Is it feasible for me to buy a boat?

[newbird]

Hi all, you seem like a friendly bunch and your help and expertise would be appreciated!

 

I'm 31 and living with parents. I have £5000 saved and am thinking I'd like to buy a narrowboat. I work full time. Whats the loan/finance situation out there??

 

I have been on a narrowboat holiday, I also have friend who owns a narrowboat and another who lives on one. It is something that has always appealed to me and what withn the housing market, it seems like an option.

 

I would be looking to moor at Nottigham Marina and am going to pop down tomorrow. Any helpful tips/hints/advice of what I should be looking out for/cautious of??

 

Please tell me this can be reality!!

 

Thankyou.

 

Newbird xx

[stuart]

Yes you can do it.

 

I'd workout your income and expenses first, make sure you can afford it. Theres quite a few places that will do marine mortgages - Barclays Bank do them for starters.

 

If your looking at a particular Marina - make sure you can actually live there - check if you need to pay council tax on top of any mooring costs.

 

 

and finally, if your going to live aboard - go for a long boat! I'd have thought at least 56ft to make it worth while. You never know when you will need the extra bedroom !

[carlt]

You never know when you will need the extra bedroom !

You in the dog house, Stuart?

[FadeToScarlet]

If you're considering marine mortgages (and you won't have much choice in the matter, banks don't do £25,000 unsecured personal loans to just anyone any more...) then Barclays won't mortgage anything less than £37,000.

 

The big thing you need to consider is the deposit, which is generally a fifth of the value of the boat. £5,000 will allow you to put a deposit on a boat up to £25,000, and there's a LOT out there for that price.

 

The only place that would give you a marine mortgage for less than £37,000 is RoyScot Larch. They will charge a typical interest rate of 11%. It sounds a lot, but unfortunately it's just one of the costs that have to be bourne. Effectively, in the long term, you only pay the interest too because when you come to sell the boat, assuming you've done nothing really bad to it and the boat is a certain age, then you should be able to roughly recoup your investment.

 

For example, we're paying £280 a month on our boat- which is a fraction of what renting a flat would cost!

 

There's a copy of my account, with links back to this forum, detailing how we went about getting our boat here

[Chris Pink]

I know a few people with marine mortgages and in this climate i would be very wary. Most are not fixed interest and lock you in to high interest for a very long time.

 

My advice would be look to getting a personal loan, with a full time job this is feasible, the interest will be much lower, the repayment a lot faster and best of all it won't be secured on the boat so you can't lose your home.

 

The downside is that you will get less boat, look to something around £15,000 but with a bit of bon marché you could pick up something very nice, if a little aged, at around this price.

 

Not all boats fit the £30,000+ profile or all boaters.

[sociable_hermit]

I live on a 40' boat which cost £33,250 (plus quite a bit of work since!). You'd easily be able to pick up something similar for £25,000 at the moment. I can fit everything I need into my 40' boat - just about. And the moorings are considerably cheaper with a short boat, because you pay by the foot, so don't automatically buy the biggest thing you can. 50' is probably ideal for a single liveaboard, but only if you can still save enough money each month to fix and update the boat you've bought. The other thing I've learned is that trad shells don't offer many benefits - I'd go for a semi trad next time. But each to their own.

 

Have a good look around, examine different interior layouts, shell types etc. and draw up a list of what you really want, then go for it. It's a buyers market at the moment, so aim high and haggle! Most importantly, once you've found a boat you really like, get a survey done.

 

It's well worth it

[grahoom]

My advice would be look to getting a personal loan, with a full time job this is feasible, the interest will be much lower, the repayment a lot faster and best of all it won't be secured on the boat so you can't lose your home.

 

I got a loan from the bank for my boat (20K loan) - but this was last November, just before the "Crunch" - so as people have said Banks are pretty wary of loaning money out at the moment.

 

it would be worth going to your bank and asking them if you could get a Loan, and see what happens. if you've got 5K as savings, then you could borrow 10K (as Chris Pink says) to make that up to 15K and see what you can buy for that sum. There are a lot of boats for sale at the moment, so in theory it's a buyers market.

 

The only problem I can see you having is getting the loan from the bank... but I think it would be worth your while trying.

 

or, as an alternative, look into buying something that's not a narrowboat - as you can quite often get a lot more boat for your money...

 

http://houseboats.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=70578 (just an example.... )

[carlt]

http://houseboats.apolloduck.co.uk/feature.phtml?id=70578 (just an example.... )

(sorry) but I saw a recent picture, of that wharf, and the boat had gone. Does anyone know if it's sold?

