Initial Purchase price vs Resale value

[breezy]

In 2002 I bought a Sea Pro because I did not want to wait another year to gather the money for an Everglades.I used that boat 5 years and sold it for about 30% less than I paid for it.I keep reading threads and often see people talking about Grady resale value vs for example Sailfish.Is the resale value as a percentage of original cost that much greater

and is there a way to value it?

I know a used Honda will do better than a used Yugo but do higher priced boats really hold there value vs a lower priced boat?

[YOLO]

Generally speaking, in my experience, those that claim to have a better resale value usually have a higher price tag up front. The depreciation rate is usually the same... in most cases. If you pay 3-4 times the cost of a Yugo on your Honda it will likely be worth 3-4 times the Yugo in 5 years.

There are exceptions, and some don't agree, but I think thats the case in most instances.

[rchanner]

I know there are a bunch that would disagree with me, and I've gone around and around with certain people on THaT other site about it, but I maintain that they're all the same, relative to price.

Cases in point, from "both ends of the spectrum":

2009 Contender 31 open (new) $198,000/ 2007 Contender 31 open $84,900...... Two years old, selling for 43% of new price.

2009 SeaFox 286CC (new) $89,900/ 2007 SeaFox 287CC $41,000......two years old, selling for 45% of new price.

I didn't make these up-I spent 2 minutes searching Google to find actual boats advertised at these prices.

Note: I'm not going to get into a "used Contender vs. new SeaFox" debate....I'm just answering the question.

[Fubar512]

Today's market is not resale-value friendly. Used boats are often selling for 50-60% of their BUC values. Back in the day, however, things were quite different. During the early 90's, a twenty year - old 31 Bert with gas engines usually sold for 35-40K. Not bad, when you consider that that same boat, listed for about 30K, when it was brand new (in the early 70s)!

[pmagrady]

Back in the old days (before $4.00 gas and the stock market crash) depreciation on a 1-2 year old boat was 20-30%. At the same time new boat prices were going up 20-30% each year. When a buyer looked at new and barely used boats he was not put off by the high price of the barely used boat because it was so much cheaper than the new boat. Now the used boat prices look high.