As a serious buyer, I’ve come to the opinion that clean, well maintained boats are selling quickly at or near asking. The dogs, project boats and fixer uppers just sit. I had a contract on a trawler for 25% under asking that I walked away from back in may. It was much rougher than depicted and is still on the market. I’ve had two sold out from under me, one while I was driving five hours to see it. Another that I traveled 400 miles to see had used five year old photos in the ad. It’s still for sale too. I’m still shopping...
PPandE, I'm having the
exact same experiences here in New England as you are. The only thing I would add is I've seen a small number of nice boats that have been sitting on the market for a few years simply because they're over-priced, and the sellers aren't budging. They're waiting for the 'right buyer' (meaning, someone with more money than common sense, and they might be right, they're out there).
The stock market is still soaring, despite a global pandemic and a slow-moving global recession. A lot of people still feel 'rich' when looking at their stock portfolios, want to cash some of it out before the other shoe drops, and as others have said, are buying boats both as one of the few 'socially distanced' things we can (reasonably) safely do right now, and as an escape pod from the pandemic.
It seems the supply of boats has been shrinking for the past decade. A lot of manufacturers didn't survive the 2008/2009 recession, and those that did, downsized and built fewer boats. So there have been fewer boats built in the past 12 years. The hurricanes of the past decade have also permanently taken many boats out of the market, yet many of those owners still wanted to replace them. So it's a perfect storm of greater demand than supply.
Where it will go is anyone's guess. Sooner or later, the reality of the pandemic and its economic ramifications will set in. Many financial managers I've talked to are waiting for the domino effect to ripple through the real estate market. Many small businesses have disappeared due to the pandemic, and more will as time goes on. As a result, property owners will see reduced rental income from commercial spaces previously occupied by restaurants, bars, stores, etc. Many big companies are realizing that they don't need to have all of their employees in big offices. Both for safety reasons and to save money, they can continue to have some workers continue to work from home. That will begin to squeeze commercial real estate.
Unfortunately, the pandemic will be with us for some time to come. It's not going to be 'all over' anytime soon. As the macroeconomic implications begin to set in, and the gravity-defying stock market begins to reflect that, boat prices might begin to soften.
But then, so many supposedly smart money managers have been predicting this for a while, and it hasn't happened yet. The real answer is, nobody knows what will happen.
