opinions - Demand for Mid size cabin cruisers?

[Boater71]

I'm looking at buying SR280 to SR320 in the northeast - looking for a clean well maintained used. This will be our first cruiser but owned DC before. Before pulling the trigger, I was wondering about the demand for these types of cruisers. If family does not like and want to sell after a season or 2. The other option I was looking at was DC or WA with OB's. Most dealers I talk to and even boat manufacturers are using more and more OB's even in cruisers for many reasons. I completely understand the argument "what you will end up using the boat for" and have opinions of both. The cruiser, expected to spend more time on boat, the DC/WA is a day boat. I have 2 boys pre-teen, beaching, cruising, fishing, is how we used our previous boat. I'm seeking opinions and perspectives on both sides of the coin especially if you upgraded from a smaller DC to a cruiser!!!!

 

[dtfeld]

All boats are compromise. I think everyone needs at least 3 boats. The mothership where everybody can hang out, usually measured in how many beers it can keep cold. A ski/runabout for the skiing, tubing and joy riding, and a PWC just for the hell of it.

I bought the mothership this year with the intention of adding a PWC that we can do a little skiing/tubing behind next year. Looking for friend with ski boat

 

[sbw1]

Boats are selling well in Michigan now. Pretty much all type including mid sized cruisers according to a knowledgeable friend who buys and sells them.

 

[boatman37]

We just sold out 1986 250 in 1 week. Have been looking all over about a 200 miles radius and haven't found much out there. I had 3 or 4 shops tell me they are selling faster than they can get them in right now. Hard to say what the market will look like in a year or two but right now it seems they are selling pretty quick.

 

[JVM225]

Good clean and well maintained boats that are realistically priced usually sell fairly quickly. Eliminate any one of those things and things get sticky.
Since you’re shopping for a boat then hold off until you find one that has all of those qualities.
Not only will you probably enjoy it more, but if you decide to sell you’ll likely be able to do so much quicker.

 

[fwebster]

Demand for various types of boats is highly regional………examples:

24-30ft. twin engine center consoles are hot as a fire cracker on the Southern coast right now.
Big, beautiful Sportfishermen in the 50-65 ft range are as cold as ice in the same region.
On the Tennessee lakes, small 26-30 ft cruisers are popular.
On the Gulf Coast where people do cruise their boats as opposed to using them for vacation homes, 40-50 ft cruisers are in demand, especially if they have a good service history and are nice boats.

To answer your question about demand, the only non-opinion data I know of is to look at days on the market for actual sales for the models you are interested in in your geographic area from someone like soldboats.com

 

[juggernaut1]

The state of the economy and sentiment plays a fair part in it too. I'm told the marina I'm in had a 5 year waiting list about 8 years ago, now with the demise of our mining boom it's about half empty and you can take your pick of pens/slips.

 

[danziger]

We went from a bought-new 2015 Cobalt R5 to a very lightly used 2016 Sundancer 330. During our buying/selling experience with both, I have a few observations:
1) Mid-range price cabin cruisers tend to sit on the market for a while.
2) Outboards are currently the hot-ticket (although not for us)
3) There is usually quite a bit of wiggle-room from a list price...even on an "in demand" boat.
4) Resale can be impacted by a plethora of things, so don't get too hung up on that.

 

[Craig]

Clean, well maintained, fairly priced used boats sell in these parts pretty good. A lot depends on the time of year and the price range. 100k and under cruisers are some of the more popular boats this summer it seems around here. 20 something center consoles do good too.
also.