Yacht purchase; New vs Used

Yeah, he was probably banking quite a bit earning 30k in 1968. We bought our first house about then for $12k with an income around $10k. House payment was $90 per month with owner financing. A different world for sure, fun times.

Do new boat prices even include electronics ?
Quite a while ago a new 47 sporty cost $ 800 K bare naked. I don't believe it even had a depth finder.

In 1992 I bought a brand new 1989 26 Sea Ray with a stern drive for $25,000. It sat on the lot a couple of years so was probably a good deal. I just bought a used 2016 23’ Everglades DC with a 300 Yamaha with trailer for $72,500. I think the trailer was valued at 4,500. The Everglades does have nice electronics which the Sea Ray did not. I looked at brand new 23 DC Whalers and Marine Max wanted 150,000 for those. Whether one has the money or not 150,000 for a 23 footer makes atleast me stop and think.

All these comments are true regarding the incredible increase in cost of boats. That said 50 years ago a family boat like a chaparral was a tub of fiberglass without a stereo, or literally any creature comforts they barely had a windshield you basically sat on the floor. In the lobby at Chaparral they have the original Chaparral boat, looking at that boat it is unbelievable anybody would want to spend an entire day on the water and that thing compared to our standards now. It makes a Carolina skiff look pretty plush. A visit to worldwide sportsman in Islamorada you can see a replica of Hemingway’s pilar that is another example of a boat that is absolutely basic as can be. I can say firsthand that the cheapest boats that any dealers bring in are more often than not the hardest to get rid of people want more speakers better Bluetooth the best vinyl 15 different color options towers more rod holders bigger engines. this is probably indicative of our financing habits socially but the reality is so much of these cost changes are consumer driven. I have sat in front of countless people while they debated a $12,000 hardtop or a $7000 swim step etc and the answer is almost always let’s get it. These prices are not in the Sunseeker world for the extremely affluent but those are the households with the half million dollar income that we are speaking of. From my perspective they got out of their Sundancer bought a piece of real estate and now they’re more than happy to spend six figures on a day boat for the backyard.

Older Boater is right. Friends who own a boatyard/marina/mooring field in NE said that for the first time in many years they have had empty slips and moorings in the last few years. Their business is still good because of repair/maintenance work on big yachts, but they have noticed a drop off of youngish families buying medium size boats. Part of it may be sticker shock, part of it may be simply a generational change away from boating.

Add to that the fact that many of those with the money do not have the time to enjoy boating.

Highwinds implies that there is price gouging and I'd argue that there is very little of that. There's a tremendous rise in the cost of materials including fiberglass, aluminum, steel, electronic, engines and generators, wood for flooring and insides. The minimum profits realized by the builders reflect these costs. Now one additional factor and that is the debt carried by many builders and the cost of servicing it. However, builders are just in no position to charge less.

It's a combination of both. From 1995 to 2005 Sea Ray, Carver, Silverton, and others were cranking out 40' Aft Cabin cruisers for the upper middle class as fast as they could build them. That market does not exist any more. Look at what those brands offer today.

Over that span of a decade prices for those boats essentially doubled from around $200K to around $400K. At the same time home prices were skyrocketing which made the HELOC a popular tool for financing these boats. Eventually however the same thing that made the HELOC funds available and drove a lot of boat sales now contributed to it's demise. For many, housing became too expensive to also own a boat. Between the doubling of the cost of the boats, high fuel prices, even the divorce rate, and the bad news piles on.

Now factor in the next generation's aversion to commit to even a home purchase. Where does that leave the middle class US power boat market?

Well, the vast majority of the middle class US power boat market is under 30' and it's actually doing very well right now in outboard boats. Sea Ray's got 11 outboards in their line and not only are they shipping them heavily to Europe, but they're doing well in the US. They go up to 40'. CC's are doing well and Boston Whaler is the pride and joy of Brunswick. Bayliner is holding their own. Glastron is doing well and Beneteau has introduced a new outboard line. Robalo is doing well for Chaparral dealers.

US Powerboat sales rose 4% in 2018 and are believed to be up 2-3% for 2019. Outboards represent 85% of those sales. Now, the other markets, wakesport, cruisers, jets and PWC's were also up as several of those segments had bottomed out. Wakesport, Cruiser, and Jet sales are only about 10,500, 9.000, and 5,900 units respectively.

