Buying a Brand New Boat

Disclaimer: I'm sure this has been covered on the forums in the past any directions towards previous posts would be appreciated.

Has anyone on here purchased a brand new Nautique in the past 3 years?

Just curious as to the pro's / con's of purchasing new vs slightly used.

Buying new does have it's benifets. The 5 year warranty is peice of mind. I have used my warranty for little odds and ends that some might overlook. It also alllows you to order the boat with every little detail you want(there are alot). With the market the way it is though, I would think one could find a "near perfect" used boat that's still under warranty and save alot of money.

It seems like V-Drive open bows are becoming more and more the norm. You should probably have a lot of options out there both new and used.

Are there any leasing options? I mean let's say I wanted a new boat every 3 years? Do I just finance it for 3 years and then get trade in value and take the hit?

my brother in law bought a new a new malibu in i think 05or 06? in 2 yrs they did a major motor repair . If i remember right a head and tranny was out and repaired or replaced twice in the first two summers. thank god for the new warranty. oh and they ended up gving him the price he had paid 3 yrs earlier in trade for a 08. sounds like it was a lemon....

robertbruder wrote: Are there any leasing options? I mean let's say I wanted a new boat every 3 years? Do I just finance it for 3 years and then get trade in value and take the hit?

SN206 wrote: Not that I'm aware of.

You know, there might be, but I'm not sure if they apply to the general public. Two summers ago I taught wakeboarding/waterskiing and we had a Malibu iRide. Plus two non-inboard beaters. The camp director was pretty tight lipped about financial details, but the rumor was the Malibu was on a lease.

Camps put a lot of use on a boat in a short time. And, they can't have throngs of disappointed campers waiting on the dock while a boat gets repaired, so they need to be constantly running a new one.

I think Malibu let them do this largely because it gets the boat out there. Sometimes some of the kids parents will turn around and buy a Malibu, because their kid loved the boat and wakeboarding so much at camp.

Also, the camp may overpay a bit in the long run for the privilege of constant brand new-ness. It's on the camp to not damage the boat, then all the dealer has to do is do a service, and vacuum out the buckets of sand, and they can sell it as a regular used boat.

Brian,

Interesting. I think a lease would be the way I would want to go with it if at all possible. 3 years seems to be my attention span on just about anything.

Oh man, not to sound preachy but seriously re-think that boat vs. house thing. You have to think of a house as an investment, especially with housing prices down right now.

Now I am sure there a lot more financially savy people on this site then me, but this is the way I look at it. You have to pay rent - so if you consider that money a sunk cost. On our first house, we put $10k into it (1994 - wow that seems like a long time ago)as a down payment. We paid mortgage and mortgage insurance for 3 years at which point the house had increased in value enough that we no longer had to pay mortgage insurance. Five years after that we sold the house (under market value) for $70k more then what we bought it. Thats a pretty good return on a $10k investment over 8 years. Now in the 8 years since we bought this house the market has remained flat and our house may be worth even a little less but I have been able to deduct the interest on the loan and the property taxes on my federal and state income tax. So I look at it as I get some of my "rent" (mortgage payment) back.

Again can't comment on what a boat loan would do to your credit score or your debt to income ratios, but I think getting into a home (even a townhouse or condo...) should be very near to the top of the priority list. Again, I apologize if this comes off preachy...

robertbruder wrote: 05 210 wrote: I'm glad i bought when i did because things have changed for me and there is no way i could go out and buy a new wakeboat now. Mike Mike, Good points. My business partner and my father have both told me that if I am going to buy one to do it before I start a family or else it will never happen. The major concerns I would have would be holding that type of debt when trying to purchase a house. Would this be considered negative debt that would look bad on a Home Loan App? My assumption would be with 10-15% down in equity it wouldn't look all that bad. The other issue I have is that I hate financing vehicles / toys. My truck and my education are the only things I have ever financed in my life and the truck will be paid off in 6 months. So the decision will be do I swap a truck payment for a boat payment in 6 months or do I hold out for a year and put what would have been my truck payment into my boat fund?

