I don't see a downside to having a great little RV. Even if you choose to settle somewhere, you can always rent it out or AirBnB it. It's still a great asset as long as you treat it as such.
We have owned ten different RVs in the last two decades. Most were modest, low cost pop-ups and travel trailers. In most cases I would buy them dirt cheap, fix them up a bit, use them from months up to 2-3 years, and either make a small profit, or get most of my money back, after a Craigslist sale. We have done four epic, summer long trip, from PA. to AK. We have put a couple of hundred thousand miles on them in total, including at least 15 vacation trips to SD. WY. MT. and CO. We did a three year stretch, post retirement, where we spent 60-80% of our time living in our motorhome. All of this info, is a bit of a resume, or prelude to my take on your concept of RVing in general.
That said, In my humble experience, there are several issues with your overall take on the lifestyle, and hopefully I can help some MMMer step back and say, "that really got me thinking, and helped me dodge a big mistake". I actually did just that with a long PM thread to a member here, recently. We worked through all the possibilities of how to best take a long, "bucket list" family trip, and the concept of buying a "cheap" motorhome VS renting. In the end I think I helped him conclude that a "cheap motorhome" was a potential wallet sucking disaster, and that a multi-month rental wasn't really as horrifically expensive as it appeared to be, at first glance.
First, the bad. Since you (or most looking at hopping into the game) don't see any downside, I can assure you that there are many, and for some families and other folks out there, the biggest one is that it can take you to your knees, financially. Unless you are buying a pop-up camper, or a very small travel trailer, chances are you either are going to end up with a big vehicle to pull a big trailer, or a motorhome. There is little chance that you will be buying a NEW combination (truck and trailer) or motorhome, for less than $60-70K. It's certainly possible, but in reality, out in the wild, we typically see new family combinations as new diesel four door trucks pulling new large bunkhouse trailers, which is pretty much an $80+K wallet killer. THe other common sight is new, low quality, high volume motorhomes from mega-manufacturers, like Thor and Forrest River. These rolling shit boxes are commonly $80-90K. Now two really stupid things happen to new RV owners, and they usually fail to pay attention to either, until they are bleeding money, and feeling screwed. First, most new RVs roll off the dealers lot with a MORTGAGE! No, it's not a loan, in the car loan sense. It's a mortgage, since it typically is written for a fifteen or twenty year term. The reason for this is simple. The average dumbass consumer sucker cannot afford a new RV, yet wants to satisfy their desire to enjoy the lifestyle. The answer for this is to be able to hand them a $35K travel trailer and say, it's your's for only $275 a month. (for fifteen years FFS!) When you up the game to a motorhome, the numbers double, triple and more, and the term stretches to twenty years. Now as MMMer, it's obvious to us that falling for this is nuclear grade stupid. One thing that even us money savvy folks may miss, however, is that an RV depreciates faster than anything you may have dealt with in your personal experience, with the exception of warm ice cream. Most RVs take a massive hit as soon as they are titled, it's common to see 20-30% right out of the gate. This continues, and seven to ten years on, it's pretty common to find really nice RVs that are available for 25-33% of their original purchase price. If you held on like a real chump, and are nearing the end of your twenty year motorhome mortgage, your "asset" might be worth 10% of what you paid, or less. If it's poorly maintained, and has any significant water damage (extremely common) it may have no value at all, as you pay your last few $400-500 monthly payments. A lot of folks with RV loans end up at some point deciding that they want out. For many they are only walking away if they can pony up a lot of cash to bridge the gap in the loan, since they have been upside down since they signed the note, and will remain so, for the majority of the life of the loan. It's nothing to have a 7-10 year old travel trailer with a value of $7-8K wholesale, and a loan balance that is $4-5K higher. Unfortunately, a few fellow members here have dealt with elderly parents, who are in the same spot that we encountered several times while shopping for a nice used motorhome. That being older women who are recent widows and stuck with expensive RVs that they cannot afford to keep, can't handle operating alone, and can't afford to get rid of, since they are so upside down on the loan.
