bad timing...

[Bernadette]

seems even though i have yet again dropped the sale price of DECATUR i still cant get a buyer.
the brokers have "potentials" but they cant seem to close the deal with any of them.
bad timing i guess?

[Paul Fitzgerald]

I sail past her most weekends, she is still looking purty.

No one is buying anything over $50K at the moment. They cant move their own boats, there is no credit, and prices keep falling.

Made some general inquiries about a nice glass boat a few weeks ago, broker called a week later offering it for half price.

If she is not deteriorating on her mooring, nothing to lose by staying on the market, but it is going to be a long haul I think.

[Bernadette]

hi paul
thanks for the information.
its certainly very disheartening to say the least.
i will have to go down again soon and do some work on her...but yes, she does seem to be holding her own unattended.
it makes me feel a bit sad to leave her alone like that. i was thinking of bringing her back north and putting her in at mourilyan harbour which is not far from my home base. when the economy builds back up again which of course could take a number of years i might be able to sell her. i guess it would be easy enough to sell her via the inet in that she doesnt need to be in a marina in a big city like sydeny.
in the meantime im still building my new boat. well dad is actually doing most of the work at present as im out doing paid work to keep the materials coming in!
bernadette

[PeterSibley]

Sail her Bernadette ...there's nothing worse than not being sailed .

[Bernadette]

yes peter...i know..and thanks.

[shamus]

I really feel for you in this. To have created such a beautiful boat and through a change of circumstances or intentions it becomes the wrong boat seems most unfortunate. And then to have it lingering on the market.....I wish you luck.

[goodbasil]

Nothings selling. But everythings for sell. I can't believe the amount of stuff on Craigslist and Canada isn't being hit as hard as most countries.
A condo here was $750,000.oo last year. Just sold for $460,000.oo

[Bernadette]

shamus, DECATUR (is) would be a beautiful and good boat under any other circumstances...but as you say, things have changed. its not that so much that gets me, its the lack of a buyer. surely it cant be that much of a niche' market? after all, the price now is more than reasonable (just about a give away price)and whenever and wherever i have been in DECATUR, she draws lots of admirers...even out on the water.
patience and time i suppose is what i need.

[P.L.Lenihan]

I'll second what Portland suggests.....get her out,expose her,use her,enjoy her! Boats sitting pretty but not being used always leave me suspecting something must be "wrong" with the boat, no matter how gorgeous it looks, for it not to get used.
Good Luck!


Peter

[Bernadette]

yes that is true. i took her to sydney though and im up in north queensland. its a bit difficult. when i was down last, i had a great days sail on her however.
as we speak, a broker has another lead so im keeping my fingers crossed.

[Thad]

Keep up that hope, and know she's a beauty and you're not alone.

[TimH]

My girlfriend found the same thing with selling her house. Finally dropped the price until it sold. $150k less than starting price, but its going to be a wash since she can buy something else for just as much less.

[willmarsh3]

Back in 2000/2001 I was in the same situation. I had a nice boat that I was trying to sell because my life situation changed a bit. I listed her with a broker and put her up on the hard in Annapolis. I tried to get up there as often as possible to work on her. But I'm sure she would have drawn more interest if she was on the water. The economy was sort of bad then with the dot com crash and so forth. I ended up taking her off the market and bringing her down here. See: http://www.willmarsh3.net/bc/index.html. I wonder how far it is from Sydney to N. Queensland? Just an idea.

[Kevin G]

Know the feeling..... Trying to sell my Catalina 30... Craigslist is practically giving boats away. Well, no trawler this year.

KG

[Stiletto]

I think that until the recession ends nobody wants to pay a substantial amount of money for anything that may be worth a lot less in the near future. Unfortunately this applies to beautiful boats like your Decatur as well as anything else. A Dutch auction will find you a buyer, but wont be very good for you.

[py]

I'm afraid its probably an extremely small niche market. The number of people in oz who would cherish a traditional wooden boat, and who have the spare cash to spend on one in decatur's price range, and who don't already have the boat of their dreams, would be extremely small at the best of times. Sadly, a plastic boat, same sort of size, same sort of price, would probably more readily find a buyer. $100K more or less might not really be the issue, so don't be too ready to drop your asking price. And good luck!

[Bernadette]

i strongly doubt whether the value of my yacht would actually drop in the near future.

timber boats as you may be aware, do not devalue in the same way as the production yachts. production yachts are very similar to cars...once away from the sales point, they loose their value.
timber yachts will maintain their value for many many years provided they are of course, maintianed well (which in essence is the same for any product).

i am not asking a substantial amount for the yacht now. its listed for replacement parts/materials cost. so if a buyer where to purchase DECATUR they would find themselves with a yacht, that by default, will most probably recoup any costs incurred in years to come.

