I Knew I Saw More Boats for Sale

A few weeks ago I commented that I was seeing lots of boats for sale on people’s lawns up and down the Shore. At the time, my observation was only anecdotal. The Wall Street Journal’s Terri Cullen, in her Fiscally Fit column this morning confirmed my suspicion that there are more boats for sale this year compared to earlier years. In Terri’s column today she writes about how she was pricing boat slips at Shore marinas and found out that many marinas are offering discounts because of fewer customers.

I think that the lack of interest in boating this summer probably mostly reflects the increase in gas prices. However, to a lesser extent I bet many boats were purchased with home equity loans over the past three years and for many people those loans are getting harder to handle. If that is the case, then it should be no surprise that more boats are not making it into the water this year or they are being sold outright.

Excerpt…

“OK, so the captain is back on board. My job as first mate is to address another issue that comes with a big boat -- the cost. With the Bayliner still drydocked, we needed to make a decision whether or not to lease a slip at our old marina this year. It's a big decision because slip fees are usually the boat's greatest expense -- last year, our marina jacked up their prices to $125 a foot, or $3,375 for the season. In the past, getting into a lower-cost marina required calling early in the year to get on a waiting list, but this year they were calling us. And at least one marina manager commented on the number of boaters who have decided to trailer their boats this year -- or just stay home.

Sensing a buyer's market, I called around and compared fees and services. Some marinas were willing to throw in the cost of electricity and fresh water for cleanup; others were offering to match slip fees of lower-cost marinas, despite being closer to the bay. (Marinas closer to the bay typically cost more, but it takes less time and gas to get to open water, and you avoid the navigational hassles of marinas up-river.) One marina we've visited before and really liked offered to lease us a slip at $95 a foot for a total of $2,565, or about $800 less than what our old marina planned to charge us this year. Sold.”

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