1989 bayliner ciera 2455

Eisboch

http://www.edmunds.com/

just curious how the values would compare...

In the last 10 years or so they have lost most access to the data that once made them pretty reliable.

At one time, the customary data exchange and multiple listing service for yacht brokers was called BUC.net. It was a pretty sweet deal for BUC. When you logged on to check regional inventory, etc, you paid something like $1 a minute to use the service. A busy brokerage office might run up a bill of $20-$30 a day! Along came Yachtworld with the broker's-only password protected side, Boatwizard that offered better service for something under $200 a month when they first began. (Yachtworld is now several hundred per month- maybe leaving the door open for the next better mousetrap?). Most of the brokers got out of BUC.net within a couple of years, and the service lost its data.

BUC does send out sheets to yacht brokers and asks them to report on the boats they have sold. There's not much incentive to do that, and it probably gets put into the "when I get a round tuit" file much of the time.

A word of caution on BUC. The regional differences are fixed percentages that are supposed to apply across the board. Doesn't work that smoothly in real life. IIRC, there was a 15% add-on for boats in the Pacific NW. Boats do sell for more money here than elsewhere as there is a lot of opportunity to use them and the lack of intense sunlight for most of the year keeps UV degradation to a minimum. That said, a good clean trawler here will often bring 25% more than the "national average" for the same vessel, while a picnic or lobster boat that would be very popular on the East Coast probably will need to be heavily discounted to sell at all......(exception seems to be the Grand Banks Eastbay series).

Another tripping point with BUC is the "condition" tables. Everybody always overestimtes the condition of their boat when they are selling, and everybody always expects a *lot*, conditionwise, when buying. Far too many sellers with a decently clean boat, (in the same shape that most people who cared about their boat would keep it), add on for "Bristol" condition when using BUC. Conversely, the typical buyer looks for a reason to offer less and will try to bluff the seller by stating that he only considers what might be the cleanest boat in the world "average".

The dance of the buyer and seller goes on, and on, and on. :-)

There are resources available to professional brokers and dealers that allow a closer look at the actual *selling prices* of used boats. One such resource is the boatwizard program available to subscribing brokers through yachtworld.com. There are limitations to these sites, as well, but they are better than NADA. On the sites I'm referring to, brokers removing sold boats from the yachtworld inventory have the option of reporting the actual selling price. To be sure, there are some brokers who are either the world's most effective negotiators or who aren't being honest- as every one of their listings is reported sold at full asking price. (Makes a great, and probably greatly dishonest, tool to use when competing with other brokers for listings. "See? List with me! All of our boats sell for full asking price!") By factoring out the known story-tellers, it's posible to get a very concise look at actual market transactions on a specific make and model of boat in a specific region.

The prices at which boats are actually selling determine the true market value.

Exactly.

And I guarentee you they aren't selling at $10/12000.

>Almost none were as cheaply priced as NADA suggests they should be. >

Aside from the obvious users of NADA.... ALL of those boats are only worth what they sell for. Locally, you are lucky to *give* a Bayliner away after it is a few years old.

In this area, people are really not kidding when they say, "Friends don't let friends drive Bayliners." A perception.... but that *IS* what drives markets...

I bow to your expertise.

Jeeze, Chuck..... an "offering price" is nearly always a *reality check* for these price point boats. Based on local selling/buying he most likely got stung. His market might be *really different,* but I don't know why.....

I'm sure that all those Bayliner owners will sell their boats for well north of the listed NADA price.

I'll take Chuck at his word.

I haven't seen the guy's boat. It could be a real Turdship, or not. I wouldn't begin to say what the boat is worth without seeing it, nor should others. Unless a market is locally depressed for a particular model (as you say yours is for all Bayliners), there is going to be reslae activity at a general price level.

The skeptic pipes up and says, "But how do you know that those 40 some out of 60 people advertising their boats for 40-100% (and more) above the NADA are getting those prices?" Obviously, we don't. However, we do have a general indicator. People with a boat on the market always tend to start high. Human nature. When a boat goes unsold for week after week, the advertised price starts getting a little softer. In most cases, the price drops at a slow but steady pace until the phone starts to ring. Joila! That's the price that will lkely attract a buyer in the local market. The fact that very, very few of the Bayliners similar to the one the original poster just bought are priced down even close to the "high retail" in NADA is a pretty good indicator that the street price is a lot higher than the NADA fantasy figure. The boats are being sold and disappear from the market before the sellers have to get down to such a low number.

No serious marine lenders in our region use NADA for anything boating related. A couple of credit unions do- but only because their loan underwriting guidelines require them to do so.

I'll never forget a go-around I had with a local credit union one time. A guy came in and put money on a boat, and said he was going to arrange his own financing. Fine. As I remember, he made better than just an "OK" deal on about a 35-foot boat. He called me two days later, mad as heck. He'd stopped payment on his deposit check, and accused me of trying to rip him off. "My credit union showed me the NADA," he said. "Even with all the options figured in, you were charging me over $30,000 too much for the boat!" (The transaction price was about $150,000).

I sent him copies of the reported sales prices for the same boat in our region. I sent him copies of the advertised asking prices for the same boat in our region. I reminded him that he had been shopping and comparing for several months before he made the offer on the boat. He said, "The only people I can count on to be on my side in this whole deal is my credit union. They're telling me that you're trying to rip me off, and that's the end of the story as far as we're concerned."

Finally I called the credit union. "Sorry," said the loan officer. "We adhere stricly to the NADA guidelines."

"So how many boat loans do you write?" I asked.

"Almost none. Everybody comes in with a deal that's so far over book we're not allowed to make the loan."

In other words, "the rest of the army is out of step".

I ran into the same customer several months later. I asked him what sort of boat he finally ended up with. "Oh, we haven't bought a boat yet. We can't find anybody honest enough to sell us one for what NADA and the credit union says we should pay."

'84 24 Ciera (Huron, OH) $8900 '87 24 Ceira (Rogers, MN) $8995 '88 245 (Egg Harbor, NJ) $7995 87 2450 (Aurora, IN) $9950 '87 2450 Ciera (St Clair Shores, MI) $9999 '87 2450 (Washington, NV) $8990 88 2450 Ciera (Everett, WA) $12995 '89 2455 (South Haven, MI) $9900 '87 2455 (New Windsor, NY) $14900 (?!) 89 2455 (Verplank, NY) $9200 '89 2455 (Red Wing, MN) $6295 '88 2455 (Alton Bay, NH) $6495 '89 2455 (New Buffalo, MI) $6900 '89 2455 (Westbrook, ME) $9995 '88 2455 (Portland, ME) $11,495 '88 2455 (Chicago, IL) $14000 '89 2455 (Fox Lake, IL) $12995 '88 2455 (Port Clinton, OH) $12995

The list goes on and on, but this covers the first three pages in the exact order that the boats appeard. Out of 18 boats, only three are listed under $7k, ( and none listed at $6k or less) while 10 are listed at effectively $10,000 or more.

It would be pretty difficult to make a case that $6000 is the appropriate selling price for this boat in bristol condition. Of course there will be a difference between asking and selling price, but not typically 40-50%.

The boat in question in the original post is worth somewhere between $ZERO and the price the poster is paying for it.

I agree that he needs to spend a little money on a surveyor now rather than a ton of money on unexpected repairs a couple of months from now.

89 Bayliners make excellent submarines.