Renting vs. Buying

Make Sure You Consider All the Costs

We used our own personal experience in calculating an estimated “fully loaded” cost of annual ownership for a 24’ center console similar to one of the boats in our fleet.  The costs were as follows:

Insurance: $500

Summer Dockage: $1300

Winter Storage: $1300

Motor Prep and Tune-up: $1000

Hauling and Launching: $600

Sub-total: $5000

Depreciation: $4300*

Total: $9000

The cost most people seem to forget when assessing the cost of boat ownership is the depreciation (as it is a sunk cost once the boat is purchased).  The calculation for the 7-year-old boat in our example comes to an estimated $4300* a year, raising the overall fully loaded estimated annual cost to $9000.

For the same cost,  an individual can rent the same premium Sea Ray almost 11 times during the premium weekend days. If you rent during the weekdays, you gain an extra 15% more rental time due to our discounts on Monday through Thursday, making the rental even more attractive.

Considering that there are only about 15 reliable boating weather weekends during the season, when you take into account everyone’s busy schedule and bad weather, the costs of renting and owning are much more aligned than most people realize.  With renting, you have none of these direct costs, responsibilities or headaches!

* The average annual decline in the market value of the boat over 7 years of ownership.