Maryline Bossar: you you ⁓ you Welcome back to the Current Yachts podcast Full Displacement. We're here today to talk about our lessons learned from the Palm Beach International Boat Show that was just a week ago. And we're going to take the opportunity to discuss this first quarter market report we were able to extract to give you a sense of what's been happening January, February, March. ⁓ episode is being recorded on April 5. And I'm here with Austin from the Current Yachts team. ⁓ Austin, how are you doing today?

Austin: I'm doing good Maryline how are you doing?

Maryline Bossar: Really good. It's a nice Easter weekend going to talk about what we saw in Palm Beach first. Care to take the lead on that? What were your thoughts on this year's boat show?

Austin: Well, well, Palm Beach Boat Show has grown a lot over the years and now it's becoming one of the large boat shows in Florida, which I like. This year though was a little bit different. We saw a lot of, for the first time, I have to say, I saw a lot of 23 and 24 models for sale at the boat show. It was interesting.

Maryline Bossar: What does that tell you? Just that the 2026 inventory hasn't made its way into the dealerships yet?

Austin: ⁓ I think it has. think it has, but I think there's still a lot of old inventory left to the dealers because we saw during COVID it was the opposite. There was nothing available on the market. There was no inventory and now we see the boats are getting sticky. They stay at the dealers for a long time. The sales cycle has slowed down and is ⁓ much ⁓ ⁓ demand seems to be slowing down a bit. That's why the ⁓ is slower. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, we are most definitely in a buyer's market. Nobody can deny this. What we can qualify when we review the data later today is that it's not as drastic a decline as one would think. But can you speak to perhaps what's going to continue to happen this year in terms of advertised discounts, for example? What did you see in Palm Beach? And ⁓ that surprise you? that seem normal? Is this more discounting than normal? ⁓ want to know that.

Austin: I don't see the crisis that some people have talked about. What I do see is that during COVID and at the end of COVID, dealers bought a lot of boats They bought a lot of inventory because boats were flying off the shelves. So I think many dealers took in a little bit more than they should have. And then when the market has come back to normal and maybe slightly below normal, and now we have a tariff issue on top of that, I think a lot of dealers are stuck with a little bit of inventory. but think this is a temporary issue. We will see it stabilized. I mean, as soon as the tariffs come back to somewhat normal, ⁓ boats will sell. People will be more ⁓ to buy new boats again. ⁓ ⁓ don't see this as a critical warning to us in the boat market, ⁓ it's just a situation we haven't seen before. ⁓ really all it is. Discount wise, I think what we're seeing is a natural effect of having a lot of stock. The dealers that are sitting on 22, 23, and 24 models, they would like to sell them and they are offering them close to cost and some dealers are taking a hit and offering them at cost or even below at this point. Because I talked to a lot of dealers and there's a lot of, let's say, willingness to get this stock sold this spring. It's a huge opportunity for buyers and I don't think any buyer should be worried about buying a 2024 or 2025. Even if it has been on a few boat shows, it might have a hundred hours on the engines because the warranty will not start until the owner takes ownership of the boat, meaning registering the boat. So every buyer will still get a full warranty on whatever they're buying. It's important.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, that's a good point. And to circle back on the prior episode that we had with InfoLink, where we talked about the trends in the market and perhaps days on market getting longer for new inventory, that means that dealers have to start payments on that inventory, the curtailments, as they're called. And when this happens, of course, ⁓ the to sell is greater than ever. So there are going to be some perhaps in this category. We're not saying that's the case for everybody, but for sure there's going to be more motivation. What specifically have you seen as far as motivation? How did that manifest in this show ⁓

Austin: I think you're right. I think you're right that dealers are starting to have payments on their stock, which is, I mean, this is why we're seeing the willingness to come down in price. But again, this is a temporary issue. we also see as dealers or brokers that, and this is just my impression, I feel like traffic is picking up. We're getting more inquiries on both new and used boats now versus what we got just a month and a half, two months ago. something is changing. feel like buyers are coming back and maybe it's because buyers see it's a buyer's market. They now want to take advantage opportunity, ⁓ but matter what, ⁓ the out there, the stock is here. ⁓ So are we not all taking advantage of it? ⁓ ⁓ feel like buyers now start ⁓ considering coming to a like Current Yachts or whatever dealer they're comfortable with ⁓ to look for a boat, even if it's not in their ⁓ immediate area. ⁓ It an opportunity that might not come again.

Maryline Bossar: Right. And just to emphasize, that's typically not the norm because a lot of the brands will have established dealer networks and we're definitely not looking to compete and replace dealers. We're just saying, and we're seeing that we've been approached by some of these brands that are saying, hey, listen, we're very much hurting on this particular boat. If you can bring us a buyer, we'll work something out, which is a bit of a switch, right? From what I would say the norm. What about, I dock talk. What have you heard from manufacturer standpoint? I think you had one particular instance or two where you thought, ⁓ this is a little, a little new. Do you want to share what that was?

Austin: Yes, yes. So normally when I walk these ⁓ see dealers holding on to their brands and very hesitant to partner with others or ⁓ outside dealers, brokers. ⁓ Now we're the opposite happen. what I saw at this boat show, which I have not seen before, I see brands basically now selling direct in addition to having dealer. They've kind of gone away from exclusivity. They're inviting dealers that have not sold this brand before to take part in the sales process and kind of market the boat to their own clients. So this is brand new in the industry and it's just like I said before, it's another confirmation that we now see a buyer's market. And I think this is how it should be.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, absolutely. We're going to actually report on those numbers as I was saying earlier. Can you share the one data point you had pulled for us on how many new boats were listed in Florida alone? Do have that number handy

Austin: Yes, so after the show when I got all this impression from the manufacturers and dealers, was little bit surprised. there must be numbers here that I have missed. So I went online and I looked for new boats 22 to 60 feet in 22 to 24 listed as boats online. ⁓ And just in Florida, I found 600 boats. that doesn't mean that there are 600 boats. It means ⁓ of these boats are listed in a couple of places, so will count them too. But ⁓ it that there's a lot of new boats from 22, 23, and 24 ⁓ listed sale, which is again, it's unheard of during COVID. You couldn't find a new boat for sale. It was sold before it was shipped from the factory or shipyard in Europe. And now have a bunch of these ⁓ listed for ⁓ at local dealers

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, I think what's clear is we're really distancing ourselves from that post-COVID boom. It's long gone, right? Let's put it this way. So for those sellers who still have the expectations of pulling the highest numbers in the market, it's not going to be there. the buyers who are looking for the right deal in the right boat, they will ⁓ potentially find something really good ⁓ meet their needs at a ⁓ price that's very attractive, more attractive than it has been in probably 10 years, right?

Austin: Absolutely. I think this is the only time buyers have now the opportunity of reaching out to a dealer or a broker like us and say, hey, I am looking for such and such. Can you help me find the right boat and the right dealer and work with the dealer for me? we can secure these buyers a good deal, ⁓ warranty and all the hassle if they did it themselves. They don't have to sit at a dealer and ⁓ jump all the hoops. We can do it all for them. I mean, and this has been done in the ⁓ market now for a couple of decades and it's becoming the norm of buying a new car you use a carbroker. Now we're seeing the opportunity for new buyers in the boat market and if I was a boat buyer I would absolutely do it.

Maryline Bossar: Mm-hmm. So we're going to get into these numbers to compare how this first quarter of 2026 has compared to last year. And those of you who are not familiar, perhaps you've worked with the yacht broker and you've seen similar stats before, but in you haven't, I will explain where the data comes from and give you a little bit of warning too as to ⁓ how much can rely on this data. So the majority of boat sales are actually reported directly by dealers and brokers inside of a platform that ⁓ is advertising boat sale on one end, that's the public facing, and in the back end allows dealers and brokers to manage inventory. And so you're able to report as you deactivate a listing how much it sold for. And this data is exclusively for yacht brokers and for them to share with their clients as relevant for say a particular segment or particular model. And it's generally incomplete by a long shot. Why? First of all, it's only broker transactions. You're not going to have, for example, private boat sales, private buyer to private seller. That's just not going to be reported. There is no way for us to guarantee the accuracy of the data. So I'm not saying that there is any incentive for a dealer or a broker to put down incorrect information, but I'm just cautioning the audience here. We cannot verify it. A lot of the time we cannot. Now, if we have a colleague who sold a similar boat to one we have listed and want to check on what exactly came down for this particular deal, we can always make a phone call just like, you know, realtors do all the time. But on a macro level, that data is just as good as we can have it with limited ways to verify it and make it robust than what we have strictly from the brokerage slice of the market. Another aspect which Austin you can confirm as well from your experience is that ⁓ boat sales ⁓ notoriously wildly underrepresented. Is that a fair assessment?

Austin: Absolutely, mean, especially now these days, because now we have manufacturers and dealers, they're both selling new boats and manufacturer have traditionally not really reported at least not real time. So will not have that data at all. And should this should this transaction go through? A second dealer, I mean, like if a dealer outside the dealer network buys a boat from a manufacturer, it's not certain that they will report the sale. So we have a lot of unknowns right now and it's really not possible for us to be anywhere near accurate. But we have the numbers we have, so.

Maryline Bossar: right. And from my experience working for different brokers ⁓ dealers, I also can tell you that when you have a quote unquote, you know, canned listing, you don't always go through the trouble ⁓ closing that one off and sharing how much that particular whole number sold for to duplicate and create a new one. Now, you might create a new one to reset days on market. And even that is pretty rare. ⁓ typically you end up with kind of window shopping for a, you know, model ABC but we're not going to see every ABC sale reported especially by a new boat dealer that's just that just doesn't happen so I wanted to caution you as we look at these numbers it's not perfect but it's a assessment of what we can share ⁓ and if it's a really good comparison from one quarter to the next when you compare two years because You are more or less measuring the same thing. I will share my screen next so we can jump into the numbers. Okay, so I'm sharing with you the report for sales in Q1 of 2026, compared to the prior first quarter of 2025. As you can see, overall, there are fewer boats sold, which is driven primarily from new boats. Again, remember the caveat that we take the data for as good as it can be, but it's not necessarily all in... So what we can see here is an overall decline of about 5 % in this quarter in terms of units compared to the prior year. What you can see here is that the sold price for ⁓ pre-owned boat is going to be about 10, 11 % less ⁓ quarter, Q1 of 2026, compared to the same quarter last year. Okay. Now the median is up. So again, that would tend to tell us that there's more of the larger boats ⁓ upon the price difference we observe here. But as we come down here, I can also show you that the boat length ⁓ down a little bit. So what do you make of that? And I haven't actually extracted all the data to show it to you. This is just a high level summary. But we're seeing prices go down 11%, let's say, versus a decrease in size that's only really marginal. The length is, let's say, 4%. less right so slightly smaller boat but a much bigger price difference That would be a softening of the market, right?

Austin: I would say so. mean. Keep in mind in 2022 to 2024. The availability was low demand was high, so a lot of the same boats were worth more at the time. And now we have a different situation or starting in 2025 with the situation changed. There was a lot of on the market that are now coming back for sale. They were bought in 2022, 2023, 2024, and then 2025. Many of them after COVID came back for sale. So the statistics will not really work with us and give us a total picture here. We can see the total changes, but we cannot see the hidden numbers.

Maryline Bossar: Okay, so it might be a bit difficult to draw an assessment because I don't have the average model year. We can pull this for the next quarterly report that we'll put together. But again, high level, overall number of units is down about 5 % across the board, mostly driven by new boats. The price point of boats is down about 11%. And we're seeing that there's also a decrease in the boat size as well. Now, What's interesting is the days on market and that surprised me because people are saying, well, the market is really not supporting, you know, higher price points for sellers and boats are sitting. And actually what we're finding is the days on market is actually going down. So are sellers less unrealistic in 2026 than they were in 2025? What do you think?

Austin: I think that what we're again seeing is that brokers and sellers are being smarter and resetting their listings more often. I think listing time is increasing drastically, but you know as well as I do when someone takes their boat off and makes a new listing and posts it again, we start from zero.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, it'd be hard to think though that people did not do this in Q1 of 2025 either. So I'm not sure if we can draw that conclusion, but

Austin: No, So what I have seen is that from early to May 2025, sellers started to get anxious and so did brokers, because many were fearing that we were heading towards a recession, ⁓ But then it happen, ⁓ or at least it didn't happen yet. So. ⁓ Now we have something else to worry about. have tariffs. We have other things to worry about.

Maryline Bossar: This is another metric I wanted to pull from the data that I'm putting on screen now, and it is whether or not boats were open to co-brokerage more in this quarter than last quarter. And what we are seeing is... that actually there were more co-brokered boat in the past quarter than there were in that same quarter in 2025. There were more by 8%, which is a pretty big number.

Austin: Yeah, And I think know ⁓ When things were flying smoothly, less brokers were willing to share. then ⁓

Maryline Bossar: But were things really flying off the shelf first quarter of 2025? I don't really think so.

Austin: Well, no, it wasn't, but it was the end of the COVID era. They were still selling boats. And I feel like a lot of brokers were still on that train. We're like, we can sell it. We don't need anyone else, blah, blah, blah. You want the whole commission. ⁓ as ⁓ have changed, now more brokers are ⁓ to do cobrokerage And I think that's a good thing. That's a thing. doing sellers a service by doing so. ⁓

Maryline Bossar: Another data point I wanted to and share ⁓ is the percentage of sold price a percentage of list price. Again, you'd have to look at the granular data inside of a segment to verify if this is based off of a already discounted list price ⁓ or the very original list price. But here, ⁓ overall, we're seeing the sellers are retaining a little bit more of their equity because they are reaching closer to 93 % of their asking price compared to 92 % in the past quarter for 2025. So Q1 of 2025. So that's good news, I would say, for a market that's supposedly tanking. That's definitely a good data point. I wanted next go into some of the class breakdowns to share with you some of the trends we are seeing. If there was one thing we've learned from this podcast within Info-Link last week it is that not all segments are behaving the same. And what I wanted to show you here through these examples in particular is for a few chosen, what we call classes in the backend of the Yacht World data, the segments of power boats to begin with here. So center console ⁓ sold are actually up almost two and a half percent. Express cruisers are down almost two percent. Freshwater fishing is up and flying up 20 percent. So that's again speaking to the fact that you're going to see a wide disparity in in those numbers.

