She’ll love a
real kitchen.
This is the boat she’ll sayYes^ to.
FIND OUT WHY ON PAGE 85.
SEAMAGAZINE.COM MAY 2017 59shop at least. We can clear credit and verify
income, assets and employment. We can do
all of that up front and say, “Look, if you’re
going to borrow $200,000 for 15 or 20
years at this rate, we should have an oppor-
tunity to do business depending upon the
collateral valuation of what you purchase.”
Yes, the moon and the stars are going to
have to line up, but that’s as far as you can
license the person. Then they have to go out
and find the asset. You’re not automatically
cleared for anything, and I think maybe
there’s a little bit of a disconnect, but you
try to do the best you can with what you
have to work with.
Are there expenses apart from the cost
of the boat that can be included in the
loan?
That varies from lender to lender. The
answer is yes, but it’s a qualified yes. Some
of the things that can be put into the loan
are sales tax, extended warranties, and
other back-end products such as collateral
protection products. You find it more in
smaller boats than big boats. The Coast
Guard documentation fee can be put into
the loan in many cases. Some of these
things are dictated by other factors. Say
you’re putting 10 percent down but have 8
percent sales tax. Well, that’s probably not
going to fly, because now you have only a 2
percent equity.
Another request that comes to mind is
when we’re asked about financing a condo
slip and the possibility of putting it in the
loan with the boat? The answer is no, for
the simple reason that one of the assets
will likely be sold before the other. This
can be a real dilemma in what valuation is
then assigned to the remaining collateral,
and will it support what’s left of the loanbalance. That just puts you in a box of
snakes and you don’t want to be there.
Boat lifts are another dual-collateral
request we get, more prevalent in a salt
environment. They’ve become more popu-
lar because people don’t want those hulls
in a salt environment 24/7. I was just down
in Tampa for a meeting and was out and
about into a couple of different marinas,
and these lifts are even more popular than
I thought. They were everywhere, and when
you’re lifting a 40-, 50-foot boat with cables
and hydraulics, that stuff is not for the faint
of heart from a price standpoint. Therefore,
you have the same dilemma with lifts that
you have with condo slips.
The best case for the purchasing public
is to buy and finance your boat as a stand-
alone transaction. Then if you looking to
purchase a lift, a condo slip, etc., contract it
on its own.