Anyone looking to buy a new boat?

Yeah, the prices of new boats are insane.

They got that way partly due to what also happened with real estate. Easy, long-term financing with little down.

With most buyers being payment buyers, all that they were concerned with was the monthly payment, not the price. They got in for as little money down as possible and with a 20 year loan. Dealers were drooling all over that program!

Olympic sold their 19' Bayliner bowrider with no money down and 20 years to pay. The quoted payment was $179/month. That's about $43K for a boat that listed for $14K. They were buried in it so deep that they would never see daylight.

But that wasn't the only reason. MFG's got on the bandwagon and figured that since money was easily had, why not raise prices too???

Oh sure, they blamed the cost of materials that were tied to petroleum products for the rising prices, but really, the price hikes were of their own doing. I guess they were trying to keep their shareholders happy???

They are still production items. Their labor rates are low compared to other industry's. I know that most of the worker's at the Sea Ray plants in TN were making the mid teens per hour not that long ago. And as far as Brunswick goes, their boats are supplied with their own engines, so the right pocket is paying the left one.

Whatever the reason, I totally agree with you that they are damn expensive.

You'd think that the past five or so years would have taught them some lessons. Now that things are turning around and sales are starting to happen, they should be grateful that the dealers have warm-blooded buyers entering the showrooms. But from what I am experiencing with my search for a new boat, they haven't learned enough...
 
I've actually received two follow-up emails from salespeople from the boat show last w/e (I never give my phone # out these days, just my email). I was actually a little surprised!

The Hurricane and the Chaparral dealer. I am also working a deal on a Sea Ray. All three are fine boats. Also in the hunt are the Cobalt and the Regal. I'm open to a few others as well.

I am going down to SoCal next week to check out some dealers down there and to check on the competing dealers of the above listed brands.

I also have three FSBO boats up here and two down there to check out. One is a sweet looking, late model Formula bowrider.

My search has found a few boats in Vegas as well, but my past experience with boats from there has revealed boats with a lot of sun damage, both to the gelcoat and the upholstery. Unless something extremely nice pops up, I'll keep my search to within CA.

Boat shopping can be a fun (but sometimes frustrating) experience. I enjoy the hunt and take my time doing it.

The search continues...
 
I agree as long as you aren't in a hurry, it is great and the results work out well. Looking forward to hearing about your SoCal findings.

BTW, I know a guy who got a second mortgage to buy his brand new Trophy. Then the housing market dumped and boat prices followed. He had to practically give that well maintained boat away. And then he lost his house.... It is a shame he wasn't financially savvy. Really nice guy, but.......
 
Yeah, people should never use their homes as ATM's! They try to justify it every which way they can, such as "it's a tax deduction", but the bottom line is that it's money that you have to pay back. Period.

And the banks are no better.

I helped my oldest son get into real estate investing by going in as partners and buying him two foreclosure's last year. He fixed them up and rented both of them. Now that the market has picked up some, he has a nice chunk of equity in each one. You should see the offers for home equity loans that he is getting in the mail! It is ridiculous! Didn't the banks learn anything from the past five years???

Apparently not... [:-banghead]
 
Flutterby,

Knowing me and boats, if I was that guy I might have given up the house, the dog, the car and the wife and moved in on the Trophy. I am quite at home on my Trophy but I am also a little odd about open water and boats

DBH
 
DBH---ha ha. You are a man after my heart! When I decided I needed to give up my boat.....it was losing my best friend!!!
 
Yeah, I take my boats personally, especially the ones that I purhased new.

That's probably why I stay in touch, and in quite a few cases, become good friends with, the folks that buy boats (and even some vehicles) from me.

When I sell something, I make sure that it is in tip-top shape and that everything works the way that it should. I easily look the buyers in their faces as I shake their hands to close the deal.

Three of my prior boats are on the Delta Loop and every now and then I visit with them. Others are scattered in the Delta and one is even calling Long Island it's home port!

In most cases, boaters are good people. Just look at some of the posters right here! ;)
 
Well, the search continues. But I did buy a boat, just not the one that I ultimately was looking for.

We spent the past nine days at our favorite RV park in Pismo Beach. We have been going there for years. We went down with the intention of relaxing, meeting up with the kids for Easter and to do some boat shopping. As usual, we towed our dinghy vehicle along with us, so we would have transportation while down there. Plus, I wanted to drive down to LA for some boat shopping w/o having to take the motorhome.

The kids drove down and met us for Easter and they were surprised to see a new (to us) boat alongside the RV. I told them that the Easter Bunny was good to us this year. LOL

Anyway, after getting settled in at Pismo and enjoying a few nights of gorgeous sunsets over the ocean, we drove the dinghy down to the LA area. Rather than drive back and forth to Pismo, we stayed at one of our favorite hotels in Pasadena for two nights.

