In our "continuing education" we've learned yet another valuable lesson. Owners and brokers have a very different idea of the value of a boat than lenders and surveyors. And in more cases than not, the latter has a value sometimes approaching 40% or more less than asking price.
We saw this but getting the information direct from the horse's mouth confirmed it. And with a little more hunting we've found selling prices are more in line with lender values.
If you're a cash buyer, you can pay anything you want for a boat. If you're a seller, you can ask anything you want for your boat. If you're a broker, you're hoping both the above will get together and complete the sale.
But once you get lenders and surveyors into the mix, things change and it's usually the seller who's not happy. At least that's what we're learning in conversations with lenders and surveyors we've had recently.
I suppose inflated asking prices are due in part because there is no system in place where brokers take known sale figures and advise the prospective seller what a good number would be if they want to sell their boat reasonably soon like they often do in real estate. Maybe that's why the average boat is on the market almost a year before it sells.
In a nut shell, what the lenders and surveyors have said is the value of a boat continues to decline as it ages until eventually it has no value to the lender. If a boat is valued at 25% its original asking price, the upgrades an owner does will be depreciated at pretty much the same amount. They could also have no value to the lender. So a $20K repower may only be worth $5K to the lender, even right after work is completed. On older boats it may have no value at all.
One lender said if the owner wants to pour money into improving the condition of their boat, that's fine, just don't believe it will automatically increase the value of your boat. At least not in the lender's eyes. They are only concerned with actual value in a given market, as in "If the borrower defaults, what price do we need to be at to sell the boat in a reasonable amount of time?" They don't get emotionally involved. It's strictly numbers and they know them well.
Surveyors may attach value to major upgrades but the overall value seems to be more in line with the lender's value estimates.
The more we learned, the more I realized the saying, "A boat is a hole in the water into which one throws money" is not just a saying. It's a fact. And that fact may be why so many boats fall into disrepair. The love is gone and there's no financial advantage to keeping the boat up. Just dump it as fast as you can.
When we started our search 6-8 weeks ago, I was gathering values from BoatUS and NADA for boats we were interested in. One boat was valued dramatically lower by NADA than BoatUS. I told the broker that. He said BoatUS had more realistic prices because they also do lending. It made sense so I started using BoatUS values to determine the real value of boats in the hunt.
Recent conversations with lenders proved just the opposite. All lenders we talked to said they use NADA prices to value boats. And the surveyors tended to agree with the lenders regarding boat value. Seldom did either agree with the seller value. Still, there are exceptions.
So who is right?
If you're obtaining a loan and you aren't willing or able to come up with a down payment that will bridge the gap between owner/broker perceived value and lender value, you have no other choice than to move on if the seller won't come down to lender value.
If you have the cash, you can pay whatever you want.
We saw this but getting the information direct from the horse's mouth confirmed it. And with a little more hunting we've found selling prices are more in line with lender values.
If you're a cash buyer, you can pay anything you want for a boat. If you're a seller, you can ask anything you want for your boat. If you're a broker, you're hoping both the above will get together and complete the sale.
But once you get lenders and surveyors into the mix, things change and it's usually the seller who's not happy. At least that's what we're learning in conversations with lenders and surveyors we've had recently.
I suppose inflated asking prices are due in part because there is no system in place where brokers take known sale figures and advise the prospective seller what a good number would be if they want to sell their boat reasonably soon like they often do in real estate. Maybe that's why the average boat is on the market almost a year before it sells.
In a nut shell, what the lenders and surveyors have said is the value of a boat continues to decline as it ages until eventually it has no value to the lender. If a boat is valued at 25% its original asking price, the upgrades an owner does will be depreciated at pretty much the same amount. They could also have no value to the lender. So a $20K repower may only be worth $5K to the lender, even right after work is completed. On older boats it may have no value at all.
One lender said if the owner wants to pour money into improving the condition of their boat, that's fine, just don't believe it will automatically increase the value of your boat. At least not in the lender's eyes. They are only concerned with actual value in a given market, as in "If the borrower defaults, what price do we need to be at to sell the boat in a reasonable amount of time?" They don't get emotionally involved. It's strictly numbers and they know them well.
Surveyors may attach value to major upgrades but the overall value seems to be more in line with the lender's value estimates.
The more we learned, the more I realized the saying, "A boat is a hole in the water into which one throws money" is not just a saying. It's a fact. And that fact may be why so many boats fall into disrepair. The love is gone and there's no financial advantage to keeping the boat up. Just dump it as fast as you can.
When we started our search 6-8 weeks ago, I was gathering values from BoatUS and NADA for boats we were interested in. One boat was valued dramatically lower by NADA than BoatUS. I told the broker that. He said BoatUS had more realistic prices because they also do lending. It made sense so I started using BoatUS values to determine the real value of boats in the hunt.
Recent conversations with lenders proved just the opposite. All lenders we talked to said they use NADA prices to value boats. And the surveyors tended to agree with the lenders regarding boat value. Seldom did either agree with the seller value. Still, there are exceptions.
So who is right?
If you're obtaining a loan and you aren't willing or able to come up with a down payment that will bridge the gap between owner/broker perceived value and lender value, you have no other choice than to move on if the seller won't come down to lender value.
If you have the cash, you can pay whatever you want.