Quote:
From reading this forum I understand that 'cost' would be:
initial cost.....
plus $$$ spent
less selling cost
(Thus, a higher intial cost, with lower $$$ spent is potentially less expensive)
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From a very high level you are correct but only because you ignore details that cost a lot of
money. The problems are that initial costs inclcude all the
money to just find the boat and then the
survey and time and effort to reach a
contract price then the taking posession and figuring out all the things reqjuired to m ake theboat
work for your use then cost more money. You then need to arrange berthing and other on going expences. Then there is the long distance cost of you are not at the boat all the time yet the boat still requires care and feeding. There is the cost of berthing the boat and
insurance and other costs of it just sitting in the
water.
Bottom paint wears while you sleep.
The having a boat far from your primary residence is difficult to pin down because little things become big things that don't get tended to when you are not there to see problems and hire work done or take care of it.
Next you use the boat and in the process find things you didn't know when you first bought it. Things break because you couldn't know, You make
repairs becasue it is the nature of
boats that use requires
repairs even if well tended. Lastly, you decide to sell the boat when use vs. expences reach a pain threshold. You need to do all the things a buyer would want and it takes time to find the buyer and ultimately pay the brokerage
fees and the cost of keeping a boat going no place still lives on. A cheaper boat in OK condition is probably the cheaper overall deal. If you buy one you will get a good deal and a
cheap boat will still be a
cheap boat pretty much no matter the in between.
Making the money work is still the number one goal. Figuring in all the costs is very hard. I can tell you that you can't be told the cost of a boat sight unseen in a place not been to.
In the end the total
purchase price is not the hard problem. It is all the costs in between where the surprises and serious money jumps into the
game. Long distance risks can be quite costly. It can also mean that should your use of the boat fail to live up to
current expectations then the costs still go up and you use the boat far less. It's not hard to make the balance sheet on such an arrangment a poor deal for you .So long as you always maximize your use on the water you can best judge the costs.