On Wed, 1 Feb 2006 18:42:52 -0800, "Dene" wrote:

Right....but I think that is most likely to happen to new boat buyers. This
is a $100,000 new. The seller took the biggest hit.

Trust me, it can, and will happen to anyone with extended loan terms
beyond about 5 years or so. The problem is that with a longer term
loan, most of the monthly payments are going for interest over the
first part of the loan period, very little going for amortization (pay
down of principle amount).

If you are proficient with Excel, create a spreadsheet where every
column is one month of the repayment period. Start with the loan
amount and monthly payment. Use the monthly interest rate (annual
rate/12) to calculate the interest paid in the first month. The
remainder of the payment after interest is ammortization. Calculate
the second and subsequent columns by subtracting ammortization from
the principle amount of the previous month. Recalculate interest for
the current month and keep rolling the whole thing forward. It's
actually easier than my description.

The bottom line is that you will be shocked at how slowly you are
actually paying the boat off until the last few years of the loan.