The credit crunch and 2nd hand boats

Vara

Vara

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OK we're all broke, scraping to make ends meet.

Then why is the second hand sailing boat market so thin at the moment.

Or am I just looking in the wrong places.

Whoops, apologies this was meant to go in S/Butt.
 
I know the crunch has affected some people and some very unlucky ones have lost their jobs. But the millions of salaried jobs have only been positively affected by the crunch. VAT is down, petrol is down and mortgage costs are halved.
 
I would think that as fee renewals come up and the cost of travelling to and from boats continues to be an issue people will start to realise they are pumping money they can't afford into a hobby they are enjoying less and less. (not just the economic climate, but also the weather climate ).
Boats will begin to trickle onto the market in greater numbers.
 
I've noticed mostly the ones that are for sale have been for a while, very few coming on to the market. It may just be the time of year.
Also could be affected by the fact that not many are buying new boats so this has a knock on effect on the second hand market.
 
exactly the same thing happens in the house market - people either think they'll hunker down and not buy new or are not willing to accept a (lower) market price.
 
I spoke to a broker I have dealt with before about selling my boat towards the end of last year - she said 2008 had been the worse year for sales they had ever had.
I have just bought another boat and asked my surveyor to also value it for insurance as my offer had been low. It is now insured at the surveyor's valuation which is a shade under the asking price and significantly more than I paid.

The broker for one boat simply said that "the vendor will accept an offer". I have had other brokers contact me with further price reductions on a couple of boats I had details of. One boat I was watching dropped the price from £45000 to £29950, and quickly sold at around £27000. Unfortunately, I was away sailing at the time.

If you are a buyer I would suggest that you start by making a really silly offer, if that is rejected then try a slightly higher one.

Have fun.
 
One thing to bear in mind is that it's a bit early yet for the forced sales, bankruptcy etc. The other issue is that putting a boat up for sale is a financial commitment in itself, brokerage and storage on a sales pitch cost money and an owner can be forced to accept silly offers. If you aren't going to be able to sell it at anything like a reasonable price then wait it out would be the plan.
 
There will be a lot of boats for sale this summer, as a number of people will not be able to afford the fees, loan costs, due to job losses etc. 50% of the asking price will be a common offer; similar situation with the house market nowdays; sad but that's life
 
The word in the street is that the 2nd hand market isn't so bad but 65% of the buyers are from abroad. So there you have it. The French are buying up our cheap boats. What a delicious irony. Before you know it they'll be buying our houses as well. They'll be reading magazines on how to renovate British country cottages, where the best restaurants are(they'll have to look far),talking about the joys of our food(mostly curry), and discussing cheap flights to the UK. Sound familiar?
 
The outlaws live in France - small village in the Auvergne (used to have cheap Ryanair flights to Cleremont Ferrand).

Cheap flights are gone, and all the houses in the village owned by Brits (about 1 in 3) are up for sale at knock down prices.

What goes around, ...
 
[ QUOTE ]
I know the crunch has affected some people and some very unlucky ones have lost their jobs. But the millions of salaried jobs have only been positively affected by the crunch. VAT is down, petrol is down and mortgage costs are halved.

[/ QUOTE ]I totally agree but much of the spending over the last decade has been as a consequence of Mortgage Equity Withdrawal (see the MEW figures on the BoE website) and that has almost stopped.
 
It would be an irony Bill, but the French are all together too convinced of the superiority of their culture to start buying houses here or indeed most non French places.
 
Same thing with the used car market, New car sales are through the floor, no one has the confidence to dive into a credit sale against the possibility of being jobless, so the used car supply has been reduced. However, the shortage has meant that used prices are higher than they were pre-crunch or rather they have risen to a more realistic level. I think boat prices are rather more stable. Because the recession is global, I'm not sure that "foreign" buyers have any more cash to spare than we have, but some might be in a position to take advantage of the strength of the Euro, but then UK prices possibly start out higher than those elsewhere in Europe.
 
[ QUOTE ]
The word in the street is that the 2nd hand market isn't so bad but 65% of the buyers are from abroad.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats exactly what I found doing a round of the brokers a week ago. But there is a caveat. The foreign buyers are coming in for the good foreign brands like HR or X yachts - the market for Moodies and Westerlies and the awb French boats is unaffected, not least because the Brit boats are now getting a bit old with almost all above 20 years.
 
Just to add to the rest of the comments.

As we know, sales for all things boaty do well after a good summer. I cannot remember the weather being so bad for the last two. This has had a big effect even if you leave the crunch to one side.

What also does seem to be a drain, are parking fee's maintenance etc. It seems that a number of people are giving up their berth's and going into hard standing situations and riding the depression out. That leaves them with options to use the boat again later and not sell at silly prices.

The good news is that many yotties are well round Tattenham Corner in the age stakes with protected incomes. Should fair better than most non essential things we do. But often our greatest pleasures are the most pointless ones. So who knows ?
 
Also, have a look at new boat prices from the main manufacturers (non-British) - in GBP, they have shot up because of the fall of the pound against other currencies, and as a consequence, a 2 - 5 year old AWB looks pretty good value against a brand new one. If I was in the market for a new boat, I would be seriously thinking whether paying a 50K premium compared with a nearly new boat is worth it. Consequently, I would expect to see good, recent boats on the second hand market holding up quite well.
 
If people can't sell if they want to at a price that they can live with, surely it makes more sense to use their boats more than ever and 'justify' the fixed costs by spreading them over more hours on the water?
BTW, my local independant garage are slammed with business-because people are taking more care of what they already own rather than tradein/up. I would expect boats to be more diligently serviced and polished too ?
Of course there are going to be bargains tucked away in the cheapest storage yards too.
 
A broker in the med told me recently that people will alter their life style, eat out less, keep the car for a few years longer etc, in fact will do anything rather than sell the boat
 
[ QUOTE ]
The outlaws live in France - small village in the Auvergne (used to have cheap Ryanair flights to Cleremont Ferrand).

Cheap flights are gone, and all the houses in the village owned by Brits (about 1 in 3) are up for sale at knock down prices.

What goes around, ...

[/ QUOTE ]

I think O'Leary of Ryan Air said that nobody should not rely on his airline flying somewhere... if it ever made sense to them not to fly there, they would stop.

I kind of admire his outspoken nature but, as he said, I would not want to rely on him for any kind of service!
 
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