I went to the boat show, Holy Cow!

[CWOT]

Our boat needs either some major upgrades or we need a new boat so I went to the boatshow with a check in my pocket.
The wife said, go buy yourself a new boat, we'll all love whatever you pick. Done deal, off I went.
I found a great boat for our needs and I found a very helpful salesman. I asked for a net quote, a cash deal, the old boat isn't worth trading.
At first I thought the salesman thought I meant a much larger boat so I said "no I just want the price of this boat".
He said "that price is this boat", it may sound a little high but when you walk around you'll see that we are all in the same ball park".
He was right, they are all in the unbelievable ballpark.
I hope they can find buyers to step up to the plate because I hate to see the boating business suffer even more slow years.
In these uncertain times they will have to do it without me.

 

[JeffN]

Time to fix up the old one perhaps. :hmm

 

[ahill]

I heard from a GW dealer that they sold 7 36's at the Fort Lauderdale show.
Small not moving. $500,000 up is doing fine, thankyou :wow

 

[30marlin]

Grady had a decent selection at the New York show compared to most of the other brands.
It's a shame the New York isn't what it used to be.

Consider looking a used year or two old boat. You may find a good deal if somebody needs to get rid of it bad.

 

[townvet]

2 Grady 360's brand new arriving at my marina this spring.
The factory told me that the larger boats are moving, the midline boats are not.
If The Suez canal closes then boat sails will die off as gas hits an all time high.

 

[Average Joe]

I have been thinking about moving up to a 228 for a few years now. I saw a 2011 model at a boat show a couple of weeks ago that was packaged with a F 250 and trailer and the "special" boat show price was $85K !!

Believe me when I say I'm a big Grady fan but these prices are insane! I remember when I bought my 208 (new) a few years ago the same boat with F 225 was a good 20K less. IMO there is no justification for the prices they are asking today.

BTW, I paid ~42K for my 208 off the showroom floor in the fall of 2003. The exact same boat was at that show for 55K! Boat show special price of course. :wink:

 

[BobP]

The rich get richer!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
For the rest of us, offer them $70K for the 228, go no higher that $75K.

If you go to $75K, have them include a cheap finance deal as part of it if needed, delivery, and both axles with brakes not the usual one axle w brakes.

 

[LUNDINROOF]

Look at the topic on this forum about the 248 for sale. You can buy 3-248's for 85K and still have some money left over for repairs.

 

[CWOT]

Our boat needs either some major upgrades or we need a new boat so I went to the boatshow with a check in my pocket.
The wife said, go buy yourself a new boat, we'll all love whatever you pick. Done deal, off I went.
I found a great boat for our needs and I found a very helpful salesman. I asked for a net quote, a cash deal, the old boat isn't worth trading.
At first I thought the salesman thought I meant a much larger boat so I said "no I just want the price of this boat".
He said "that price is this boat", it may sound a little high but when you walk around you'll see that we are all in the same ball park".
He was right, they are all in the unbelievable ballpark.
I hope they can find buyers to step up to the plate because I hate to see the boating business suffer even more slow years.
In these uncertain times they will have to do it without me.

A followup, the salesman called me back, offered an anchor and a 4 lifejacket pack to "sweeten the deal". He said that his dealer can't understand either why the prices of new boats have skyrocketed. I asked about tradeins, he said that buyers of the last 2-3 years are buried in finance deals that are much higher than they can get if they want to trade or sell.

I found a 2008 model on Yachtworld . com for about half the price of the new boat, only 145 hours on twin Yam150s and a lot of Nav gear. The boat is 1200 miles away, no trailer, so I will have to think about making a trip in this weather.

How can the factory prices be so high when we are told that there has been no significant inflation these last 2 years, no real wage increases and in fact many prices for materials are down? Go figure.

 

[family affair]

Unfortunately in a lot of industries that cater to consumers, the business models have seem to change as a result of the bad economy. Instead of 50 boats at $50,000 for $2.5 mil, they rather sell 30 @ $85000 for example.

It is really frustrating for people that want to buy new and in some ways with a bad economy it seems as though the manufacturers are cutting their own throats bc used boats in a bad economy are such a substantial bargain. Fortunately for the mfg's there are people that are hell-bent on buying new despite the cost. To each their own.

Boating isn't the only industry doing this either. The motorcycle industry has done the same, but for some mfg's it has backfired. Suzuki actually stopped producing some models last year that were once great sellers.

The ski industry has gotten so bad that I actually quit the sport! I was such an avid skier that I had been an instructor for 10 years. Equipment prices have almost doubled in the past 5 years and lift tickets have gone up 160% locally. :jaw It's not that I can't afford to participate, but the prices are so outrageous that I refuse to spend my money on the activity. I much rather put the $3000/ year that it would cost for my family to ski into a boat that will at least have some residual value!

As long as there are people willing to pay high prices and a company can financially justify lower sales, prices will not get better.

Happy hunting for a like new used machine for 1/5th the cost of new! They exist. I've got one!

 

[Bama96]

Don't buy new if you can find a lightly used boat for half the money. Keep looking and find something with warranty left on the engine. There are good deals out there on used stuff you just have to be patient. More boats will pop up as spring nears. New boat pricing is insane and does not make any sense to me either. What model are you looking for? Good luck with the search.

 

[JeffN]

What sort of "major upgrades" does your present boat need?