[newbird]

Thanks for all the advice. I've been looking into the personal loan side of things - looks like I could get £20000 over 5yrs at approx £400 per month - thats with no payment protection. Its a bit risky but I have a pretty secure job (Amulance Control) and am generally fit and healthy. I've actually seen a boat for £25,995 - maybe a bit of haggling could be done - but that leaves me with nothing! Is this wise - of course not. I'm under the impression that I would have to buy from the marina I want to moor at if I am to secure moorings - is the always the case??? Whats the difference between a cruiser stern and a traditional stern? How long should I spend looking before I buy? Cos I just want to buy now!!!

[Chris J W]

I'm under the impression that I would have to buy from the marina I want to moor at if I am to secure moorings.

 

Not normally, no. You buy your boat where ever, from who ever, you like and moor in the marina of your choice (assuming they have space). If they have a stipulation that you MUST buy via them to moor there, I'd be tell 'em to s*d off!

 

Whats the difference between a cruiser stern and a traditional stern?

 

Gary's page HERE (follow the links on the page) shows the difference in stern styles.

 

I had my heart set on a Cruiser Style stern at first - but ended up with Trad. Not entirely sure how that happened ...

Edited October 1, 2008 by Chris J W

[grahoom]

Thanks for all the advice. I've been looking into the personal loan side of things - looks like I could get £20000 over 5yrs at approx £400 per month - thats with no payment protection. Its a bit risky but I have a pretty secure job (Amulance Control) and am generally fit and healthy. I've actually seen a boat for £25,995 - maybe a bit of haggling could be done - but that leaves me with nothing! Is this wise - of course not. I'm under the impression that I would have to buy from the marina I want to moor at if I am to secure moorings - is the always the case??? Whats the difference between a cruiser stern and a traditional stern? How long should I spend looking before I buy? Cos I just want to buy now!!!

 

I'd say look at as many boats as possible as then you'll get a good idea of what's on the market. If you're anywhere near here - http://www.whiltonmarina.co.uk/ then go down there and ask to look at some boats, as you can have a good nose about. Or if you're not near there, then look for a marina near you that does brokerage.

 

Also - look at these sites

- http://www.whiltonmarina.co.uk/

- http://www.vcmarine.co.uk/

 

as they have boats for sale at reasonable prices.

 

a cruiser stern has more space at the back, so quite good if you want more "outside" space.

 

when I was looking to buy my boat I spent quite a while going out at weekends looking at boats on the market before I made up my mind to buy the boat I have now.

 

its a 40 foot boat, and for me, it's perfect - I did have to get rid of a lot of stuff, but then that was a good thing, and there is plenty of room on the boat now for all the things i really "need".

 

I'd factor in a survey, moving the boat, first months mooring, etc into the money you have to spend.

 

When I bought my boat it was moored in a boat yard, and I was able to carry on the mooring - which I did for a few months before I secured a different mooring.

 

 

I had my heart set on a Cruiser Style stern at first - but ended up with Trad. Not entirely sure how that happened ...

 

snap...

[BlueStringPudding]

As discussed a while ago somewhere, I bought our boat with a £25,000 unsecured loan (with about 6% or so fixed interest, I think) from my bank last year. Although that wasn't exactly a long time ago, the arse-over-tittedness of the state of the financial markets at the moment might make it harder to get one now. But £25k on top of your £5k could get you an okay boat, I reckon.

 

I see you've tried asking your bank first and that offer of £20k or so seems good. I applied for my loan with personal protection only because I knew I could cancel it within 30 days of being accepted and as I was cheeky enough to ask out-straight whether having a loan protection scheme would make my application for the loan more likely to be accepted, and the bank chick off-the-record hinted that it would.

 

IMHO the T&C of the protection plans make it so hard to claim on them, that they're not worth the extra money it costs you. If I lost my job I'd get another - even if it meant working in a shop part-time and cleaning part-time and bering a dustman part-time to make ends meet. So I personally don't see taking out a loan without a Personal Loan Protection Plan as risky at all.

Edited October 1, 2008 by BlueStringPudding

[bargeeboy]

Hi all, you seem like a friendly bunch and your help and expertise would be appreciated!

 

I'm 31 and living with parents. I have £5000 saved and am thinking I'd like to buy a narrowboat. I work full time. Whats the loan/finance situation out there??

 

I have been on a narrowboat holiday, I also have friend who owns a narrowboat and another who lives on one. It is something that has always appealed to me and what withn the housing market, it seems like an option.

 

 

Newbird xx

 

Come on down I'm looking for a new bird !!

[newbird]

Come on down I'm looking for a new bird !!

 

 

Cheeky!!

[Hekaterine]

Hi Newbird. Some marinas do say you can only get a mooring if you buy from them - usually these are the ones who are full or nearly full so you might struggle to get in otherwise.

 

If you don't mind a commute, we're at Kings Marina in Newark and there are vacancies here at present.