RV Loan / Secured Personal Loan Advice

Hello there-

I am 23 y.o., currently working full-time managing the office team for a company in the outdoor industry. I am making $18.50/hour gross. I basically have no fixed expenses other than auto insurance (and hopefully RV insurance soon). I own my truck outright which is worth $8500-9000, and I am looking to purchase a slide-in truck camper for $9k. I can probably come up with $1-2k as a down payment if need be. If I can make this work, I will continue to legally reside at my parents' house rent-free (about 40 min from my work with clear roads and no traffic - sometimes 1.5 hours+ with snow and traffic) but will stay in my camper closer to work just as often. I have lived in a van before and I have been wanting a camper anyways because I spend a ton of time camping. I figured instead of spending $1200/month on rent closer to where I work, I could just spend $250-500/month (depending on loan terms) on a really sweet little camper and look at it like a mini-mortgage.

Today I applied at Wells Fargo and at a local credit union and was denied both times due to limited credit history. WF said they'd reconsider if I had a co-signer. My immediate family knows I'm good for it and would probably be comfortable co-signing for something else, but they are pretty conservative and I don't think any of them really approve of or appreciate my van/rv lifestyle, so I'm honestly not comfortable involving any of them in it.

I have a little over 2.5 years of credit history, with one late payment about 22 months ago (I know - dumb. I've changed since). My credit limit is $2900 between my 2 CC's, I generally keep a balance between 0 and 400. My credit score was well above 700 until I opened a second credit account 2 months ago which I guess temporarily decreased my FICO score by cutting my average age of accounts in half. My most recent credit update (3 days ago) from experian was 683.

What are my options here? Is there anywhere specific I should be applying for an RV loan? Are my odds better if I apply for a secured personal loan and back it against the value of my truck?

Also, is it true that my credit won't take an additional hit for applying at a bunch of financial institutions within 30 days? I don't want to apply 10 times just to be denied and ruin my credit.

Any advice is welcomed.

Thanks much.