Boat Financing Help For Liveaboard

[sailorboy1]

you just finance a boat!

you don't need to tell them the what you want to do with it

instead of asking a forum, ask the boat lenders or your local bank/credit union (join a credit union !!!!!!)

[ohdrinkboy]

Personally, I would advise you to buy a $50k boat with cash and use the $25k to upfit or save it.

Whatever you buy, I would suggest buying a very marketable name brand. You may be done living aboard after a year or two and the market for resell is much better on a popular boat. Be prepared, you will likely lose significant $$ on depreciation when you sell.

[tekdiver]

Originally Posted by vicpr25

Hi Everyone!

I'm new to boating/sailing and to the forums. I've been researching and reading about getting a boat for living aboard, either a monohull or preferably a catamaran. I work for the government in an agency as a computer engineer. Thankfully I can perform my job completely remotely (just need internet connectivity). I have been working there for around 8 years and finally, I got to a low six-figure salary. So now I'm at a point of either getting a catamaran for a few years (now that I'm still a little "young") or getting a house (which I'm not in a rush to get, since I don't have many responsibilities/family). So for the time being here is my current plan & a few questions:

A few info:

1. I'm currently saving for the down payment. I don't have a lot of savings since working for the government you don't really make a lot of money at first. So, my plan is to save for 1yr and a half to 2 yrs, which I can save around 50k to 80k.
2. Right now I'm making around $5,200 monthly (after taxes), I only have a car loan that started at 35k, which I will be done with the payments in two years and a few debts in credit cards.
3. I went to Experian and I currently have 735. Now I do have around 50% in debt which I'm currently spending around $550 to lower my credit cards, in a few months I would zero all my credit cards. Hopefully, this will raise my score to 780/800s (based on a projection in creditkarma.com)
4. I calculated my debt-to-income in Experian and it says it is at 8%
5. Right now I pay rent of $1,375 monthly. I don't have a mortgage on a house.

So based on my salary and being able to work remotely, I'm looking into living aboard for a few years. Since I'm Puerto Rican and I would love to be able to go from the main USA and PR to visit my parents/family.

I know that currently, the only bank that allows liveaboards (that I know of) is Essex. During my research for the loans, I asked two marine financial groups and they told me they wouldn't be able to help me to get a loan because I don't have a "comparable loan". The cheapest catamarans I've seen are around 200k, I know I can make the payments of that loan and have extra for insurance/provisions/maintenance. But since I don't have a "comparable loan" in my credit history, because I have not invested in a property (mortgage), I'm afraid I won't be able to get approved for a loan.

Here are my questions:

1. Has anyone had any experience in my situation?
2. Has anyone have been able to get a boat loan without having any real state (or comparable loan)?
3. If this could be a potential problem in getting a boat loan, what would be the steps I should be taking right now, for in the next 2yrs I'll be in perfect conditions to get approved for a loan.
4. I was told that a good idea was to start with a smaller boat, make payments for a year and then sell it and try to get a bigger loan and so on until I can get the bigger loan. (to create big loan history in my credit report)
5. Should I get a mortgage loan of a comparable loan amount and then when I'm ready, rent out the house and get a boat loan?
6. Am I crazy? My old folk keeps telling me that I am, haha.

PS: I know that not everyone is a marine financial expert but any ideas/suggestions or experiences would be greatly appreciated.

Short and sweet. cash is king. No matter the boat offer way under what there asking for. But the survey was way higher. we just bought a oyster 485. none of the major rework required showed on survey. Make sure you walk the boat and use every system. Amazing how what someone else says does no
t match what you see! Not like buying a house. Banks get nervous when there investment can sink and get damaged! There is always work on a boat new or used.

[goboatingnow]

Suggesting “ offer way under “ just annoys sellers and gets you kicked out of the selling process

Don’t lowball. Do enough research to build a picture of what a given boat model sells for , pitch a little under that , right now the market is getting close to asking prices !

[redneckrob]

You might try looking at credit unions rather than boat specific lenders. For example, I have a boat loan with Transportation Federal Credit Union, who it looks like has rates as low as 2.74% right now for boat loans. It was harder for me to convince them that I could join their credit union than to convince them to loan me the money. Granted I didn't have many of the challenges you have from a credit perspective, but my impression was that they lump boat loans with car and motorcycle loans and treat them all exactly the same, so if you think you could easily get a used car loan you could probably easily get a used boat loan from them. Credit unions are small time and often don't have the overactive imaginations of you taking your boat and absconding to Fiji with it like the boat specific guys do, and in fact their underwriters often are handed a set of rules and they just apply them without contributing any of their own thought at all. That can be often be frustrating, but in situations like this you can use that to your advantage. For example, they also don't ask me to show that I have any insurance on the boat, and due to some mix-ups with the Coast Guard registration they weren't even listed on the title for more than 6 months and they seemed surprised when I finally delivered it to them unasked!