First off, the boat dealers down there are totally different than the ones up here. They must think that everyone that steps foot on their lots must be movie stars! The prices are sky-high! They must take lessons from West Marine! LOL But at least they have boats on the lot that a buyer can touch and feel, unlike the dealers up here that want you to essentially buy out of a catalog. I hate that!

Anyway, we checked out dealers in Marina Del Rey, Anaheim, Long Beach, Dana Point, Oceanside, Costa Mesa, Newport Beach, San Diego and Oxnard. Three days in all (two nights at the hotel).

In fact, Oxnard is where we purchased the boat. It's not the boat that we set out to buy, (22' to 26' bowrider/deckboat), but it will replace our inflatable 11' Avon Rover dinghy that we tow behind our cruiser for overnight trips on the hook. Our Avon was just too wet and too small for our use, but it (somewhat) met our needs for the past ten years that we owned it.

Our new dinghy is an '09 Whaler 15' Super Sport with a Mercury 60hp O/B and trailer. It was just traded in and wasn't even out on the lot on display yet. The shop was in the process of checking it out when I saw it while looking at their inventory of boats in the back lot. I commented to the sales guy that we could use something like that to replace our Avon, and he told me that they had just taken it in on trade. One thing led to another, and we ended up towing it back to Pismo! It's a nice boat. It has a side console with a full bench with seat backs and cushions, a cooler with a seating pad and a pad for the bow deck with a bow rail and a bimini top. The motor checked out just fine with 129 hours and about a years worth of waranty left. There's only one six gallon tank and no spare, but at the price that I hammered out, they weren't willing to throw anything in, plus I have to pay the fee's to transfer the warranty's for the motor and the hull. But at $13,300 OTD, I can't complain too much.

As far as our new boat purchase goes, I have narrowed it down to a handful of boats. The Sea Ray that I was working a deal on up here was 4K less down there for the exact same equipped boat, plus, they have it in stock. I think there is more room to move, but I'll hold that card for the final negotiations when I'm ready to write the check. I also really like the Hurricane 2600 I/O. It's priced about 15K less than the S/R without having to negotiate as hard as I will when the time comes. The Regal dealer in Newport Beach just wouldn't budge at this point. I really like their 24
fasdeck and their 2500 bowrider.

I also kept my eyes open for used boats, but overall, I just didn't see too many that were either in good enough condition or were not equipped the way that I would like. Plus, I refuse too get a boat with bottom paint. There are a few that I will keep an eye on and my next trip down, I will spend more time on used ones that are on Boattrader and (ugh!) craigslist.

But in the meantime, I have a new toy to play with! [:-bonc01] [:-party]
 
Congrats! Sounds like your trip to SoCal was a success. Now, how are you going to get your new boat home? Will one of you drive the dingy w/boat on trailer and the other drive the RV?
 
Thanks! And sorry for the confusion.

We call our vehicle that we tow behind the motorhome on trips a dinghy, plus we purchased a (true) dinghy, so I created some confusion. My bad.

When we take a trip in the motorhome and we know that we are going to want to sight-see in the area, we tow my wife's Grand Cherokee (dinghy) behind the motorhome. If we are just going to a "destination" campground, as we like to call them, then we don't tow anything behind us because we will spend all of our time at the campground.

So, in this case, we knew that we would be heading south on the 101 to SoCal from Pismo, so we took the G.C. with us. We used it to drive around the various boat shops and restaurants while we stayed in Pasadena for the two nights. Our favorite hotel there is the Langham Huntington (formerly the Ritz Carlton). They have a beautiful facility and the grounds are just amazing.

We used the G.C to tow our new dinghy (boat) back to Pismo to the motorhome/campground and then back home a few days after Easter.

We usually stay at a place up in your neck of the woods once a year. It's the Far Horizon's 49'er Village RV Resort on 49 in Plymouth. It's a nice place with friendly staff.

It looks like we just might be purchasing the new boat in SoCal. Our local dealers up here are just not to our liking. I'd much rather be able to sit in the model that I am interested in before I commit to buying it. So many of these local dealers act like used car salesmen. "You buy here today or get the hell out" attitude... [:O] Just terrible. [:-yuck]
 
BAB----I understood; I used to have an RV too and knew your term "dingy" as the towed vehicle behind an RV ......

So you did what I envisioned: one of you drove the RV and one of you drove the tow vehicle, aka "dingy" towing the boat's dinghy. LOL

Looking forward to seeing what boat you finally decide to purchase.....

