Brad Naylor

Very interesting... The lack of any hostile or defensive response to my deliberately provocative question rather tends to confirm my suspicions. I would expect second-hand narrowboat prices to plummet in the next few years as money gets tighter. Many people will have funded their purchase by remortgaging their home to release capital; while house prices were flying this seemed a safe bet, but with increased interest rates and the probabilty of house price falls (all over the papers today) that narrowboat is going to seem like a very expensive luxury to many - one that must be sacrificed. I have been contemplating for a while buying a sailaway and fitting it out myself. I am now planning on waiting a while in the hope of picking up a nice second-hand boat for around the same price as the sailaway. Tell me if I'm wrong. Cheers Brad

Most of us self-employed people do it because we're unemployable! Cheers Brad Self-employed since the age of 19

This'll put the cat among the pigeons! With the soaring house prices of the last ten years and the credit crunch now happening, many informed people are now predicting a crash in house prices followed by a deep recession as the credit led consumer boom ends. Personally, I tend to agree with these predictions. If this did come to pass, how would narrowboat values be affected? What happened to narrowboat values in the early nineties when house prices fell? Should I buy one now or wait a couple of years and pick up a bargain? (Brad grabs his coat and makes a run for it! )

Hi Paul, I've just had a look at your website Suffolk Narrowboats and you seem to be doing pretty well exactly what we've got in mind! Your price seems very reasonable for a quality job. I'd be very interested to see how sales go! Cheers Brad

We're not! We've just closed our order book for Christmas. No, the narrowboats idea would be a new venture, purely because we both like narrowboats! I'm sure we could make more money by devoloping the handmade kitchens business, but to be honest we're getting a bit sick of that. We are probably guilty of letting our hearts rule our heads but hey, life's too short... What we'll probably do to start with is buy a shell and start fitting it out in our spare time. Then we'll either sell it or I'll have it! Cheers Brad

Thanks Mark, We would be planning on doing the whole fit-out, bringing in sub-contractors for the plumbing, electrics, gas etc, so multiple transportation would not be a problem. We're located in the Manchester area so have plenty of easy access to canals! I agree with you that the design and choice of materials is far more important than the technical details of the cabinet work. It is no different in our normal work designing and building kitchens. I see so many poor examples of interior design when I look at narrowboats and know we could do a lot better. I remember seeing a post from Gary Peacock a few months ago where he said that if he were starting out again he'd just do 2 or 3 high-end fit-outs a year from cheap premises. The cost of our premises is already covered by our existing business so I guess that this is what we have in mind. Cheers Brad

I run a small cabinetmaking firm with a business partner and fellow cabinetmaker. Following his divorce he has bought a sailaway narrowboat and is in the process of fitting it out in order to live on it. I too, have long had an interest in canals and narrowboats, although I have never owned one. We are wondering if there would be any future in branching out into fitting out narrowboats as an extension of our existing business doing kitchens and bedrooms etc. We have a large secure yard available at the rear of our premises where we could work on several boats at once, although we are several miles from a canal! Our inclination is that there is good money to be made from buying in sailaways, doing a quality fit-out, and then selling on the open market. Or would we be better looking for commissions? Or refits? Or sticking with kitchens and bedrooms?!

Sorry to chip in on my first visit to this forum, but I have to to say that WJM is coming over as Mr Smug! I have no experience of the boat building business, but run my own firm of cabinetmakers. Every small (and large) business I know of in my field relies totally on deposits and stage payments for it's very survival, particularly in the early years when all profits are being re-invested in equipment and tooling, leaving little in the way of working capital. There is no way that I could supply a new kitchen, for example, without taking a 25% deposit, a 25% payment upon commencement of the work, and the balance on completion. Yes, I am financing my business with my customers' money, but this enables me to provide quality work and a quality service. This is standard practice in most industries where bespoke work is being carried out for members of the public. In the case of companies providing bespoke goods and services to other companies, the arrangements may be different because of long-standing relationships and ongoing contracts. Bank finance is far more readily available here than for firms doing one-off jobs for Joe Public. If I want to borrow from the bank I've got to put my house up as security. No way Jose!! Too many members of the public go for the cheapest price and then wonder why they have problems with their supplier. I see this all the time with builders. A cheap builder won't get the job done properly because he's not making enough money! Most firms who go who bust, go bust because they don't charge enough! Caveat Emptor is the rule of thumb when looking to commission any work. Do the research. I was thinking of having a go at narrowboat fitting. Having read a few of the posts in this thread I don't think I'll bother! Cheers Brad