The reason I’ve hunted repo boats across the U.S. and Canada for the past 7 years is that frankly I’ve found no other source that produces cheap boats than repo boat auctions. As newer boat and yacht prices climbed in the past decade boat repos sold at local and regional auctions for almost 44% less.

According to YachtAuctions.net in 1998 a brand new cruiser sold for $255k on average. Just four years later that same new cruiser sold for $367k… Fast forward to late 2008…a new cruiser averages a whopping $465k. But get this, that same cruiser sold at a local boat auction house or dealer liquidation (used of course) for an average price of only $250k.

But boat auctions aren’t popping up in your local classifieds. You have to really look if you’re a DIY’er, but the payoff can be staggering as well. If you’re able to somehow manage to get a bank to take you serious and they actually have boats in repossession than you may be in position to work out a deal as they are typically in a must sell situation to write off their “non-performing asset” as quickly and efficiently as possible. Your offer(s) to a lender may not be accepted but they’re almost always considered.

If you’re toying with buying a repossessed boat you have to find credit unions or lenders in general who finance boats regularly and are dependable to keep you on alert of new inventory. Not as simple as you would think. As it turns out most banks already have an ongoing relationship with a local or regional auction house. For this reason I got smart and leverage several auction sources primarily www.BoatAuctionsDirect.com to stay alerted of any seizure or repo type auction in my area. Do that and you’ll stay ahead as well.

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