Interest rates and fuel prices taking a toll?

First quarter new and used boat sales in WA state were down slightly from last year. This is the first time in 3 years that first quarter sales have been off vs. the previous year. Jan and Feb numbers were actually up over 2005, but a very soft March drew the quarter down overall.

Notable statistics:

New boats sold by WA state dealers were 1,253 units in Q1 2006, vs. 1.361 in Q1 2005. Unit volume was off 7.9%, but due to price increases dollar volume was off less than 1%.

Washington State residents bought 32 fewer boats from out of state dealers in Q1 2006 vs. Q1 2005. (339 vs. 371) However, a substantial increase in average transaction price of such vessels resulted in a 58.8% ($4,427,448) increase in this category.

Used boats sold by WA State dealers were down 23 units from the 850 sold in Q1 2005, but dollar volume was up 9.9% in that category. Fewer, but more costly used boats are being sold.

Among New boats:

Sellers listed the following "Propulsion type" on applications for registration:

Ourdrive: 415 units Inboard: 184 units Jet: 184 units Outboard: 848 units Sail: 18 units (some sellers list sailboats as inboard, outboard, etc) Unknown: 25 units

LOA's with notable percentage changes:

<10' down 11.5% Q1 11-14' down 16% Q1 23-26' up 58.7% Q1 (165 units vs 104) 27-30' down 9.5% Q1 31-34' up 22.7% Q1 (27 units vs 22) 35-38' up 91.7% Q1 (23 units vs 12) 39-42' up 20% Q1 (12 units vs 10) 43-46' up 250% Q1 (7 units vs 2) 51-54' down 33.3% (2 units vs. 3) 55-58' down 100% (no units sold, vs. 2) >70' up 100% (2 units vs. 1)

Looks like sales in the medium size cruiser category, 31-46 feet, were actually up pretty well- but of course there isn't any meaningful volume in those categories to influence the overall statistics.

Looks like the 50-60 foot category has fallen off slightly, but again the base is so small that 2-3 units one way of the other make a huge percentage difference. (A lot of these are now 7-figure boats and sales volume may tend to track the price of second mortgage money).

Among used boats:

1363 "outdrive" 883 "inboard" 402 "jet 3,089 "outboard" 235 "sail" 86 "unknown"

Categories of LOA with notable % changes

11-14' down 8.1% 15-18' down 7.2% 23-26' down 4.1% 31-34' down 9.7% 35-38' down 9.9% (91 units vs 101) 39-42' down 6.8% (68 units vs 73) 43-46' down 12.5% (28 units vs 32) 47-50' UP 41.2% (24 units vs. 17) 59-62' down 50% (1 unit vs 2) 63-66' down 50% (2 units vs 4) 67-70' down 50% (1 unit vs 2)

LOL!

I guess ebay, watched carefully, can be a better than average indicator since you can eventually see what a boat or anything else actually sold for. Watching "for sale" ads isn't a good inidicator of selling prices in general because that only indicates what people are "asking" for a boat, and there's no limit to what you can ask.

The statistics I'm sharing here are for one of the 50 states and for a 3-month period. No way to project anything absolutely definite on a national basis from these, of course.

Will it cause some people to conserve? The question I really want to ask but will refrain is:

Will "conservatives" (per capita, last year vs. this year) conserve at a higher percentage than liberals?

Mind that I'm not asking the question, just pondering. ;^)

jps

Commie. :>)

165 units vs 104 in the 23'-26' catagory.....again a very nice increase.

Except for the very small and very large boats, it sounds like a nice first quarter of sales.

The true story will come with Q2 sales vs last years Q2 sales. ;-)

Not a good standard for prices.

RCE

The seller took very high quality pictures. and his discription was dead on. The boat is very nice and the interior is high quality.

There are two other 169's on Ebay right now, and one is an absolute identical boat as mine, you would swear they were the same boat, that is with exception of a couple minor differences. One has 4 days to go and it at $2200.00 now, and the identical one as mine just closed at $2380.

I feel I got a heck of a deal on mine. But then again, it also might be that I bought mine in the fall of the year, when the boating season was al most over.

Two years later, with way higher fuel prices, and the used market goes...up?