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Unfortunately value is ultimately determined by the amount the market is prepared to pay, not the amount invested in the project.
Maintaining a traditionally built wooden boat is also a very expensive business for most people these days. Few have the skills to do much for themselves.
There are some beautiful wooden boats rotting on their moorings around Sydney.
If you have more value in the boat than the market is prepared to pay, keep it, use it, sell it later.
I let a great wooden boat go for a silly price in Sydney well before the market tanked. If your pricing was right Decatur would have sold well before the crash. How long has it been on the market now?

[Bernadette]

ok so what does it take to maintain a timber yacht that is any different from any other water craft made from any other material? tell me what is so unique to timber yacht maintenance.


if i live in a house and im not a house builder does that mean i will have to pay for someone else to come and do repairs all the time...?

a rotting timber yacht in sydney harbour: ive seen a lot of fibreglass boats with osmosis etc or steel yachts rusting like crazy...so your point is?

jsut because i build a yacht for personal use doesnt mean i have to exclude myself from making some sort of financial gain. people do the same with houses, with other boats, with cars, with anything.

and if i may say so, the reason DECATUR hasnt sold is many and varied. not least to say that in the first instance ive had brokers who were absolutely useless and didnt know one end of yacht from the other. stupid me to entrust the potential sale of my yacht to them.

if you see my first post: ive had (many) potential buyers who have made offers which i have accepted, but the brokers seem not to be able to close the deals.

and i dont believe in "giving" away my yacht. no one would expect anything less.


im my personal opinion i do believe that the australian boating public are "spoon fed" such wonderful hype about production yachts. there is limited exposure to traditional yachts like DECATUR. so the market is geared towards flooding the minds of these people with yachts with "bedrooms" and "kitchens" and who know little else...

[Paul Fitzgerald]

Well, I have only owned and maintained four wooden and four glass keelboats over the last thirty years, the last wooden boat for fourteen years in Sydney.
I also sold it at the same time your boat came on the market.
It was listed with good brokers and generated lots of interest, but I still settled for a price which didnt come close to the amount I had in it.
But I guess I mustn't know what I am talking about.
Good luck.

[py]

Can understand your frustration Bernadette. But I think your description of the market is spot on. Hence my suggestion that you are looking at a very small niche. The guy who buys a shiny new beneteau for 800K won't even look twice at Decatur because he won't understand what he's looking at. You can forget all the clorox buyers, they won't be converted to wood. That's the market you are selling to, during a period where cash is tight and people are worried about job security and the value of their houses and their super. Its not your fault, or Decatur's, that no-one is buying her. You probably just have to find a way to hang on to her and wait until a wooden boat buyer, with cash, comes along. And in the meantime don't sell yourself short. Keep the price where it ought to be.
Phil

[py]

Jeez mate-I just did a search on boatpoint and found her. You've got to be kidding. That is way way way too cheap. Don't do it. You have seriously lost the plot. Put the price back up and wait. Find a regular sailing partner and use her. She's too good a boat to give away.

[Bernadette]

py
yes i know that its a very low price. but then again im happy if i sell her even for that. but, she is at her lowest price. for me its a balance between living for life or living for money...

[ByronB]

I'll swap you. Two (2) teenage daughters, $50,000 and my soul.

Just to sweeten the deal, I'll throw in two cats and a dog named Jess.

[Bernadette]

byron...thanks but no thanks!!!!:) although the cats and dog sound like fun!!!

[Tom Hunter]

Bernadette,

I did a search on boatpoint too. When I searched under 'Schooner' it did not come up. I had to search under Alden.

So if someone is looking for schooners on boatpoint they are not going to find Decataur. You need to fix that.

Also, for this price and this boat I think your market includes people wealthy enough to buy from outside Australia. I would put the boat on other sites, maybe even eBay.

If you go global raise the price a bit, you can always come down later.

Good luck

[Bernadette]

tom thanks for that info. are you really serious about putting her on ebay? i thought ebay was for only "small" items.

[py]

There's a couple of big boats on fleabay-but I wouldn't have thought of it generally as an appropriate medium
phil

[Tom Hunter]

Here are my reasons for ebay

1) It can't really hurt

2) Large audience

3) (this is the most important in my opinion) if it gets hits it will push you up on the rankings in Google. If you check, there were 16,800 Google searches for 'Alden Malabar 2', an old ad for Decataur came up 5th. You really want Decataur to be the first thing people see if they Google Malabar 2. 'Alden Schooner' has 68,000 searches, if you can get to the top of that list then your chance of selling is even better.

At any given moment there are probably between 50 and 250 people with money looking for a boat like yours. You want them to find you, not one of the other ones.