On Wed, 02 Sep 2009 10:59:44 -0400, Gene
wrote:

On Wed, 02 Sep 2009 08:08:50 -0400, Tom Francis - SWSports penned the
following well considered thoughts to the readers of rec.boats:

|in between medical tests yesterday with a couple of hours to kill, so
|I decided to drive over to the Nitro/Tracker dealer in Shrewsbury just
|to look at boats.
|
|Imagine my surprise when I walked into the showroom and saw....
|
|NOT ONE BOAT!!!!
|
|Zero, zip, nada - not one.
|
|The GM of the place, who I've talked to before, told me that they
|aren't getting their 2010 inventory until late October, early
|November. Their other brands, Trophy and Bayliner won't be arriving
|until at least December. Aluminum Trackers are also on the same
|schedule.
|
|He said, that I have no reason not to believe him, that the
|manufacturers are being very careful about building inventories for
|showrooms and at least with his dealership, they are going to have a
|limited showroom inventory and probably spend a lot of time having
|boats built to order rather than off the floor.
|
|Heard via the grapevine last week (I forgot to mention it), the major
|floor plan financier for boats is requiring higher interest and down
|payments on inventory boats - so high that it's almost impossible for
|smaller dealers to hold much in inventory if any at all.
|
|I wonder if we'll get a Cash for Sinkers program for boats? :)
|
|Looking around at the used boat sites, it seems like the market is a
|little slow there also - maybe folks are holding onto their boats a
|little longer than normal. I've been looking for a used bass boat for
|a while and I normally can find deals on a regular basis - not so much
|lately.
|
|Interesting.

As I have noted, we have local dealerships that have either lots of
boats or NO boats. The one conspicuous thing is: there are no boats
over about 21 feet.....

Dealers around here have SOME boats - mostly in the +23 foot category
so that kind of synchs with your area.