Bump's World - Spring 2010
April 26, 2010
SPRING 2010
For most people spring means the snow is gone from the ground and the buds begin to appear on the trees. Once the snow is gone the grass slowly turns green and the buds turn into leaves. I also see all that happening, however what I see out my window is winter sticks replaced by mooring balls, docks towed back into place, and now boats lined up at the dock to be rigged and commissioned. Spring is here.
The feeling of spring 2010 is of uncertainty. It is trying to live through such turbulent economic times where everyone tries to compare it with some other economic crisis, when in fact no one really knows. The experts, many of which two years ago talked about a on going solid economy, jam the talk shows expounding about how we will recover from this mess. I really wonder if they ever listen to themselves.
In the boat world our sellers are hoping for a strong quick recovery. The result of that would stabilize prices and maybe even drive them up a little. This did happen in the mid nineties after the economic troubles of the late eighties and early nineties. On the sailboat side there still is not huge inventories. New sailboats have not been sold in big numbers since the 1980s. The result of this is not many recent model year boats on the market even now. There is a fair amount of older stuff, but still nowhere near the numbers you would expect. Examples are 2 Sabre 386s on the market right now, no Sabre 452s and 3 Sabre 426s. Even when you get into the older boats it is not out of control. Currently there are 4 Sabre 30 MKIIIs, 3 Sabre 36s and 4 Sabre 34 MKIIs. These are mid to late eighties models, which are over twenty years old. So in spite of a very strain economic situation the inventories are not big. In fact they can barley sustain the current demand.
Today's buyers are cautious, but also confused that there is not more to chose from. The buyer is also never sure how good a deal he is really getting. The best thing a buyer can do is find the boat that suits their needs the best and then hammer out the best deal possible and then focus on enjoying their boat. If you do not have that attitude you will probably miss a few summers of sailing. I don't know about you, but I beginning to really value the summers since I'm not sure how many I got left.
What does the boating industry say about what's going on. The industry says the big problem is dealers not getting enough floor plan money to stock up on boat inventories. Since there is a huge pent up demand, at any moment the flood gates are going to open with boat buyers and dealers caught without inventory will be the big losers. The second big problem is retail financing. The industry says there are many buyers out there that want a boat but just cannot find financing. Every day I get calls from retail boat financing people looking to give money away at very reasonable rates and terms.
The industry is telling us that baby boomers now have put all their kids through college and have at least fifty thousand more spend able dollars now that they do not have to pay for Kids College. They want to spend their retirement on a new boat.
hese same people told us in the eighties that baby boomers now had families and boating is a great family sport. In the nineties the kids where leaving home for college so the parents had lots of time for boating, no more kids soccer games running their lives.
After the millennium, economic prosperity flooded the country and boats sales would be the end result of that wealth.
With this type of direction from our industry you can see why I might wonder where we really are going.
Well I know where I'm going and that's sailing. I'm putting together my sailing schedule and networking with my sailing buddies. I hope the economic geniuses figure it all out while I'm out sailing.
Please mail comments to me at Bump@newwaveyachts.com
Bump Wilcox