I am very familiar with the Far Horizon's 49'er Village and yes, it comes well recommended! Do you ever head south, then east up Hwy 88? It is a beautiful side trip for the day; Silver Lake is one of my favorite destinations. I live "Upcountry" along Hwy 88. I call it God's Country! Let me know if you are ever in my neck of the woods; I'll buy you a beverage!
 
Sounds great! And it's God's country, for sure!

I think I shared with you in another thread about our place on Independence Rd. in Glencoe. I have a lot of history up there. Gary's Market (now closed), Stiver's Ranch in Railroad Flats (old man Stiver passed away quite some time ago, I think it has changed hands by now), the Skagg's was another long-time family up there as well. And who could forget the volunteer firemen's picnic every 4th of July, and Shad's Lake, just to name a few.

I'm glad you were able to experience RV'ing. It's a lot of fun and the scenery in most places can't be beat!
 
I own a 2 1/2 acre lot near 3 Cent Rd off of Hwy 26 in Glencoe. I beautiful place for an RV to spend a weekend..... I used to do that when I still lived in the Bay Area. Now, it needs a new owner to enjoy it!

Schaad's Reservoir is still there, boats w/o gas/diesel engines only. Schaad's sold the property a few years ago. No more camping down by the creek.....

I'd love to have another newer, smaller RV, but it isn't the cards for me....... at least not today.
 
That's exactly what we did! Camped right along the creek with our pickup camper and some tents for all of the kids. We had a group of about six or so campers that would regularly camp there. That bar was very busy back in the day...

Sad to hear that future generations won't be able to enjoy the place like we did. :(
 
A few other annoying things that I have found with my shopping progress.

Cobalt especially, uses way too much brown in their interiors. Blue, red and green exterior boats have brown interiors. And I'm not talking tan. The vinyl is med chocolate brown. I'd hate to see how hot that section of the vinyl gets during our many 95+ degree Delta days. Just one more reason to special order my new boat...

As a side note, the brown colored interiors aren't just with boats. RV's have been bitten by the brown bug too. When I asked a salesperson at the recent Cal Expo show for a brochure to see what interior options were offered, he gave me one and there were three interior color schemes offered. Yep, you guessed it. All three had brown as the base color.

Another very annoying situation is the height of the windshield frames. When I am sitting in the pilot's seat, I am staring at the windshield frame! Not good!

Anyway, the search continues...
 
Have you looked at Formula boats? The examples I saw looked well built and well considered.
 
^^^^^

Thanks for the tip, Goplay. I've admired Formula's since I first saw them for sale at Hayward Marine back in the early 80's. Nice boats!

I actually looked at a 26 bowrider up near Sac, but it wasn't anywhere near the condition that the ad said that it was suppose to be in.

I also saw a few at the dealer in SoCal two weeks ago when I spent some time down there kicking hulls. Sadly, they are WAY out of my price range ($125K for their 26 open bow). They are awesome boats are I'm sure are worth the investment, but for what I want my next boat to do and the budget that I have set (paying cash), a new Formula is beyong my reach at this time.

But I certainly will consider a late model pre-owned one if it is in excellent condition and equipped right.

Thanks again!
 
Oh yeah, I forgot to say that out of all the MFG's that sent me brochures, the packet that was sent to me from Formula was the most impressive. Not only did they send me their full line brochure (more like a softcover book!), they sent me spec sheets, a price list and even a DVD! And they sent it to me FedEx!

First class all the way!

The runner-up in the "best of brochure catagory" was Cobalt. Another first-class brochure and it was sent FedEx as well.

[:-thumbu]
 
Cobalt's are nicely made.

For me, their styling as you indicated earlier, is somewhat dated. Burl wood around the helm?? Reminds me of 1970's 4 door sedans!
 
The SoCal Sea Ray dealer is really trying to earn my business. They are a high volume dealer, and have quite the inventory. They have three 26' deck boats on the lot with two more on order. One is a 2012 model, but it is not equipped the way that I (and apparently most other buyers) want. That's probably why they are still sitting on it. I get at least two emails a week from the "sales mgr" asking what he can do to earn my business. I keep telling him what I want and how much I want to pay for it. We are still thousands of dollars apart, but getting closer.

I really like the 264 Chaparral, but their dealers don't seem to be in the mood to make a deal.

The Cobalt dealer in Rocklin has really taken a turn for the worse. They don't return phone calls or emails. I talked with them again during the boat show at Cal Expo a few months ago, but they don't seem interested in ordering a boat. They want you to buy what they have on the lot. And they don't have much. They have a new 2011 that is smaller than I really want, but I was willing to crunch the numbers, but they weren't interested in coming down much from the "list" price. Not much of a discount for a new boat that has been sitting on the lot for two years. They can keep it...

I'll be heading back down to SoCal in mid June. Maybe I will be able to make a deal then. We'll see...
 
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