When do you sell your boat?
 

I was talking to someone the other day about my 2004 wakesetter with 690hrs. and he asked when i was going to buy a new one. I've always been an "out with the old, in with the new" kinda guy, but with my boat its a different story. Granted an '04 is getting up there, but i have countless hours fabricating speaker boxes, amp racks, led lighting or just sitting in the boat thinking of little mods to make it "better" or "nicer". My question is when do you sell your boat? Do you have any mods to your boat that make it "yours" and does it make it harder to let go of if you did them yourself?

I generally keep stuff for a long time, and won't buy anything unless I know I'd be happy with it forever if I kept it that long. Everything is for sale for the right price, but I'd be perfectly happy if I had my current boat 'till I kick the bucket. If someone came along with the money I'd want for it, great... It would be gone and I'd probably end up buying the same model boat but a couple years newer with composite stringers so no worries about a stringer job in the next 10-20 years. My boat is an '89, my truck an '86, my car a '68 and my bike a '71. I see no reason to sell any of them to buy a newer replacement. Most people are in a race to get the next newest toy, but to each his own. If what I have does what I need, I'm happy. If it doesn't, usually it's just a matter of adding horsepower (or in the case of the boat, tower and ballast), which makes for fun winter projects.

Your boat should have another 1000 hours before you have to worry about anything major, and even then you're only talking a couple thousand to rebuild the engine, trans maybe $500, not sure on a vdrive but maybe a bit more than a trans. If it does what you need and you're happy with it, keep it until you're not getting what you want from it. Sounds like you've put a fair amount of time and money into it to make it yours so I'd assume you're pretty happy with it. It's a composite stringer vdrive so should hold value well since it's past the initial depreciation.

As for the work I put into my boat or other toys to improve them or make them mine, I don't let that factor into whether I sell something or not. Sunk costs and whatnot. I do all the work on my toys because I was taught to never pay someone for something you can do yourself. I view it as money saved, not so much time invested. I know things are done right and to my liking, and if I do sell I have more margin before I take a loss since that time I spent working on the boat i's at times when I wouldn't have been doing anything particularly constructive.

Usually for us it has been when we outgrown / need / want a new one.

Which on average has been 3-5 years a boat for us...

First boat was 89' Ski Eliminator w/ tower - bought for 6k - added goodies and sold 3 years later for 6.5k ....Nice
2nd: 95' Hydrodyne Legacy - paid 8k - added tower, ballast, stereo, etc - sold it 3/4 years later for 8k... nice
3rd (Current boat): 95' Nautique supersport - took it from a "family boat" to a wakeboard boat.... have had it for 4/5 years and will be selling in the spring

Never.

Sell it when you want to sell it. You sound like the type of guy , like myself, that is never satisfied with oem things and would want to change things on even an Aston Martin. Just keep in mind if you get a new boat you will probably do all the same mods to it as well.

tryin' to sell mine right now!

I've got 900 hours on the 11 year old X-star and not looking to get rid of it anytime soon. To answer the question as to when you sell your boat....when the maintenance costs start to consistently add up to boat payments. :p

Sold my first Sanger drag/ski boat after I completely tore it apart - found an already done one so I bought it minus motor. Took a long time to get a motor built for the second Sanger drag/ski boat. Bought a project Hondo drag/ski boat with a friend but never really got anything accomplished on it. In the meantime, had my first daughter and sold the Hondo. Bought a Crownline and sold the second Sanger. Had my second daughter and used the Crownline nearly every weekend for a few years. Sold the Crownline two springs ago and the plan was to buy a wakeboard boat last spring but due to traveling with work that didn't happen. Plan on buying a much needed boat this winter/spring. Moral of the story for me is buy/sell when something better comes around or if you need to. I like to keep some equity or add equity of some kind before selling a boat. Added a new motor to one boat, added tower/stereo to another, etc. I have almost always made money on a boat when selling it - added $20k to one engine and sold the boat for $10k.

:confused: What's this!
Are you actually allowed to sell a boat once you own it?
Say it ain't so .:confused: