Rich People Are Paying too Much for Yachts

Yachts are moored in the port of Cannes on March 31, 2022 in Cannes, southern France. Image: Photo by JOEL SAGET / AFP (Getty Images)

Hey all the rich people who certainly read Jalopnik and take its advice to heart: Are you looking to get a bigger yacht? Well, get ready to release some of those assets because it is a sellers market when it comes to obnoxious, oversized, planet-killing pleasurecrafts.

Fair warning, this report from Luxury Travel may cause anyone middle class or lower to laugh maniacally as they morph into a Batman villain:

For those seeking to release assets held in their yacht or are perhaps looking to upgrade to a larger vessel, there has never been a better time to sell.

The yachting industry experienced record yacht sales in 2021, reporting a 71 percent surge in sales, according to Boat International. Last year’s sales figures were the highest ever since records began. In the US alone, there were 415,000 first-time boat buyers recorded in 2021, according to the National Marine Manufacturers Association.

The boom is fueled by an increased desire to enjoy time on the water, with the world’s wealthiest realizing the benefits of a superyacht. A luxury yacht offers a self-sufficient sanctuary at sea, one that is exclusive and private while enabling the owner and their guests to travel whenever and wherever they desire.

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This spike in demand has seen superyacht prices surge when selling yachts, with many going for above-asking prices or selling before even being publicly listed. Many of the world’s leading global yacht brokerages are reportedly selling luxury yachts at record speed, while new yacht sales have also surged, with leading shipyards working at full capacity, with many popular yacht models selling before construction commences.

The rich are not so different from you or I, it’s just a matter of scale. While we little people are paying 40 percent more for used cars than last year, the rich are struggling to find that perfect-sized yacht and paying extra cash on the deck to snag the right pleasure cruiser.

It’s not just rich people having an epiphany that they like enjoying nice things far away from shore-poors that is driving the yacht price boom. There are simply more rich people. Luxury Travel cites the annual Knight Frank Wealth Report, which puts the global rise of the Ultra-High-Net-Worth Individuals—that is, people worth at least $30 million—at 9.3 percent in 2021. This is during a time when an additional 75 million and 95 million people are expected to join the ranks of the people living in extreme poverty—less than $1.90 a day—thanks to inflation, the war in Ukraine and the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, according to the World Bank. This is certainly fine and good.

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So if you do have a yacht just hanging around, taking up valuable dock space instead of being money, what should be your first step in selling it? Why, hire someone else to do all that of course! That’s the only advice Luxury Travel gives its readers. What, you thought you were gonna have to spend your Saturdays posting on Bring a (boat) Trailer and chasing away hull-kickers? How gauche. You must be one of those new Ultra-High-Net-Worth individuals.