Austin: a little bit earlier too, when we talked about boat length, length was coming down a little bit. Can this be the reason? Center consoles and freshwater fishing is up. So people are buying slightly more of those boats, maybe not less of the other ones, but maybe more of these boats. And that pulls down the average size. I don't know.

Maryline Bossar: Yeah, and in absolute numbers, right? If we're comparing the PowerCat segment, which has only about 100-ish units sold, of course, when you go from 110 to 101, this nine unit represents an 8 % drop. It's clear that you have to also look at the whole critical mass to understand the math behind the changes that we're sharing. The runabouts too are up significantly, which is a little bit... countercurrent to what we've heard from InfoLink on the overall segment performance. Saltwater fishing is up, trawlers are up, and I could say that this is something we're noticing too. We're getting a lot more inquiries on trawler in long distance sliverboard vessels. So that's an interesting point. And we can also see the time on market to the right here. So the... days on market change, what is suffering the most is actually the runabout and the trawlers. So that's very interesting. Perhaps these are the segments where the sellers were least realistic with their pricing. So something to keep an eye on. And then just as a side note, the sail category as a whole is actually smaller Center Consoles, for example, but we an eye on that as well.

Austin: Thank

Maryline Bossar: And we're seeing that the count is down 8%. So that's a significant number for all sail And inside of that segment, the sail catamaran is down nearly 5%. So we're definitely seeing also on the right hand side here, a of the days on market. So that kind of tells you again, how different those segments behave, right?

Austin: this is, ⁓ mean, boat market is so ⁓ different the housing market, the car market. ⁓ You these variations in trends, have fluctuation in needs based on ⁓ how being sold products. So we always have this change. Like I've seen this in California too, over ⁓ 15 ⁓ It's pretty ⁓

Maryline Bossar: And another thing I wanted to share was how, I just show you the data for the days on market, the data for ⁓ sold to list ratio, So in other words, how much ⁓ of my asking price I retaining as a seller? ⁓ And that number is ⁓ a lot in those powerboat segments. see very few positives and when they're positive it's not by a lot. So now we're seeing that degradation across the board and in sail no one's spared as well, right? So that's you should expect as a seller to see more aggressive offers from buyers. So doesn't mean that this is the only one you'll get but you're going to see ⁓ more buyers trying and that's something to be prepared for. All of this provides you data points make your decisions, whether you're looking to list or buy a boat. It's very difficult, right, to have a cohesive data set for these entire segments, put them all together. We're getting directionally a good ⁓ sign that things are not as dire as some ⁓ perhaps put but... We are definitely seeing some challenges and some are more severe in some of these classes. So if there's a particular boat type segment that you'd like to explore with us, let us know. We can actually extract at the transaction level and show you what we call the comps, right? So you can see what boats like yours have been selling for, has that market degraded, by how much, what can you expect? We like to say that we don't have crystal balls. We don't know what the future will bring. We can only see what's happening right now. And by pulling data points from the sold boats data as close to present time as possible, we help you. We help you make the best decisions. to summarize Palm Beach Boat Show felt soft, definitely a buyer's market. Austin, you're having conversations you haven't had before where we have manufacturers that are a little bit more collaborative with non dealers to just, Hey, bring me a buyer, right? There's more. of that anxiety to make that inventory move. And we're also seeing a little bit larger incentives at this present time to try and remove that inventory from the shelf from 23, 24, even 22 you said, right?

Austin: Yeah, some 22s are still on the market.

Maryline Bossar: Very good. Well, we'll do this analysis again for the next quarter and we'll report back after every major boat show to tell you what we're seeing in the market. Thanks again for tuning in. And again, if you have questions, the best thing to do is to contact us at hello at currentyachts.com and we can generate a data report specific to your circumstance. We look forward to seeing you on the next one. Thanks for joining us and have a great day. Fair winds. Overall sales for Q1 are down less than 5 % compared to last year, true or false?

Austin: True.

Maryline Bossar: What can you say about days on market so far for inventory in 2026?

Austin: time on market as a whole is getting longer, but it varies widely by market segment

Maryline Bossar: Coming out of the Palm Beach Boat Show. Do you get the sense that current yachts can help with any boat purchase new pre-owned?

Austin: Surprisingly, yes, that is my impression.

Maryline Bossar: What was the most impressive yacht you saw at the show this year?

Austin: It was the Ocean Walker S60 Power Catamaran. was not expecting that. ⁓ definitely was the best value at the show.

Maryline Bossar: Thanks for listening this far, we really appreciate it. Make sure to like this video and subscribe so you can see more of it when we publish new content. Now back to the show.