Paul L wrote:
I like your analysis on new boats. Makes sense that they will increase in
price, beyond inflation, as demand/volume goes down. There doesn't seem to
be any great 'productivity' gains being applied to building new boats that
would drive the prices down like desktop PCs.
The market for boats is miniscule compared to the market for PCs and
cars...there are only 12 million registrered boats in the whole
country...not very many in a population of 300 million. But the cost of
building 'em is even higher than the costs of building cars and PCs.
That gives boat builders on two choices: charge more for 'em, or go out
of business--which a lot of have done. 90% of the names today belong to
companies who bought little more than the rights to put those names on
their boats...Cape Dory, Chris Craft (now owned by a UK company),
Trojan, Carver, Bertram, just to name a few. Pearson is gone
altogether...so is Columbia, California and at least a dozen more.
That's why the favorite joke among boat builders is, "How do you make a
million $$ in the boat business? Start with $2 million and get out quick!"
Proucdtion has already been
moved overseas. So what does this really mean for the used boat market? Less
new boats coming on the market, prices go up, less overall demand, prices go
down. ???
Used boat prices are tied to the economy....the minute it starts to get
soft, people start unloading non-essentials, flooding the market,
driving price down. When it's strong, people buy non-essentials like
boats...no glut, higher prices. However, unlike the real estate market,
boat prices never get ridiculously high, they only recover to
normal--adjusted for inflation--for age and condition. They can,
however, get ridiculously low in bad times. Great for people who have
cash and want to buy...not so great if you have a boat and have to sell.
Peggie
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Peggie Hall
Specializing in marine sanitation since 1987
Author "Get Rid of Boat Odors - A Guide To Marine Sanitation Systems and
Other Sources of Aggravation and Odor"
http://shop.sailboatowners.com/detai...=400&group=327
http://www.seaworthy.com/html/get_ri...oat_odors.html