Looking at new boats

[FuzzyGrub]

Doesn't NJ have a "discounted" sales tax rate for registering/titling a boat? My son indicated that, but don't remember what it was. Something like 4% vs 7-8%?

Here in NY we only have to re-register ever three years, to NJ every year. At least both are online now and easy to do.

When we sold my son's 1448 Tracker, the trailer didn't have registration, title, or COO. He did go thru and get a Maine plate for the trailer, but it was not transferable. The buyer was able to navigate the NY DMV and get it documented. We had to fill out a form and send it in for him. I think it took a month or two to get it cleared up.

 

[airshot]

Perhaps you should consider moving to another state.....seems NJ is a ripoff for boating and fishing people. I choose to live in Ohio near Lake Erie, very friendly toward boaters and fisherman. Good luck.

 

[outboard]

Doesn't NJ have a "discounted" sales tax rate for registering/titling a boat? My son indicated that, but don't remember what it was. Something like 4% vs 7-8%?

Here in NY we only have to re-register ever three years, to NJ every year. At least both are online now and easy to do.

When we sold my son's 1448 Tracker, the trailer didn't have registration, title, or COO. He did go thru and get a Maine plate for the trailer, but it was not transferable. The buyer was able to navigate the NY DMV and get it documented. We had to fill out a form and send it in for him. I think it took a month or two to get it cleared up.

The only discounts I'm aware of are for seniors over 65, disabled and those on assistance of some form but it doesn't apply to boats.
Home made trailers are easy, they can't force you to produce any receipts but to get one registered you have to be the 'builder' on record. You can never have bought a homemade trailer because then they tell you the person who built it has to register it then sign it over to you and that negates the whole reason for doing it.
My home made trailer registration says 'HMD Trailer" "Color: Metal". Furthermore I've never been asked for a trailer registration when pulled over. At best they ask if its your trailer or not. If its not registered they usually just tell to get it registered as long as its got a tag on it.
I drove all the way from NJ to MO and back once and never realized my trailer tag was laying on the back seat under a bag. 1,700 miles round trip and not once did I get pulled over. (A buddy borrowed it a week later and the tag was still in my truck and he got pulled over three times and told he best get a tag on that trailer.

If you miss a year they will try to collect the back years but they can't legally force you to pay up for a trailer not being used. Covid is what screwed it all up because they revamped how the DMV works after that. Before, every DMV office was first come first serve and they did everything. Now every office has a specialty, some do registrations, some do titles, some do only foreign licenses, meaning they deal only with the free licenses for illegals. The local DMV here can issue a title and do the initial registration but can't do renewals. That now means going to a regional or doing it online. ALL registration renewals are now done online but if you miss a year it means you don't have a PIN code for the renewal and you have to go to a regional office to renew by appointment. For me that means driving an hour and killing the better part of a day at the DMV in hopes they get to you before they close despite having an appointment,
The really screwed up part is that the only way to renew is online or get an appointment online and not everyone has internet or a cell phone. A good many people my own age that I know have never owned a computer and wouldn't know what to do with one if they did.

 

[FuzzyGrub]

Both of my kids live in NJ now. They have told me how much "fun" it is to experience NJ DMV. The NYC DMVs are terrible as well. My daughter would come back to our local DMV, vs dealing with NYC.

My understanding is that NJ wanted to reduce the impact of the Luxury tax on boats. I guess many big cruisers and yachts are bought and sold and registered in NJ.

PS: Thx, I'll make sure my son keeps up with the boat registration.

 

[hoarder]

I'd rather wait in line for and hour rather than drive and hour each way ti still wait in line for an hour.
NJ made about half the DMV offices useless after the 2020 shut down and closed up a good many of the smaller offices or moved them to more metro areas.
I'm a block from the local DMV but they won't do renewals. In the past I used to just mail in the boat and trailer renewals, if I skipped a year I'd just send in the last renewal form with a check by mail but now they won't do that. If you were 'chosen' for online renewal you can only renew online, otherwise you must make an appointment at one of the regional DMV offices.

The people who are really screwed are those who do not have internet, lots of older folks, even those my age don't have computers or access to the internet and likely never will and have no plans on ever getting it.
What its doing is forcing a good many of them to just not renew their registration because they either don't have a car reliable enough to drive an hour or they can't afford the gas to do so. One guy I fish with is almost 70 and he's never owned a computer or cell phone and when the DMV here refused to renew his registration and they returned his payment when he tried to mail it in he gave up and stopped renewing his tags. That was 5 years ago now.

More than half the boats I do see haven't been renewed in years.
When they shut down for 2020 anyone who's registration that was due during that period went un-renewed and since they had then missed a year they were not able to renew online or by mail and were being forced to drive to one of three regional DMV centers to renew.