Now, most of us are saying to ourselves, "well OBVIOUSLY I'm smart enough to find a good used RV, since only chumps buy new ones". If you have a lot of experience in the hobby, or can drag somebody along that does, you can find a great deal on a great used one. There are countless potential traps when shopping for, and buying one, so it's important to be educated on all the things that can go wrong, and what to look for. They are fairly complex, since they are essentially a fully functional house on wheels. If you want a motorhome, you not only have the house on wheels, but you are essentially buying a medium to heavy duty truck tucked underneath, which adds a whole other level of complexity and cost. The other concept that many have a rough time processing, is that, from a quality standpoint, many of these things are absolute shit. Youtube has many videos of stunned purchasers of all kinds and brands of RVs, what are shocked by what a piece of crap they are stuck with and how poorly the manufacturer and dealer respond to their concerns.
When shopping for a uses one, probably the two biggest issues are leaks and slides. RVs are a device designed to leak and rot. If it's not leaking now, and it's not obsessively inspected, maintained and re-caulked on a regular basis, it will be leaking soon. Leaks are most common on roofs, but sidewalls and floors are not exempt. Most newer units have paper thin fiberglass sheeting covering the sides, and it will bubble, get wavy and look awful if it gets water intrusion behind it. This is called "delamination" and it is a deal breaker. Leaks also appear as stains on the ceiling and interior walls, and soft spots on the floor.
Leaks are like icebergs. You see a water stain at a bathroom skylight? Well it's 10% of the issue, the other 90% is the rot and black mold hidden in the bathroom wall, and it's a $4K repair. Slides are the big sections of wall that move in and out to make the interior bigger, once parked. Slides are great and a horror show, all at once. Slides have complex operating systems and they are often a source of major issues. There is no shortage of new RVs that ended up getting shipped back to the factory for major repairs, since nobody in the dealer network could get the thing to function properly. Since they open and close a huge chuck of the wall in an RV, they are also another fertile ground for leaks.
Owning an RV can be a really pleasant experience, if you get a good one, and you are a really talented handy-person. There is simply no getting around the fact that you will be doing a lot of DIY repairs to your RV, and typically have a list of things that you need to work on, when you have the time. Like many who spend months on the road, I carry a full chest full of mechanics tools (that thing is about 80LBS) , an eight foot step ladder strapped to the roof access ladder on the back wall, a smaller bag of service tools to do common electrical, plumbing, and light carpentry repairs, an organizer stuffed full of small hardware and repair parts, a large collection of manuals that came with the motorhome, and a battery drill and impact gun set. Obviously, a laptop to research and watch DIY videos is critical too. Now this constant stream of low grade repairs is going to happen, if you can handle them, or not. Big repairs are far from unusual either. Refridegerators and AC units are common failure points. These can be addressed for a a few hundred bucks as a DIY project or 4X as much if you need to take it to a dealer. If you don't have the skill set, you are going to have to find a service provider. Typically the best way to handle that is to us a mobile RV repair service. These folks tend to have a good reputation and change a lot less than dealers. Dealers can be brutal, and it's common for a large dealer to get $150 an hour to do service and repair work. On that note, BTW, I would strongly suggest avoiding most of the mega-dealers, since they tend to be a great place to NOT buy any new or use RV, OR get service work done. Long wait time, incompetent service, and getting screwed are far from usual. There is one really big chain out there, that is famous for fucking customers over. "World" famous in fact. I budget a couple of thousand a year in repair costs for our motorhome. The last few years it's been running $1000-1500. This year it hit nearly $4K, since it need all new tires and some axle work that was far too heavy for me to do as DIY work in my driveway. A lot of this is parts only. For example, replacing my 12 Volt converter was $150 for the new part, and two hours of removing and reinstalling cabinetry and electrical systems to access the old one. I would expect the same job, done at a dealer, would of run 3-4X as much.
When it comes to renting your own RV out, most savvy folks avoid it. The large rental agencies charge some hefty fees to rent pretty basic, generic motorhomes. They do so since it's a tough way to make money, and customers are brutal on their equipment. A large part of their clientele is Europeans who are completely new to piloting a huge piece of equipment, and have never camped before. I have assisted many, while camping near them, especially in National Parks. On other occasions, I have watched renters do things that made me cringe, and say, "Another reason to never rent your motorhome". Interestingly, Cruise-America, the biggest player in the game, has units custom built to their specifications to eliminate a lot of nice, yet trouble prone features, and built a more rugged RV than the typical crap that you find from most manufacturers.
I'm absolutely addicted to RVing, and will always have some type of camper. That said, it has a lot of serious downsides, it is a very expensive hobby, and at no point do the words "Asset" and "RV" belong in the same sentence :)