Availability of Marine Finance, Views from SIBS?

[Nautorius]

Hi all,

I am out of the UK now and have very little handle on the current state of Marine Finance availablity. I am asking because recently I have had 3 out of 5 perspective purchases from the UK cancel viewings as they got refused or could not get finance. Given I have a 2006 mainstream (Beneteau) I know it is not the boat. All of these people have been checking finance availability out (in principle) before going to the cost of Flying to Gib. I am not the only one. A few brokerage servoces down here are all saying the same thing.

Now mine is just a Tad under £100k and so I would guess max finance at £75k. I was therefore surprised.

So the question from SIBS or local knowledge is how many companies were offering finance and did anyone check availability?

On a seperate note a few dealers had again linked up with finance houses to offer some great deals (Boat plus low cost finance) on several new models. These were based on me being a UK resident (Which i am not) so I thought Finance availability had eased. This was all by email and mailings prior to boatshow. This was both Mobos and Sailboats (the pull to return to the smokey side is strong....)

Thanks

Paul

 

[MRC]

Same here - I have been trying to sell my boat and deals have fallen foul due to finance.

On a seperate note, a friend tried to buy a 3 year old Superhawk 43, £200k with £100k deposit. He couldnt get 50% financing. I dont know his full circumstances of course.

 

[mjf]

Interesting question which I have asked myself.

Couple of french banks still do this biz and Close Bros too in the Uk I'm told (pricy thou)

10%+++

 

[AdeOlly]

We have just taken out finance with Lombard for circa 50% of purchase price on a used Jeanneau with no problems at all, and I'm basically a one man band business who had a terrible 2009! (Rocking along this year though )

 

[AllanG]

I have just completed (yesterday....yipee!!!) the purchase of a Nimbus 320, and secured a 28% loan from Lombard Marine with no problems.

Allan

 

[maby]

We found we had dealers bending over backwards for us because we had the cash in the bank and didn't need any finance. One told me that he had had a couple of prospective purchases fall through. He said that a few years ago he could normally get onto a finance house at lunchtime and have the cash promised in a couple of hours. Now, it takes weeks and often is refused...

 

[Richard Shead]

I only had 20% and had to borrow the remaining 80% but then again that was for a plate of Nachos....I have since paid the editor back

 

[rafiki_]

I only had 20% and had to borrow the remaining 80% but then again that was for a plate of Nachos....I have since paid the editor back

Were these used Nacho's?

 

[Richard Shead]

Were these used Nacho's?

tasted like it....

 

[AdeOlly]

Now, it takes weeks and often is refused...

Hmmm... Took about one week for my application, complete with business accounts, bank statements, letters from my accountant and about 50 other bits of paper, to be approved. Easy. To be balanced, we've borrowed for convenience rather than necessity, (like to have a nice cash pile in these tough times), and less than a year of my income so quite low risk for the lender I think.

Probably harder to obtain approval if the deal is highly leveraged or a large sum, or maybe on a new boat (high initial depreciation on the asset value?).

 

[Nautorius]

Thanks all for the responses.

Looks like we are having a tightening of finance availability again to boats!

To those of you who got the cash>>>well done.

Cheers

Paul

 

[maby]

Hmmm... Took about one week for my application, complete with business accounts, bank statements, letters from my accountant and about 50 other bits of paper, to be approved. Easy. To be balanced, we've borrowed for convenience rather than necessity, (like to have a nice cash pile in these tough times), and less than a year of my income so quite low risk for the lender I think.

Probably harder to obtain approval if the deal is highly leveraged or a large sum, or maybe on a new boat (high initial depreciation on the asset value?).

As always, it's far easier to borrow money if you don't really need it. Like you, we wanted to keep the current account well in credit, so we drew down on the unclaimed allowance in our offset mortgage account. I phoned the bank mid morning and they agreed immediately - money was in our current account later the same day.

 

[RichardTaylor]

We have just borrowed for a new build 80% of value without any problem via CGI in Lymington (French Bank Finance).

I approached 2 mainstream UK banks who would not lend me less than £100k @80% which would have meant asking the boat dealer to gold plate all the fixtures and fittings...

 

[EugeneR]

I bought my first "big" boat using £80k from 4 unsecured online loans in a couple of minutes. Was at 5-6% though.

How things have changed...

 

[MY littlebirchwoo]

In recent times many lenders have pulled out of the boat market leaving really only Lombard, however (and has been detailed) you really do need to jump through hoops to borrow from them. They have increased the minimum they will lend - up from £25K to £40K I believe. Last year we applied and were refused, despite only requiring 20% LTV its then that we got the next call - if we wanted more then they would have considered the deal - it is something to do with owning 'the bigger portion' of the boat I believe...

However, in the end we just phoned up Tesco and took a personal loan and paid it back shortly later