My own driver's license just came up for renewal and since I have a boat license it requires an in-person visit to renew for a photo ID and to renew it it means a 1.5hr drive each way to Trenton to renew my license for the next four years. Those whose license came due in 2023 were granted a no fee renewal but the rest of us pay full price.
I'm not sure if that was suppose to make up for the bs they caused by going online only or not but it only gave that benefit to about 21% of people with driver's licenses. They also give free licenses to illegals which was the main reason for the re-designating of the various local DMV offices. The one nearest to me is now a 'foreign license center' and no longer does normal renewals or title work and they closed the next two closest offices moving them 45 minutes further away.

I strongly suspect that the lack of boat interest in NJ has a lot to do with how hard it is to get a boat registered here now. If your local DMV no longer does transfers or registrations or they for what ever reason assigned you to an office for renewal over an hour away it can mean a day off work just to change a title and register a boat, then add in the weight slip now required to register a trailer which means having to tow it with no tags to the scale to get a weight slip without the boat on it makes it difficult at best for some people.

There are plenty who want a boat and I'd venture to guess most want a 14-15ft boat to stay with the cheaper registration, $12 to 12ft/$28 for 16ft up, plus $18 for the boat drivers license and $60 for the title. All of that to maybe bring home a couple fish they warn us not to eat.

None of which makes any boat worth less. If I go to the grocery store and steak is $15/lb and I can't afford it, they don't lower the price so it fits my budget.
The way I see it is as new boats get more and more expensive and now even rarer, the value of used boats also goes up. 20 years ago new 14 ft boats were $1,500, now you can't touch the same boat for less than $6k. 20 years ago a good used truck was $1,500, now your lucky to find one with wheels and and an engine that needs work for $4k and new trucks then were $25k, now they start at $78k. I thought it was bad when I saw the sticker on my last new truck 22 years ago at $54k but I as able to bargain it down to $42, now they won't budge and dealers are marking up boats and trucks over retail because they know that those who want a new one will pay it. They just finance it for the next 20 years.

A good many of us also buy our boats and trucks for life barring something bad going wrong with either.
I will never sell my 16ft boat and have collected enough spare parts and engines for it to last me a lifetime.
It has to because there's no one here that'll give more than pocket change for it if I were to sell it.

Dealers won't sell used boats now because of liability and most say they can't get new boats because manufacturers are concentrating only on the higher dollar boats that they can make more money on. Why build a 14ft utility boat that they may make a grand on when they can build a 16ft full package boat that they can make $10k on. This leaves basically FB and CL as your only source for a used boat'

 

[mirrocraft16]

In theory there should be a huge excess of 14-16ft utility boats, they've been building them for 70 years now and aluminum really doesn't rot very easily and I've never seen one at the scrap yards here in any shape.
Where did they all go? The number of them registered certainly doesn't suggest people are still using them.


I find hundreds of 12ft aluminum boats of all makes for sale all the time, 12ft boats vs 14ft boats are more than 20 to 1 in the various listings and 16ft boats make up maybe 1 out of 100 or so here. If you ask a dealer they say all they sell is 16ft boats when they can get them. Myself I've owned over 25 14ft boats over the years, generally selling the old one for something I liked better. None stayed listed for more than a day or two here. Now I see dozens listed that have been listed for months or years that are legit titled boats but there's double that amount of boats with no paperwork that can never be registered again without the original owner signing off the original title.


A relative of mine passed away in 2015 who owned four aluminum boats and one junk Bayliner Capri in the middle of PA. I was co- executor of the estate with another family member who was left one tractor and one boat, neither of which were they interested in taking or bothering with. They had zero interest in helping and all but refused to accept responsibility for any of it. Vehicles there required both excecutors to sign off of each title but the other excecutor couldn't be bothered and it took four years to get a judge to eliminate them from being co-executor. They didn't live local and did not feel it was worth their time to get papers notorized to even sign off of it.

In the end I was cleared to proceed and I listed three of the boats for sale in PA. All cheap, all with papers.

The pos Bayliner with a stuck 50hp Force motor sold first for $1,800 as-is. The 12 and 14ft boats, both older Starcraft models sat for 8 years at $800 without so much as an email and I kept the 16ft Mirrocraft for myself, Since PA don't title boats bringing them to NJ was a problem, which in the end I had to do and it meant preparing page long hand written statements from the Estate, death certificates, and copies of the County court's order of sole executorship plus a 30 day wait to obtain a NJ title for the 14ft and a registration for each in my name. They both sat for a year on CL for sale for $800 and $1000 with no takers and no emails. I took them to a buddies place in MO where they sold in three days for $1000 and $1,500 each. ( I couldn't take any of the motors there since PA doesn't title outboards and it just wasn't worth the hassle to deal with).

The guy who bought the 14ft boat answered the CL ad there and came from ME to buy it, He said he saw the ad listed in NJ but didn't want to drive that far but was fine with driving from Portland ME to SW MO but not to NJ?

 

[gillhunter]

This post got me wondering what mine is worth. I am the original owner, the boat has always been garage kept. All paperwork on boat and trailer is up to date. Honda probably has less than 50 hours, we run it electric 99% of the time.