 

[LUNDINROOF]

I think we all missed an important point here, CWOT was sent to a boat show by his wife with a blank check. How do you find a wife like that?

Mine won't let me go to West Marine without an armed guard watching over my wallet. I couldn't go to a boat show without the Third Marine Division and handcuffs.

Way to go man!!!!

 

[family affair]

I think we all missed an important point here, CWOT was sent to a boat show by his wife with a blank check. How do you find a wife like that?

Great point!
What is also impressive is that had the restraint to walk away without coughing up any $$. That takes power!

 

[CWOT]

Re: I went to the boat show, Holy Cow! follow-up

Lundinroof How do you find a wife like that? I have a great wife; we have a lot of fun together. We met in grammar school 50+ years ago and it has been a blast ever since.

Jeffn What sort of "major upgrades" does your present boat need? Our boat is a 1990 22 foot center console that we bought new; the wife agrees that it’s time we had a little more boat. Our only requirement is that our home has a 10,000 lbs. lift and we want to stay inside that #.

Family affair had the restraint to walk away without coughing up any $$. It really wasn’t the money; we have a plane worth a lot more. It was the fact that a simple open boat, not much different than our 1990 boat, should cost these really high prices.

 

[JeffN]

Re: I went to the boat show, Holy Cow! follow-up

Jeffn What sort of "major upgrades" does your present boat need? Our boat is a 1990 22 foot center console that we bought new; the wife agrees that it’s time we had a little more boat. Our only requirement is that our home has a 10,000 lbs. lift and we want to stay inside that #.

Well I'm a fan of a nice looking older boat but you sure as heck can't make the 22 into a 25. If your present boat was the size you wanted I would say fix it up and upgrade it. Because you are looking for larger I agree with those above that recommend a good conditon used boat. You will spend some money making it your own but you have to do that with a new boat too. Enjoy the hunt.

 

[LUNDINROOF]

That must be the answer, I found mine in collage and by then she was completely unattainable.

Just kidding, she has been along side me when I purchased all my boats and has never complained as long as they had potties and on the latest, a windless.

I have never been to a boat show with the intention of buying a boat. I do not know if the "deals" they give at the shows are good or not but I think I got a good deal on my last boat.

In October of 2009, I found a dealer that had a 2007, 283 Release in his yard that had been sitting there for two years. I had been wanting a center console in the 25 ft range to replace my 243 that was 12 years old.

This boat was new, never had engines mounted on it, and I had my choice of any power I wanted so I chose the twin 250 4-strokes. This boat was loaded with all the accessories and options needed for salt water fishing including outriggers and it came with a great three axle trailer with breaks on all wheels, and a spare wheel, bearing etc mounted on the tongue.

I had two things going for me, he didn't want that boat sitting on his lot for another winter and I didn't "need" another boat at that time, my 243 was in good shape and if I didn't have the two footitus that some have mentioned here I wouldn't have even be looking.

Long story short, he discounted the rig by 20K and offered to sell it to me for 130K, plus tax (9%). I offered him 90K, including the tax and after a couple of telephone calls, we settled on 93K including the tax. This was the total cost of the rig, hooked to my truck and driving off. It included all the life preservers, lines, ropes, flares, etc. for USCG requirements and state registration of both the boat and trailer.

When I was negotiating with this dealer I checked the inventory of some Grady dealers from Houston, Dallas all the was to the Florida east coast and found that there were a lot of new boats that have been sitting on the lots for a couple of years. You might try looking because if you find a boat you like that has been in inventory for a while the dealer will likely be willing to "get right" with you.

He told me that both Grady and Yamaha had helped him with the discount so it was not all out of his pocket.

I'm sure that if I tried to sell my one year old boat I would lose on the resale because it is a 2007 model but I'm not likely to sell it for 12 or more years and by that time it's value will be in it's condition and not in the model year.

I hope this has been some help to you, I'll probably find out that the list price for my rig in 2007 was 80K and I overpaid but I'm happy, the dealer's happy so all is well.

 

[CWOT]

thanks guys,

 

[megabytes]

It isn't just GW. I just went to the Raleigh show yesterday. The Pursuit 315 was around $275 and a 28' Regulator CC was around $175. You read that right! Center console! :wow

There were some very pretty boats but nothing really large (over 30'). GW has made some nice updates with LED speader lights, under gunnel, and some other places. Those crazy rubber cockput shower covers have been replace by SS covers. Quality appeared very high.
The 307 is very cool.

Pursuit has a nice 25' DC. Gorgeous boat. It has the BEST bilge access I have seen. Thru hulls, batteries, ducer, all easy to reach via a large hatch with built-in drain. Nice!
I would like to see GW do this.

Several boat builders had finished hardtops which are much easier to keep clean. Pursuit and Regulator have gone to this design. Along with recessed lighting these are great. I'll keep bugging GW on this one.

Another trend is anchors with a windless into the hull rather than on a pulpit. GW is doing this and I seem to recall another builder with this style as well. The crowd was noticably larger than last year so perhaps the demand will start picking up. I did confirm the 360 did very well at the FL show as was reported.

Last but not least - the beloved Marlin is safe for another year. :goodjob

 

[NOTHING ELSE MATTERS]

Mega, what i really think is that GW are not going to discontinue the Marlin, what also they should do is bring back the 265 express.