Boat Buying Advice

Hello all,

I was wondering if i could get some advice from all of you knowledgable boat people. My roomate and I are in the market for a new wakeboard specific boat. The problem is how do we get taken seriously from the dealers without having to run our credit all the time? Our credit score is sky high as well as my roomate having over 70k in equity on a brand new house. It just seems that when we walk into a dealership, they just see two young guys and don't seem to take us seriously when we come in and look at a boat...

We are trying to make a very educated decision and would like to look at all the boat manufacturers and have really only been to 3 dealerships, one mastercraft and 2 nautique.. out of the 3, only one nautique dealership was a good experiencereally helpful and very informed about what they were showing us, but even they were pushing for a credit app to be run. Is this normal? We don't want credit apps to be run at every dealer we go to, considering we still have to look at malibu, supra, sanger, tige etc etc... Can we buy a credit report and just bring it with us? Is there some kind of letter from the bank that we could use? or should we just tell dealerships who can't trust our word to forget it and we'll take our money elsewhere?

This is the first time either of us has ever purchased anything like this and we'd also love some advice from people regarding co-ownership of a luxury boat as well... we were talking about going to see our cpa to work out the deal so that no one gets hurt in the end. How have your experiences been? We are pretty close and share the common bond of loving the lake and wakeboarding... Thanks for any info guys..

PeAcE

Someone else mentioned on here that if you are making a large purchase such as a boat you can have you rcredit run more than once w/in a 30 day window and not have it negatively affect your credit. As far as Co-ownership....I've only done it w/ my brother and it was a pain collecting money from him, and he's blood. Its hard to split every cost 50/50, what about those holiday weekends? Storage? Clean-up? Make sure everything is negotiated before you purchase...and put it on paper! A 40k depreciating asset can turn things pretty ugly. If you can afford it by yourself do it. You'll be happy you did. Its easier just to get a little gas money from your friends.

There is no reason a dealership should have to run your credit just to talk shop. If your credit is truly sky high 700+++ then they should be able to quote you rates and payments based on that. My wife and I ordered a boat (Malibu) last month and they didn't run our credit until last week because we were in the middle of refinancing our home. The dealership still ordered the boat right away. Their thought was if our credit was not good and we could not afford the payments, they would sell it off the lot. I would say if a dealer won't even talk to you before they run your credit, tell them to take a hike.

Too many good dealers are out there to deal with a bad one. If they won't stand behind the pre-sale, what makes you think they will be good during the warranty?

My wife and I tested our boat on the water before they ran our credit.

i work in the car sales industry. just tell them the situation up front & i'm sure they'll bend over backwards for you. in their defense, they probably have young people coming in alot who cant finance a bigmac and end up wasting alot of time with them. tell 'em you have a large amount of equity in your house & your beacon is over 700----then watch their eyes light up!! oh, and they shouldnt pull your credit right off the bat---that's downright insulting. the only time your credit should come into consideration is after you have agreed on a purchasing price.

You would be surprised how many people come into dealers who think they have good credit and don't. It takes above average credit and financials to get approved for a boat loan in the first place. It's a nonesential item and will be the first item to get the nonpayment if the buyer runs into financial trouble. The lenders know that, plus boats depreciate rapidly. These are not cheap toys, so you need to prove yourself "maybe not right but more so if your young" if you want to be taken serious.

Only thing I can suggest is to run your report and carry it with you. You can get one run online for $15. If you flash it to them with a 700 plus credit score then you are good to go, especially if you tell them you are making a decent sized down payment.

But if someone clearly offends you then tell them to go take a hike. Oh but be sure to show them your 700+ credit score and bank account balance at the same time. Then watch their expression as you take your money with you out the door!!

Only other thing is to get pre approved from a lender or credit union. Then you will have that part taken care of.

I wouldn't bother with anyone who asked for a credit app. before even helping me out.

