Market and buyer profile
Les Occasions du Multicoques organized from October 7 to 10, 2021 at the port of Canet en Roussillon is a show - as its name indicates - dedicated to the sale of second-hand catamarans and trimarans, both sailing and motor. A buoyant market, where demand is greater than supply.
"The state of the used car market is downright euphoric. There are a lot of buyers. We're getting four to five calls a day from potential buyers. It's really picked up in the last four or five months. There's a real Covid effect, which is accelerating projects." explains Jean-Pierre Fréry, of Catam's, a used catamaran broker based in the south of France.
Because we are talking about life projects that have been thought about for a while and not on a whim. The buyers are between 45 and 70 years old, mostly non-salaried - professionals, company managers, restaurant owners... - who have always dreamed of going sailing for several months or years and have prepared their contribution. If some of them make it their second home, others keep it between 3 and 7 years - 5 years on average - before reselling it in their turn, without losing too much money, and taking into account the investments made.
3 different purchase targets
Among these second-hand catamaran buyers, there are mainly 3 profiles, as Jean-Pierre Fréry explains to us:
- A simply equipped boat with a relatively low price which will be later fitted out and equipped according to the owner's program.
- A boat of 10 to 15 m totally refitted and revised in the last 3 years (solar panels, designer, set of downwind sails, electrical and water autonomy) for owners who do not have the technical means nor the time to do the work themselves.
- A 2 to 4 years old boat almost new.
"In this case, the reasons are quite diverse and sometimes surprising. Some have the idea that newer boats are less reliable, for example. Others don't have the time to wait for production delays of several years. Today, for new boats, we are looking at 2023/2024. Prices are also skyrocketing, with a 10 to 12 percent increase in rates including options." explains Jean-Pierre Fréry.