2011 Alumacraft 1648

2012 Honda 9.9 4 stroke

45 lb. Minn Kota bow mount trolling motor

55 lb. Minn Kota transom mount trolling motor

2 Deep Cycle batteries mounted in center seat

1 Starter battery mounted by transom

Minn Kota 3 bank on board charger

Hummingbird 597ciHD

Tempress Low Back seats

Bilge Pump

EZ Loader trailer

 

[Stevum]

I've looked at 9 boats near me here and only two had paperwork. Of those two only the one Starcraft was really nice, the other was a 60 year old battered mess with several patches and a bent gunwale on the left side.
The seller of the clean one wouldn't get off his $1,500 price which is likely what the boat cost new in 1993 when it was new. To its credit though it is super clean with no corrosion or damage but its been listed for that same price now for four years with no takers.
There's a few newer 16ft boats listed but they're all heavier with full interior type boats. The one was close so I stopped to see it and a four year old Tracker has huge rot holes in the transom skin and rotten corners on the deck and they're asking $9k with a 40hp Mercury. A boat like that is of no use here because we're restricted to electric motors in freshwater. For me, something like the current Smokercraft or Starcraft Alaskan 15 would be about perfect but I need a 15" transom so that means I need to find one older than 1995 or so and I'm not about to pay $6k for a new one or the crazy prices they want for a used one. I'll sit back and wait for one to come along for cheap.

"The seller of the clean one wouldn't get off his $1,500 price which is likely what the boat cost new in 1993 when it was new. To its credit though it is super clean with no corrosion or damage but its been listed for that same price now for four years with no takers."- Your quote. So you're saying he wants what you believe he paid 32 years ago. I would think that by the shape you say it's in that would not be unreasonable. What do you think that same boat would cost new off the showroom floor these days? You didn't mention the boats configuration, motor size & condition if included. How far could you have been off on perceived value? $200 - $300. Sounds to me you let your ego ruin what may have been a great buy.

 

[Seafarer]

I wouldn't sell any of mine for that little regardless of what they cost new. Its worth what ever it costs to replace in my eyes.
I personally don't care if its a year old or 40 years old if its in good shape and does what I need it to do.
I sold my last 'small' 14ft Starcraft Sea Scamp 10 years ago, it was pretty much a time capsule from 1971 with only a couple of seats added to it and a three piece removable floor the original owner made from cedar strips. It was light and removable ands super strong. I sold it as the hull only because I wanted to keep the new old stock 20hp Mercury that came with it. It sat listed on CL in 2016 for 9 weeks and sold to a guy who loaded it up and took it to Belgium in a shipping container for $3k, I had listed it for an 'I don't want to sell it price' or at least I thought I did and it sold anyway. I think the listing was up for $3,500 for the bare hull, seats, and floor panels. I offered the trailer but the seller said taking a trailer overseas was a big hassle but non powered boats are not I guess.

When you have something you can't buy new, what it sold for way back when means nothing. From what I've seen lately there's zero new utility boats on the showroom floors unless you want either a pond boat or flat bottom jon boat. The dealers have nothing but $15k and up boats fully decked out for big lake fishing and those are of very little use in a state that doesn't allow gas motors in freshwater and most saltwater really needs a lot more boat than a 500 lb aluminum can. Try coming in Barnegat inlet in November on an outgoing tide with a west or south west wind in a tin can in the huge waves and swells that we see there. Other than a few navigable rivers and a couple lakes its trolling motors only in NJ.

What you have to beware of is that a lot guys will use their freshwater boats to crab and fish the back bays and most never bother with adding any protection such as zincs or even doing a motor flush and wash down after pulling the boat out.
My neighbor found out what happens to a polished aluminum hull Tracker after two years in the back bays here. He spent all weekend patching the 300 pin holes in the bottom of that boat. Every last inch of that thing is pitted bad from the saltwater.

 

[upthecreek]

I looked at a 2012 1648 MV in Fayetteville at used car lot just off I95 earlier this morning, they wanted $9,500 firm, it had a makeshift four post canopy on it a planked floor made from cedar decking and a 1987 Yamaha 15hp two stroke rigged with electric start and a 'Stik Steer system up front. The hull was rough and had been brush painted desert camo. It had an older Eagle fish finder on the bow and an early to mid 90's 28lb trust trolling motor on the bow attached to a piece of angle with a 2x6 bolted to it. The forward seat was on a home built box with a swivel and the rear seat was dead center on the rear bench. The guy was pushing hard to sell it but I really want something with higher sides. The 1,010lb max capacity is nice but that boat already had 600 lbs of stuff in it. I suppose the wood deck and seat box added 300 lbs alone. It also had a 10 gallon fuel tank mounted in the rear with some crude looking hose and filler cap clamped to it. It looked like it came from a golf cart or something.

There seemed to be a lot of MV style boats down that way. I'm going to look a couple of V hulls in NJ and PA on Wed. I've been debating on whether to turn west and got through SW PA first because there seems to be more boats out that way but there's two in NJ and 8 in PA up near Scranton that look decent.
The shear number of boats with no papers boggles my mind. There's even cars listed with no titles up that way. How do you own a car or truck, let alone a boat and not have any proof of ownership and yet be driving it with tags on it? I l