I've walked out of numerous car dealers who did business this way only to have them call me the next day to see if I was ready to come back. I always ask them if they want me to come by so they can check out the new car I would've purchased from them if they weren't an ass.

I was 25 when I bought my boat. I even bought it with a friend of mine. Not only was the dealer not pressing me for a credit app., but they delivered the boat to us and let me write them a post-dated check for the downpayment because I was expecting my tax return in a few weeks. I just called them up and told them they could deposit the check when it came in. If that's not service, I don't know what is.

Mr. French is 100% down with the sickness - if you've got a credit union account (anywhere), go that route. We did this with our Sequoia and also the Epic. With the truck, we had a baseline to which Car's Direct and the dealer could try to beat. In the case of the boat, it was used, and three states away. I showed up in Dallas on test drive day with an unsigned check for $25K. One week after findning my Epic on Boat Trader online, we had been pre-qualified, approved, check Fedexed to me and me and the Sequoia and check got to Dallas. Not your same situation, but neither Cars Direct, nor Toyota financial, nor any boat dealer in the whole wide world could beat the rate or service that we got. By the way, the credit union we used was 3,000 miles away.

CUs give you a lot of liberty. I make a point of signing up for credit unions when I have the chance. When it's time for a big pruchase, I just sift throught he statements and find out who among them has the best rate. Makes a difference.

A couple of other options that could save you some money:
1) With $70K in equity, check out a home equity loan.
2) If you started early enough, check into borrowing against your 401K...the interest you pay goes back into your very own account.

I'm not a big fan of the shared investment, but I suppose it could work in the right relationship.

Good luck!

Not to bash Eric's sugestion but....Not a real good idea on the 401K borrowing. If you leave your place of employment you have to pay it back right away or it's coded as an early distribution. You have to pay taxes on the money plus a 10% penalty.

There is Pros and Cons to the home equity route. But 70K in equity is not a huge amount in today's world. If you draw a lot of that out and then the housing market turns for the worse you could be upside down before you know it.

I do agree about the shared investment, can become a nightmare and ruin a friendship.

Here's .02 cents from someone who bought a boat with a friend. I wouldn't buy a new decked out wake boat. Too much can happen when one of you isn't there that might cause problems (scratch/tear/ding/etc). I'd buy a used boat that's got some hours on it and don't cost a fortune. That way if one or the other flakes out, you're aren't stuck with a 55k investment that's only worth 40k. In our case, we bought a 92 MC prostar 205 w/ tower, racks, stereo, etc....for 13.5k. Put some work into it and could now sell it for more than we paid should something happen. You're not gonna have that luxury with a new boat and lets face it, these are luxury items we're talking about here.

PS. Pardon my spelling/grammar mistakes above. I had a few too many beers last night by the looks of it.

Just to give another perspective. I co own a wakeboard boat with my Brother in law and it has been excellent. No problems at all. You just need to make a few ground rules that you both eunderstand and agree to. We review the situation every 12 months with eiether having the option of opting out. We forked ou t $55Aud for our boat and it has been fine. Every expense gets split down the middle regardless. Having said that there would be very few other people even family that i would do this with. We have very simiar life situation and interests/ income which all helps. Both put in equal amounts to start and have sufficient equity in the boat that if we had to sell in a hurry below value for some reason we would both still come out with cash in hand. Point is it can work very well if everyone knows where thay stand.

Thank you for everyone's responses!

Over the next month or so we will be hitting 4 or 5 other boat manufacturer dealers in our area and if they treat us like we are not serious about purchasing a boat, then we will not be serious about them selling us a boat. I don't really know the etiquette (sp?) of purchasing a boat but what we are doing now is trying to get a test drive of each boat and jotting down notes, pros/cons of each boat so that we can make an educated decison. The problem is we don't plan on purchasing it until about boat show time in January of next year since I have a new 04 boat at this time. All of the dealers that we are meeting with will be at the boat show. Should I be up front with them right away? Will they not want to take us out on the water in the boats? It will be too cold in January for us to be able to ride behind the potential purchase, so I am kind of confused on how we should be going about this. Am I going about this the wrong way? I just want to make sure that I will like what I will be riding behind for the next few years, especially since we are going to be spending so much money. We could buy a boat now, but I would rather sell my current boat before we buy another new one, and make extra payments before we can really even use it on the lake. Any advice? I know it can't be cheap for a dealer to bring us out to the lake for a test drive, and sometimes I feel like maybe Im giving them a run-around, since I know that I won't be actually making the purchase for another 4 months.

