How to sell a self-converted campervan when there is no book price

These are the sold comparables Motorhome Pig's underwriting pulled when this van was first assessed in June 2026. They are reproduced here because they show the one thing a seller of a self-build most needs to understand, which is the sheer width of the range. Two vans of almost identical age, base and mileage can be £8,000 apart.

The two cheap ones at the top are almost certainly basic or tired fit-outs. The Ohana at the bottom is a recognised professional conversion, which buys its owner a name that buyers can look up. This van sat in between, and that is exactly where a well-executed private build belongs: worth far more than a rough conversion, worth less than a badged one, and impossible to place without evidence.

The reason for selling is the gentlest one in this whole set of case studies, and the seller gave it in a single sentence on the phone afterwards. “When we converted it ourselves, there was just the two of us,” he said. “We've now got four grandkids, and holidays with the grandkids just aren't working out.” A van built for a couple had been outgrown by the family that built it. Nothing had gone wrong. There was no deadline and no pressure. As he put it: a change of circumstances might be the thing you are looking for.

The conversion itself was not a weekend project. The V5 recorded the body type as Motor Caravan, which in the UK means the build met the DVLA's standards for reclassification rather than simply having a bed thrown in the back. Behind the lining sat 50mm Celotex PIR insulation and sound-deadening pads. Underneath were two 80-litre tanks for fresh and grey water, feeding a pressurised hot and cold system. On the roof was a 100W solar panel running through a Victron MPPT controller into a 110Ah leisure battery, which a Sterling battery-to-battery charger topped up whenever the engine was running.

The graphics on the tailgate are the giveaway that this was somebody's project rather than a product. So is the name. A factory motorhome carries a badge; this one carried a sailing boat, a set of footprints and a name painted on by the people who built it.

Those three photographs matter more than they look. A buyer considering a factory motorhome does not need to see behind the panels, because a manufacturer's name answers the question. A buyer considering a self-build has only one way to judge whether the wiring was done properly, and it is to be shown.

His first email set out the position with characteristic economy. He was, he said, somewhere in the middle on the options: he wanted a hassle-free sale, it did not need to be very quick, but the sooner the better. On price, he had picked a figure by looking at similar campervans on the site and thought it was fair, though he added that he would like to know if he could achieve more. Then, in the same breath, the line that gives away every self-builder who ever lived: “As ever I think our camper van is better than the competition.”

The underwriting came back at £20,000, with medium confidence, noting that his asking price implied a better-than-basic conversion and that the detail he had supplied suggested a thoughtful build. His adviser, Billy, telephoned him on 19 June to talk it through, and what he then did is worth recording precisely, because it set up everything that followed.

Billy told him the underwriters had come back at exactly £20,000. He had tried, he said, to get it in at £22,000. Then he went above his own underwriters: “I'll put my neck on the block here,” he said. “The best I can do is I'll run it at 21, and I'll put that wiggle on as well, so for a return of £21,000.” With the fixed £2,000 fee on top, that is the £23,000 list price the van went live at. The vehicle history check came back completely clean: not stolen, no outstanding finance, no scrap marker, two previous keepers, MOT to 22 November 2026.

The honest postscript is that the £21,000 return was not achieved. The seller eventually received £17,500, which is £3,500 below the figure his adviser pitched on that call and £2,500 below the underwriters' own number. An optimistic opening price is not free: it buys negotiating room, and it costs weeks of a listing sitting above the market while that room is given back. Whether the extra £1,000 of headroom was worth the eight weeks is a fair question, and the answer here is probably not.

It was advertised on the Motorhome Pig marketplace and exported to Auto Trader, which is where most of the enquiries eventually came from.

These are the real questions buyers asked about this van, taken from the enquiry record. Anyone preparing to sell a conversion should assume they will be asked all four.

Point three is the one worth sitting with. A seller trying to close a deal could have answered “plenty of room, come and see it” and got a viewing out of it. This seller sent the tape measure figure to a buyer it was unlikely to suit. That is the same instinct that put the disconnected heater in his advert copy on day one, and it is the whole reason a stranger can trust the rest of what he wrote.

Before the address was released, Motorhome Pig telephoned the buyer to verify her identity, using a PIN she had to read back. That check is why the seller's address is not given out to anyone who fills in a form, and it is the mechanism behind the only worry he expressed about the whole process. Asked afterwards whether he had been concerned about selling the vehicle, he said: not really, it is just, as you say, you check out the people, they're genuine.

Both parties checked in through the appointment system, the seller at 15:58 and the buyer at 16:05 BST. The viewing went well and did not close. The seller emailed that evening to report, in his own words, that the buyer and her husband had seen the campervan and were very impressed, that they were viewing another vehicle the following day, and that they would let him know afterwards whether they wanted to buy.

He also tried to telephone Motorhome Pig three times that evening, at 17:23, 17:24 and 17:25, leaving a voicemail. All three went unanswered. Alison replied by email within minutes to acknowledge the update and to note that he had tried to ring, and the internal task raised that evening said explicitly that someone should call him back. The next recorded conversation with a member of the team was about 41 hours later, on the morning of 17 August, after the buyer's money had arrived. That is the second thing on this page that did not go as it should: a seller who has just finished a viewing and rings three times ought to reach somebody.

The buyer viewed the other vehicle on the Sunday and came back. The sale was agreed on 16 August at £19,500, £220 below the £19,720 asking price, and she paid Motorhome Pig's £2,000 fee that day through GoCardless Instant Bank Pay. That single £2,000 payment served as her deposit and as the brokerage fee; it is one payment, not two, and it is the only money Motorhome Pig received on this deal.

Alison is not a woman, strange or otherwise. She is Motorhome Pig's AI assistant, and she wrote the welcome email that arrived within a minute of this seller's enquiry, praised his written specification, relayed the buyer's question about the bed length, chased his answer back to the buyer, apologised for the missed calls on the afternoon of the viewing, and drafted the internal task that got his MOT correction in front of the advertising team. She also, as it happens, made the phone call in which he described her that way, because the media team's outbound calls run through her number.

He is the second seller in this set of case studies to assume she was a person, and Motorhome Pig would rather say so plainly than enjoy the compliment quietly. There is a public page explaining exactly what Alison is and what she can do, and every message she sends links to it.

Drawn together from that interview and published with his consent, this is his verdict in his own words.