Large motor yachts - future value?

dgadee

dgadee

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We are aound Nice and Cannes and they are everywhere. Lots with very modern designs - 30 to 40m or so. Will they have a value in 20+ years when they look out of date? If you can afford one surely you would want it up to the minute styling?

I can see classic ones could be refitted, but not so sure about these ones.
 
dgadee said:
We are aound Nice and Cannes and they are everywhere. Lots with very modern designs - 30 to 40m or so. Will they have a value in 20+ years when they look out of date? If you can afford one surely you would want it up to the minute styling?

I can see classic ones could be refitted, but not so sure about these ones.
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I've wondered this - with such high running costs, and them being status symbols, who's buying outdated ones? Or do they just get scrapped relatively young? I can imagine that being worthwhile if the hull is steel or aluminum, but large fibreglass yachts must be a massive liability
 
I suspect some will end up as permanently moored liveaboards or Airbnbs, but the market for old and stylistically dated superyachts can't be that large, even with massively depreciated purchase prices.
 
The issue is where to berth them . Ok there a few fresh marinas , not enough to keep up with the L wars .Aside as L increase ( along with beam ) the actual places decreases .

Fibreglass up to 50 M will outlive any Steel / Alloy as the latter tend to naturally dissolve away in sea water unless meticulously ( AKA expensively ) maintained , Talking yrs 10 -20-30 onwards .

Maybe answering the OP Q s the cast offs if you like will simply filter down from the CdA to less affluent regions like Greece / Turkey or further afield eg N Africa ?

Also say a guy aged 55 -65 buys a SY of 50 M the latest shaper , fashion and as the op infers by the time he’s 10 , 15 yrs older he might want to pack it in anyhow and retreat to a nice land based holiday home or spend more time time in one of his multiple homes ?

Not so sure it’s an arms race , it’s just fed by a few serial buyers but mainly fresh meat entering the market who haven’t really , don’t need to think about the end game global sum cost of the ownership. It’s surplus funds anyhow .
That’s why a lot sit idle they end up surplus to requirements after the initial 2/3 yrs honeymoon of ownership .
 
Some will some won't.

Some age gracefully some don't.

San Lorenzo tend to age well as the designs have evolved as opposed to changed per se so telling the boats age is relatively hard to a general punter.

Mooring fees in sof / Mallorca are high but say Alicante can be affordable so they will likely find a new home as well as a new owner.

There is a general issue that they keep building boats , boats rarely wear out and they are not building new marinas.

Rather like cars. They last now. They sell 2m of them new a year and so the roads just get more crowded.
 
They will yes. If they are over 24m ( official length - can be much longer in practice - 30m yes - 40m no ) - then they will need minimum crew with the right tickets given the flag state and operating range.

The captain could be simply one of us who bothered to get the right ticket but the wife / kids can't crew ( legally ) without the correct ticket.

Hence why manufacturers who understand the rules can make boats up to circa 30m within the 24m rules.

In essence above 24m is is essentially a ship and subject to a whole raft of regulation you don't really want to get involved with !
 
So whoever buys one of these 2nd hand is also taking on the need for employees. They certainly need cleaning - all and every day to go by what I see. At the same cost to clean an old one as a new one.
 
I think most are bought as an company asset so the depreciation is done by company. Where I paid half of my house value on a boat and know one day it will have to be boat or home.
 
These big yachts 24-30 will depreciate but then tend to stick to a value of under that million mark after ten/15 years life.
It is the same for nearly all brands, with some doing better to others, and its very subjective to condition and what needs to be done. With this tending to be more important then the name.
If they are in good condition some of them sell even better to that.
In my experience end nineties and noughties vintage; Sanlorenzo and Maiora, followed by Ferretti's/Riva are usually the easier to move on if the condition is good.
Falcon Yachts from Viareggio used also to be an easy one to sell, although the appeal have a bit reduced in recent years, but the demand of 86 used to be mind blowing.
In the sport segment Mangusta is the king of the pack followed by Pershing, with the second generation Pershing with disappearing doors like the 72/80/82 having a strong following.

Above 30 meter Benetti and Fer Customline are the stronger names.

Considering that a new 24 meter is about 6 million nowadays you are getting a good deal if a yacht is in good condition.
 
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I suspect most people buying a yacht of 20-30m or above will employ at least some professional crew to maintain and operate the vessel ... genuine owner-operators are few and far between at this size. The "running costs" in terms of crew, cleaning, berthing, guardiennage, etc. are based mostly on size and so will be similar regardless of age. The choice to be made is between a very expensive new boat with current styling and relatively speaking low mechanical maintenance, versus an older boat with slightly dated appearance, perhaps needing some TLC to restore appearance, with higher ongoing mechanical maintenance, but available at a dramatically lower cost.

As PYB notes, there are plenty of people in the world who enjoy the yachting lifestyle and can afford the "running costs" of a 20-30m boat but don't like the idea of spending many millions just to have the latest styling and interior finishes (and plenty that just don't care about this), and so there has always been reasonable demand for boats in this size which are in good condition from recognised/reputable brands with more classic appearance and styling (e.g. Ferretti, Riva, Mangusta, Pershing, San Lorenzo, Maiora, Falcon and certain models from UK builders like Sunseeker).

Whenever you have supply (new boats getting older, with owners wanting to sell or upgrade) and demand (people who want the lifestyle and can afford the annual running costs, maintenance and relatively low depreciation on an old boat), the market just needs to find an equilibrium on price. For 20-30m boats, this has typically been in the €0.5m to €1.5m range at 10-15 years old, depending on size, type, brand and condition. Provided pricing is correct, good boats seem to sell within a reasonable time and are not so difficult to move on.

Whether this continues to be the case in a market flooded with larger more expensive boats produced by less established/less desirable builders or with more extreme styling remains to be seen. My guess is that prices for good boats will drift up, but with plenty of boats to choose from there will still be a ceiling of €1-2m and the most likely result is much bigger depreciation hits for the first 2-3 owners.

There is also the issue of where all these boats go ... The best known marinas in the Med may be fully saturated, but there are plenty of options outside the hot spots of Côte d'Azur, Italian Riviera and the Balearics. There also seems to be growth in the number of boats of this size being kept in Eastern Europe (Croatia, Greece, Turkey, etc.) and the Middle East is also a developing market.
 
That's a more classic yacht. Some of the ones around the south of France are much less "yacht-like".

Big crew with big costs. And staff don't pay tax? A parallel universe.
 
Chiara’s slave said:
Merchant seamen are paid offshore.
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Being genuinely ignorant on this topic, I just checked in with AI… and got two answers, essentially ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

Which only goes to show that one can’t totally rely on AI.

Looking slightly more deeply it seems the answer (for UK) is that ‘Seafarers Earnings Deduction’ requires a number of conditions to be met - largely relating to working outside UK - to qualify for the allowance.
 
On the original topic, one often sees videos of end of life commercial ships being beached to be broken up and - in part - recycled. Does this happen anywhere with big old motor yachts?
 
Para Handy would not get it, but cross channel ferries? I had asked that question in the past about super yacht staff so was aware of the situation. The economic life of the super wealthy!

Never believe AI.

benjenbav said:
Being genuinely ignorant on this topic, I just checked in with AI… and got two answers, essentially ‘yes’ and ‘no’.

Which only goes to show that one can’t totally rely on AI.

Looking slightly more deeply it seems the answer (for UK) is that ‘Seafarers Earnings Deduction’ requires a number of conditions to be met - largely relating to working outside UK - to qualify for the allowance.
Click to expand...
 
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