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Subject: Re: [world-cruising] Buyer's Market
JAXAshby@XXX.XXX
Date: Mon Apr 07 2003 - 12:10:00 EDT
In a message dated 4/7/2003 11:35:14 AM Eastern Daylight Time, ca
pella@XXX.XXX writes:
> FWIW, my experience differs from your opinions. There are still many buyers
> out there, and I see them daily. As I said earlier, there is a facet of
> the
> sailboat (and probably the powerboat) market that is down. That is the
> boats that cost about the same as a home, that buyers finance like they
> would a vacation home. The less expensive boats are selling quickly -
> probably less risk to the buyers; and the more expensive boats are still
> selling at the same rates we've seen for years. I guess the wealthy still
> are.
>
Bryan, I too spent long years in the selling business, though in high-tech
rather than the marine business (which my father was in). Because my income
was closely affected by larger economic issues I watched such very, very
closely, sorta what I eventually called "watching the wooly fur on the
catapillars".
That said, there are a couple of issues in the used sailboat market that
clearly give me the willies (while I most certainly wish to buy a different
boat at a very acceptable price, I also most certainly want the marine
vendors to make continuing profits for in fact I need the vendors this year,
next year and the years after that).
One issue: I've heard marina owners say, "It's 1992 again", 1992 being the
absolute bottom of the previous bad market. I am not sure it is 1992 again
and think it more likely it may be 1990 again, or even 1989.
Another issue: brokers act like they are very discouraged salespeople right
now. Brokers don't return any email inquiries about any boats. period.
And they are not all that good about returning phone calls. Indeed, call a
broker today and he is not likely to be "in the office right now". If they
do call back, it's a few days or more.
In addition, several brokers have told me they wouldn't even show me a boat
(no matter how far I traveled) unless I *before hand* signed an agreement
offer, with certified check for deposit.
Either one of those items are the mark of salespeople who believe there "is
no use in trying".
Another issue: 4 years ago -- when I was searching for my "perfect boat"
having watched the prices of everything I thought I wanted skyrocket each
year -- I could put into say a yachtworld.com search for sailboats 31' to
45', $1 to $40,000 and get soooooooooooooooooooo many hits it could take
hours to weed through them. Soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo many hits I
would limit searchs in $2,000 increments above $1 to $10,000, *and* search by
gas or diesel, *and* search by hull material, *and* in 2 foot LOA increments.
Even then there way too many hits for anything other than a dedicated long
review.
Today, there are so few boats listed I can easily review the hits of ALL
sailboats over 31" and under $30,000 (prices have dropped with some former
$60,000 listings now at sub $30k prices) in one group without spending much
more than a few minutes as compared to the hours and hours and hours prior.
Boat owners have stopped listing their boats (probably most hoping for a
"return to normal" and others more or less giving up). And most (not all)
boat salespeople are acting like their next job will be flipping burgers (I
was in the sales business long enough to know smell of fear on salespeople).
And, it was reported to me face to face by someone know was most certainly in
the position to know, sailing magazine ad revenues are down up to 40% in some
cases.
[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
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