent of a four-story building in length — and rows of towable units and even modified camper vans, popular with millennials and retirees looking for compact homes on wheels to visit family, or jet away for weekend getaways. The tree-lined RV resort was wired for electricity so shoppers could test air conditioning and kitchen appliances.

Near the resort’s clubhouse, large party tents were set up to sell everything from wheel covers to ice makers. One booth offered wine from a local vineyard.

RVs run the gamut on length, whether they are towed or driven, and comforts in them — like leather reclinable chairs, electric fireplaces, flat-screen televisions, washers and dryers and solar panels. Potential buyers are staring at $300 to $500 for monthly payments over the next 12- to 20-years after making a cash down payment of 20%. The prices on RVs can range from $10,000 to $500,000 or higher.

On the high end, a 45-foot long diesel powered “toy hauler” motorhome has a rear garage to hold off-road vehicles and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. On the low end, there are single-axle towed RVs that connect to a hitch, costing $10,000 to $30,000. There also are souped-up vans that have awnings, beds and and kitchen areas. Some RV vans have super high clearances for off-road camping.

The RVs also come with windows and awnings that slide out or open up for a bar setup. Many have kitchen setups with refrigerators, stoves and sinks. Bathrooms have pull-down seats in the showers and some even have king-sized beds and lofts for kids to sleep.

RV season heats up

Camping World isn’t the only game in town trying to woo RV fans with a huge event.

Blue Compass RV, a chain with more than 100 stores, recently held an RV show at Snapdragon Stadium in San Diego.

The industry’s largest organizer, RV Super Shows — which brings together multiple dealers at single events — is holding the biggest show in California at the Los Angeles County Fairplex in Pomona on March 20-22, after a six-year hiatus at the fairgrounds.

Rob Lynch, the owner and top executive for RV Super Shows, said in an interview that he took over the long-running annual RV show from the RV Industry Association, which ended its involvement in the 10-day event in 2020 during the pandemic.

Kickoff at Pechanga

Wall Street analysts tracking the RV industry told the Southern California News Group that they are closely poring over RV registrations to see whether shoppers are buying or not — including the hundreds of tire-kickers who stopped by Camping World’s event.

Bret Jordan, an analyst with Jefferies Financial Group, had been upbeat that the industry was headed toward better-than-expected times following a Florida RV SuperShow in mid-January — a bellwether event for the industry.

“It doesn’t really feel like it’s followed through that way,” Jordan said. “Obviously, geopolitically, things have gotten a little more fuzzy.”

Adding to the shaky outlook was a report Friday saying the U.S. economy unexpectedly shed jobs in February, pushing up the unemployment rate to 4.4%. The data could put the Federal Reserve in a difficult spot amid rising oil prices.

For sure, some analysts view the RV industry and its soft sales as an early warning sign regarding where the economy is headed.

In the case of Camping World, the company recently halted paying a quarterly cash dividend to conserve cash. Last summer, the company announced plans to close 16 underperforming stores and cut 900 jobs. On a conference call with Wall Street analysts on Feb. 24, the newly minted Chief Executive Officer Matt Wagner said a 17-day frigid weather pattern across the East Coast forced the temporary closure of 60 of the company’s locations beginning in late January.

“This disruption, which persisted through the first week of February, resulted in a year-to-date estimated miss of about 1,500 new and used unit sales,” said Wagner.

A rash of bankruptcy filings by small RV-related manufacturers also has plagued the industry.

RV refrigerator maker Norcold filed for bankruptcy protection in November. Zone RV, a luxury caravan manufacturer collapsed in late 2025 with $40 million in debt. Lazydays Holdings liquidated over $143 million in assets after facing severe financial constraints in late 2025, and auto parts supplier First Brands Group, parent of RV towing vehicle brands Draw-Tite and Reese, filed for bankruptcy protection in October 2025.

Boom and bust

For sure, the industry has seen its share of booms and busts.

Riverside’s Fleetwood, which once employed over 18,000 in the 1990s, filed for bankruptcy protection in 2009, but was eventually absorbed by the recreation group segment of Milwaukee-based REV Group Inc.

Following the Great Recession in the 2007-2008, RV industry-wide shipments fell as low as 165,709 in 2009. Following the financial crisis — which was the final straw for Fleetwood — RV shipments tripled to 504,599 in 2017, according to data provided by the RV Industry Association, a trade group which maintains a headquarters in Washington, D.C., and in Elkhart, Indiana, considered the manufacturing hub of several RV companies.

The industry has seen cyclical shipment swings ever since 2017, falling to 406,070 in 2019, then rebounding in the early days of the global pandemic when people used federal stimulus checks to buy RVs and travel and work remotely wherever they could, according to the analysts.

“It’s been pretty flat ever since,” said Jefferies analyst Jordan.

From 2019 to 2020, RV shipments rose 6% to 430,412, then jumped 39% to 600,240 in 2021 — a record year for the industry. But the following year, shipments plummeted 18% to 493,268 and another 37% to 313,174 in 2023. Over the past two years, shipments have been flat, seeing 333,733 in 2024 and 342,220 last year.

The industry forecasts growth of 2.5% in 2026.

Camping World’s Wagner believes there is pent-up demand for trade-ins following the huge growth last seen in the early days of the pandemic.

“We anticipate this will create a substantial wave of trade-in demand over the next several years,” said Wagner on last month’s call with analysts. “We are taking decisive action in 2026 to cleanse and optimize our inventory portfolio to prepare us for this trade-in opportunity.”

Translation: Sell RVs by offering deals.

At the Camping World show on Wednesday, Mark Shebly, a 74-year-old retired sales executive, and his wife Sharon, a retired speech therapist, were sitting in a tented area at the Pechanga RV Resort ready to pay $108,000 for a new 43-foot Jayco Pinnacle fifth-wheeler — a type of large, towable RV that connects to the bed of a pickup truck using a specialized U-shaped hitch, rather than a bumper hitch.

They traded in their 40-foot Newmar Ventana motorhome for $145,000.

“They’re writing me a check for the difference,” said a smiling Mark Shebly, who retired from a company in Washington where he sold equipment to stripe roads.

The snowbirds, who live in Edmonds, Washington, from the end of April to the end of October and in the Coachella Valley during winter months, plan to park the fifth wheeler at the Outdoor Resorts Palm Springs RV Resort in Cathedral City, giving them an idyllic view of the 18th hole of a golf course in their backyard.

“The San Jacinto Mountains are visible out the window in our bedroom,” Shebly said.

Michael Houston, 64, and his wife, Rowena, are looking for an RV van in the $80,000 to $130,000 price range with a restroom and bed to catch a nap while one of them drives. “A van is more conducive to park at our HOA in Temecula,” said Rowena. “I don’t want to pay more to park one.”

Michael Houston is a retired radiological technician while his wife — an ultrasound technician — is getting ready to retire. Their plan is travel around the country while taking “traveling nurse jobs,” filling temporary positions at hospitals.

“Stocks are up and down right now, with my 401(k),” said Michael, indicating no plans to leave California permanently as Rowena’s family is from Tustin. “I hope rates come down before prices escalate.”