Used boat discount question.

[Matt0520]

Is this your first boat? How old are your kids? We’ve been looking at a Supra Sl and Nautique G23 - also our first boat. But we have now decided that given it is our first boat we are now looking at a Moomba Max or Mojo to make sure the kids enjoy it and the wife and I like it before forking our $130K+.
I don’t consider 4.5-5% cheap financing - that would be sub3% which I don’t think you can get on a boat financing today, otherwise I would rather just pay cash.

I'll tell you guys, after having our first season (and 83 hours so far) under our belt, any wakeboat as a first boat is a shit ton of work. But also awesome.

The work part, what I mean is that you're learning new boater stuff: driving, trailering, storage, fixing, etc. and then on top of all that, you're also worrying about weight distribution, wake and wave size and cleanliness, towing riders, etc. You're also buying all the basic boat stuff + all the boards and ropes so the startup cost is also higher and there's more to worry about. I'm so glad we did it but it's easily double the amount of work vs if you bought a regular boat as your first boat. Just be ready for that.

We were in your shoes, tempted by a G21 or SA...but chose to start more analog and basic. Don't regret it for a second and there's always time to upgrade. But with all of the above going on, the longest warranty possible was worth it to me (on new Moomba).

We put 37% down on our Mojo and financed the rest for 12 years. This was only possible for use because we used our old boats equity to come up with the 37%. I would have financed longer but my wife vetoed it. IMO finance 15-20 years and then just pay extra if you can to get it paid off early. I don't like the idea of tying up all my monthly income in mandatory debt spending. If you finance for a long term and some kind of emergency happens you can pay the minimum payment while you work through your situation or try to sell the boat and if times are good and you have some level of self discipline then you can always double up or triple your payments to avoid interest. If you finance for like 5-10 years you can get in a bind quick if life throws you a curve ball.

Bingo. 'Cash is king' so I choose to keep my liquid and earning more $ (real estate right now is paying out 6-7%). It's basically a rental for most guys anyway, until they upgrade 3-5 years later.