Buying a yacht in Florida

Why the market is this deep

Fort Lauderdale has roughly three hundred miles of navigable waterway threading through the city, and a century of building houses with a dock at the bottom of the garden. The result is a density of privately owned yachts, and of the trades that service them, that no other city approaches.

For a buyer this converts directly into choice and price. In any given month there will be several genuinely comparable vessels on the market at once, which is the condition under which negotiation actually works. In Monaco you may be looking at the only example of what you want in Europe; here you are usually looking at the fourth.

The depth extends to the exit. A yacht bought in Florida can be sold in Florida to a market that understands her, which is worth more than buyers tend to credit at the point of purchase. Thin resale markets are where ownership costs are quietly buried.

The boat show as a calendar

The Fort Lauderdale International Boat Show, at the end of October, is the largest in-water show in the world and functions as the year’s hinge. Brokers position inventory for it, sellers refresh presentation for it, and a great deal of the autumn’s business is agreed within a fortnight either side.

The tactical point for a buyer is the same as in Monaco but sharper: view during, offer after. Boats that did not sell at the show face a Florida winter of dockage and crew with no transaction in sight, and November is when that arithmetic starts to show in the asking price. The Miami show in February plays a similar, smaller role.

Tax, and the two things people get wrong

There is no value added tax in the United States. What exists is state sales and use tax, and Florida applies a statutory cap to the tax due on a boat purchase — which means the effective rate on an expensive yacht is very low indeed. This is the single largest reason large yachts transact here rather than in Europe.

Offshore closings

Where a buyer does not intend to keep the vessel in Florida, closings are frequently conducted offshore — the yacht is taken beyond state waters and the transaction completed there, with the intention of avoiding a Florida use-tax liability. This is routine, entirely legitimate when done properly, and entirely capable of going wrong when done casually. Use a marine attorney; do not improvise it from a broker’s summary.

Bringing her to Europe

This is the expensive mistake. A yacht that has never been imported into the European Union has no EU VAT status, and importing her triggers VAT on her value at the prevailing rate of the country of import. On a substantial yacht that figure will comfortably exceed everything you saved by buying in Florida.

How an American purchase differs

The shape is familiar — offer, deposit, survey, sea trial, renegotiation, closing — and three details differ from European practice enough to be worth stating.

1. Title and documentation. Larger vessels are typically documented with the US Coast Guard rather than state-registered. Chain of title and any preferred ship mortgages are searchable, and they should be searched.
2. Escrow is standard and specific. The deposit goes to a closing agent or attorney trust account. It does not go to the listing brokerage’s operating account, and a request that it should is a reason to stop.
3. Survey culture is thorough. Expect a hull and machinery survey, often separate surveyors for each, an oil analysis and a sea trial with instrumentation. This is a strength of the market. Use it.

Commission is customarily ten per cent, paid by the seller, split where two brokers are involved. The listing broker works for the seller. If nobody in the transaction is formally acting for you, then nobody in the transaction is acting for you.

The yards, and why they matter to a buyer

The refit and repair cluster along the New River and around Port Everglades is one of the two or three most capable in the world, and it is the reason a Florida-based yacht’s maintenance history is usually legible. Work tends to have been done properly and documented, because the capacity to do it properly is ten minutes away.

It also means a boat that needs work is a rational purchase here in a way it is not in a thin market. A yacht bought at a discount for a known list of deficiencies can be put right immediately, by yards that compete with one another, at labour rates below the French or Italian equivalent.

Air draft is the local constraint worth knowing: the New River has fixed bridges, and yards upriver are unreachable for taller vessels. If you are buying something with significant air draft, confirm which facilities can actually take her before you assume the whole cluster is available to you.

Buying a boat that has chartered

A large share of Florida inventory has earned its living. That is not a reason to avoid it — commercially operated yachts are often better maintained than privately owned ones, because maintenance is a revenue requirement rather than a discretionary spend. But it changes what the survey should be looking for.

Hours are the obvious item and the least informative. A charter yacht with three thousand engine hours and a documented service history is a better proposition than a private boat with four hundred hours accumulated in short, cold, infrequent runs. Marine diesels dislike sitting far more than they dislike working.

What genuinely differs is the soft side of the vessel. Interiors, upholstery, mattresses, deck teak, tender and toy inventory, and crew-area condition all take a hammering under charter use, and replacing them is expensive without being structural. Price the refresh into the offer rather than discovering it in year one.

The three documents worth asking for

• The yard file. Invoices, not summaries. A Florida boat should have them, and a seller reluctant to produce them is telling you something.
• The charter log. How many weeks per year, in what waters, with what crew turnover. Consistent crew is the single best proxy for how the yacht was actually treated.
• Class and flag records where she was commercially certificated, including any period out of class and the reason for it.

Where the yacht will continue to charter, verify that certification and flag survive the sale in the form you need. Where she will not, understand what decertifying involves before you assume it is a formality — in some registries it is, and in others it is a project.

Questions