A credit line payment(boat) and a morg. payment are different and both benifet your credit. So do revolving credit lines when payed off timely like major credit cards or large retail cards. You could actually see your credit improve.

Agree, everyones credit to debt ratio varies.

robertbruder wrote: Mike, Good points. My business partner and my father have both told me that if I am going to buy one to do it before I start a family or else it will never happen. The major concerns I would have would be holding that type of debt when trying to purchase a house. Would this be considered negative debt that would look bad on a Home Loan App? My assumption would be with 10-15% down in equity it wouldn't look all that bad. The other issue I have is that I hate financing vehicles / toys. My truck and my education are the only things I have ever financed in my life and the truck will be paid off in 6 months. So the decision will be do I swap a truck payment for a boat payment in 6 months or do I hold out for a year and put what would have been my truck payment into my boat fund?

I bought my boat after I started a family, so I can't tell you it wont happen if you wait. I also already had a home. In all honesty , I dont feel that having a boat payment would hinder your ability to get a home loan as long as your credit scores and debt to income is in line. If you are responsible and the bank can see that you should be ok. You just have to ask yourself if it is something worth risking. How far off in the future could a home be etc. If your thinking a year or two, it may be wise to start with a lower budget and upgrade after the home. There can be alot of hidden expense when owning property . It wouldnt be much fun to buy a new boat, only to have to sell it in a year because you need to buy a home or maintain a home and can no longer afford the boat. Its always more fun to upgrade than downgrade.

    Mike

I'm with Eric on this one. The amazing value of used boats/cars/bikes/etc. is a pretty compelling argument. You mentioned mid '90's Sport Nautiques. Go late '90's, GT-40 in great condition, high teens is considered a bit high priced. Buy a boat like that, you'll easily run it for 5 years with reasonable maintenance, maybe spend another $4,000 on it. A new boat may not owe you anything if you trade it for another new boat, but you spent the 90 grand no matter how you do the math.

My opinion is save the borrowing power for the house, get a great value on a used boat.

All thanks for the discussion and input. I hadn't given much thought to the idea that I wouldn't be using the boat that much once I do decide to start a family. That is probably in the cards for the next 10 years and a 10 year note on a boat when there is a large likely hood that I wouldn't use the boat for 3-5 of those ten years doesn't add up. Looks like I should consider purchasing new in about 2020 provided the world doesn't end in 2012. For now I am going to focus on paying for an open bow v-drive in cash.

Thanks again,
Rob

crobi2 wrote: I'm not so sure about the family thing. My oldest was in the boat at 6 months of age (only because the engine wasn't in it until then) and my next kid was in the boat at 6 weeks of age. It was tons of fun and incredibly great memories. In fact, thank you for making me remember!

You must have a cool wife. My buddy's wife freaked out about it being to much time in the sun etc..

eric lavine wrote: disposable income?     to compare apples to apples, if you finance a 90k boat over the term, you'll end up out of pocket at about 115k, fck the warranty, if you purchase that same boat used at 50k, and out of pocket 60k or so the difference is roughly 55k....consider the value lost as you walk out the door on new...let someone else take that 50k hit. now were talking 50 thousand dollars difference, you can purchase a rider insurance policy to cover any type of repair with that 50k, sht, 50k will buy you 5 engine swaps, 4000 tanks of gas, 10000 cases of beer, a Denalli to pull that pig...actually you could buy a back up boat if that one breaks. put it on paper, I know new is nice, but...........

I know this is such a personal question and many people finance these 90k+ boats, but I couldn't agree more with Eric's logic. I suspect many of the folks buying these boats have the power to stroke a check for them. Sorry to all of the dealers on this thread, but there's no way I would sink that kind of money into a new boat, car, motor home or anything else that will lose value as soon as I'm done signing my name. Money is kind of hard to get, so use it to get the most value you can and save it when you get a chance. I'm a big fan of having fun with it though!