Oh, and I've tried asking others for rides on their boats but it never really works out. This last weekend we were at a competition and one day was supposed to be demo day for the riders. There wasn't anyone demo'ing anything that I could see, and we were actually supposed to be able to go out on someone's boat whose wife works at the malibu dealership here, but we pretty much got blown off. I couldn't really get mad at that, it's their personal boat, but it really would have been nice to have gotten a good ride behind a new malibu... she could have gotten the commission on selling us a boat in January.

As far as co-owning the boat, I really think the relationship between my roomate and I is strong enough to do this. We both love going to the lake, and even though I own the boat that I have now, I completely trust him over anyone else to take the boat out without me. I would think that if he was as careful as he is without any investment in the boat, that he would be more than careful enough with a boat that he is sharing payments on. We have discussed it and we will split all expenses right down the middle. We do plan on seeing our CPA about a few of the financial aspects and drafting some kind of protection so that in a long-run, if something were to happen, niether of us would get really screwed. Jees that sounds like a pre-nup to me....

equity line....why even thing about outside financing...one reason tax deductable interest!!!IMO cars never finance on a equity line dealers always have lower a.p.r's..but a boat or R.V. line of credit and write off the interest!!!

#$%# the IRS

sorry a litle selfemployed anger there

I like Boyer, French, and Stanfield's advice. Forget the new boat. Don't hassle w/ dealers and their need to run your credit. Get approved from a bank or credit union and go look for a used boat. Negotiate cash with a private seller and you will save a bundle over new boat pricing, plus you won't be worried about the first little blemish on a co-owned boat. With the way new stuff(boats,cars,rv's,campers,etc)depreciates and the prices on these new boats nowadsays, I think it makes alot of sense to buy nice used stuff. Sharing ownership of the boat is yet another reason to get something used. Just make sure your getting a nice used boat with no hidden problems. Have it checked out. Good luck w/ whatever you do!

(Message edited by 00prostar205v on August 13, 2004)

drumNwake420, you said "I don't really know the etiquette (sp?) of purchasing a boat "

There really is no difference from sales approach side of it from buying anything that requires a salesperson. If the salesperson is not taking you serious go elsewhere or (my favorite) ask for a salesperson who will take you seriously.

They want their comish and if someone else gets it instead of them, they'll learn their lesson.

One on my friends wanted to get a 3 seater jet ski for hitting sliders and wakeskating so I went with him to the closest sea doo dealer and looked at them. He was ready to buy right then but the salesperson would not take the time to help us. He wouldn't give him any kind of pricing info or deals info because he was talking to a 21 year old.

So we hopped in the truck drove 20 miles farther to their 2nd location that is much larger, got great help, he bought the ski. we conveintly forgot to get some injection oil so we could stop at the first dealer with ski in tow and buy some. It really chapped the salesguy. He promptly picked up the phone and made a call, probably to the other location to try and save face.

When I was car shopping last year I was looking at chevy trucks and I had a saleman want me to run credit before taking a test drive. I said My credit is fine and if I like the ride and price I'll let him run it. he still wanted to run it first. So, I walked off the lot into the showroom to the very visible sales manageer and asked him if he had someone who would like to try and sell me a car. Hilarious, the sales manager took over, handed me the keys, answer my questions, got me killer financing and sold me a truck.

the best part is both sales people saw what they missed out on.

Everyone has there bad days but in sales you gotta treat people good or starve.

(Message edited by jzwake on August 13, 2004)