I'm referring to non trailer-able boats. Over 30'

I know people here think of larger boats, but that's not the majority of the US market. This started as a discussion of a 40' Sea Ray. Well, now Sea Ray offers outboards up to 40'. A lot of the 30' plus market is center consoles. We talked about people getting into boating. Well, very few people ever started with larger boats.

I'm just saying, don't ignore the rest of the market. The boat you refer to would be a small part of the "Cruiser group" and represent no more than 500 boats per year out of 178,000 sold in the US.

I think most any boat discussed on these boards is in the statistical “small group” category. Bass boats and aluminum skiffs will beat anything we talk about here in terms of sales numbers.

Yeah, I think to your point the question we are asking is, "what happened to the cruiser/aft cabin market"? It has really gone away.

One could suggest the sea ray/silverton/meridian upper middle class 35-50 buyer disappeared because they realized they never should have been buying a boat of that magnitude. These boats are the entry level of maintenance and depreciation and frankly quality. Maybe this segment of the market finally realized they dont want to or financially shouldn't play play that rat race. I think those households are still buying but they are not buying this segment of boat. The numbers back this up. The cruiser market in america along with the freshwater 70-120 foot houseboat market largely died with the financial downturn and never came back.
This is foreign to most coastal boaters but in the heartland of America they were lining up to buy massive houseboats in the 200k-1mm range before the recession. there was 13+ manufacturers making them as fast as they could. Now there is maybe 3 barely functioning.

olderboater is right, outboards are doing well. Read where Viking is now building center consoles along with other well know inboard boat builders, and not just center consoles. Marlow even has an outboard model. A lot of 3 to 6 engine setup's, which keeps me out of that crowd. Also just read an article about diesel outboards in the makings, interesting to see where that goes, maybe a diesel outboard powered Pilothouse MY for cruising! Still, I see highwinds point, even the cost for larger ob vs inboard models can bring on sticker shock for those that have been boating for a long time. No big downside to ob's, except they need to be stored out of the water.

It's not that outboards are doing well as they seem per say. It's that outboards, due to their higher HP, now are in A LOT of boats that never used to have outboards and used to be gas inboard, I/O or even diesel. Searay bowriders, larger pursuits and tiara's, Formula's etc. I ran a 43' Tiara LS the other day with triple 425hp outboards, 10 years ago you would never imagine outboards on that type of boat, but you'd also need 5 of them to get in on plane 10 years ago. Not only that, I got it up to 55 mph with 8 people on it and some gear.

Maybe it's the same when you compare it to housing prices. A regular and I mean regular 3 bedroom deepwater house in Fort Lauderdale is around $1 million. 15 years ago (2004) the same deep water house was around $500k. So yeah boats have increased in price quite a bit, but so has the equipment. In the past year I've run several 40-45' boats that had a $100k seakeeper on them, which is a total unnecessary option. It's nice, but not necessary for how 80% of these people use these boats anyways.

Yeah, a seakeeper in not a necessity, but have been told by a couple of captains they always run it, even when catching bait near the inlet. The mates love it, while working the deck . After buying our first boat with an auto pilot, life was much better. Today, not many buyers want a bare bones boat. All the accesories that make it easier to operate and enjoy in comfort are lot of the increased cost. Same with those waterfront houses. No doubt, boating has always been an expensive past time for boats around 23' and up per hour of use when including all costs of ownership.

It’s a bit funny to hear how SR is doing so well today when they are a fraction in size and revenue of where they have been before. They used to have plants all over the country and the world. Short term views, short term opinions are not covering the whole story.

The ma and pa dealers that built the brand alongside the middle class have gone by the wayside, mega dealers are the norm whose business model has a hard time relating to the middle class, everything is marketed as a yacht, seekeepers and electronics galore on everything, their business models add hidden costs that drive prices up, not down as you would hope a mega dealer could. No understanding of value and what represents value to the consumer.

Before SR sold to Brunswick, they were being smoked by Bayliner’s Ciera value line, they responded with their own Seville value line and small dealers flourished all over the country. That in turn created the $350M sale to Brunswick in the 80’s and the rest is well documented to this era.

Now even every 19’ has to be marketed as a BMW, as the next Tiger Woods or Lebron, the guys driving the bus have no idea who the middle class are or want.