RT Firefly wrote:
Could the increase in vessels changing hands be as a result of owners becoming really desperate to sell thus drasticaly lowering their asking prices or accepting much lower offers?
According to a friend of ours who is the lead broker at the large GB dealership in Bellingham, two things have happened to help sales activity start booming.*
First, the wealthy people--- who have been wealthy all along--- became very conservative in their spending when the economic sh*t hit the fan a couple of years ago.* So large purchases they may have been contemplating were put on hold.* Now that the situation is getting better, or has at least stabilized, these people have put the large purchases back on the front burner.* His particular dealership has had a significant rise in the sale of GBs this last year, either people buying GBs*for the first time or people moving up in size.
Second is what you described.* Boat prices are, to a large degree, depressed, so people who can afford to buy are getting better deals.
Probably the most radical example I've heard of this occurred earlier this year or late last year.* In the early 2000s, the northwest*GB distributorship was taken away from the Bellingham-based company that had it and was given to a Seattle-based company called (IIRC) Passagemaker Yachts.* When the economy took a nosedive, Passagemaker declared bankruptcy and went out of business, leaving the bank holding the assets, among which were two brand new GBs, a GB41 (the pod-drive model) and a GB47 (the prop-tunnelled "planing" model).* Each of these boats retails for well over $1 million.
The bank finally got tired of having these things and decided to simply get rid of them.* So the put both boats--- both brand new, never been used---- up for sale for exactly half price.* The GB47 was instantly snapped up by a wealthy couple from England who had recently bought a late model GB46.* They told me the deal was simply too good to pass up.* They apparently plan to keep the GB46 in charter in Bellingham*and ship the GB47 home to England.
So for someone who has a ton of money to spend on a boat right now, it's like being a kid in a candy store, particularly at*the high end of the market where the price reductions are measured in hundreds of thousands of dollars, not*thousands of dollars.*