Quote:
Originally Posted by Don C L
Ok that is the poster child of a great possibility for practically nothing. With a running diesel too? Sheesh, what has the world come to that a boat like that is not snatched up quickly? OK yes I am a little biased, but a solid proven boat with a diesel for under 1k? wha?yakiddinme???
|
I’m telling you Don, these are magical times. Makes me think of that old saw about the Chinese words for “crisis” and “opportunity” being the same. I don’t think that they truly are but there is something to the idea.
The costs for services and rents are as high as they’ve ever been, but the costs for stuff are super low. Marina
fees and
storage fees are high, while the actual cost of a physical boat is low.
This is reflective of larger economic trends I’ve noticed. Look at the
electronics store Best Buy, and their proprietary in-house
installation team, the “Geek Squad “. 55” tv:$299. Mount it to the wall? $149.99.
To me that’s crazy, but I don’t want to turn into my grandfather and itemize all of the things going wrong in our culture and so on. All I know is that there are great boats to be had for
cheap, I suspect it’s because of how markets
work and that the supply of old boats is outstripping the demand for same. That
Pearson and the backstory that went with the ad sounded promising to me. The extra $300 the marina is owed clinched it. I’m confident it’s filthy, like a college bachelor’s apartment with extra garbage. It probably smells strange indeed. But I bet you could get it and sail it and be feeling pretty cool.
I think the “almost free” boats tend to be the best, in that $900-$3,000 range, coincidentally right around the cost of annual
storage. These boats also tend to be located in
marine storage yards, which tends to mean they were pulled out, hopefully just to store, possibly to
repair, set
on the hard, and then abandoned. “Free” on the other hand, seems to be more likely to be on a farm or other rural lot, farther from getting back into the
water water both geographically and chronologically. Of course there are exceptions.
My boat’s previous owner had twins, and some other life changes, and hadn’t launched for 2 seasons and was prepping to pay
winter storage when he decided he’d had enough, and
sold.
That
Pearson seems to be on the market for similar life change type reasons. Good luck with it and please keep
posting.