December 19th, 2009

“So You Don’t Consider Boat Auctions Worth the Effort? Maybe You Should Now…”

Posted in Uncategorized

The reason I’ve hunted repo boats across the U.S. and Canada for the past 7 years is that frankly I’ve found no other source that produces under valued boats than repo boat auctions. As newer boat and yacht prices surged in the past decade boat repossessions sold at local and regional auctions for almost 44% less.

According to YachtAuctions.net in 1998 a brand new cruiser sold for $255k on average. Only four years later that same new cruiser sold for $367k… Fast forward to late 2008…a new cruiser averages a whopping $465k. But get this, that same cruiser sold at a local boat auction house or dealer liquidation (used of course) for an average price of only $250k.

But boat auctions aren’t regularly listed in your local classifieds. You have to really look if you’re a DIY’er, but the dividends can be staggering as well. If you are able to keep your self in front of enough lenders and they actually have boats in repossession than you may be in position to work out a deal as they are often in a must sell situation to write off their “non-performing asset” as quickly as possible. Your offer(s) to a lender may not be accepted but they’re at least going to seriously considered .

If you’re toying with buying a repossessed boat you have to find credit unions or lenders in general who finance boats regularly and are willing to keep you informed of new inventory. Not as simple as you would think. As it turns out most lenders already have an ongoing relationship with a auction company. For this reason I use several auction sources primarily www.BoatAuctionsDirect.com to stay alerted of any seizure or repo type auction in my area. Do that and you’ll stay ahead as well.