Is the Yacht Market Healthy?
Is the Yacht Market Healthy?
A Five-Year Reality Check (and What It Means for Buyers and Sellers)
After five years of dramatic headlines, many buyers and sellers are asking the same question:
Is the yacht market healthy — or are we still waiting for the other shoe to drop?
The short answer: the market is healthy, but it is no longer distorted.
To understand why, you have to understand what the last five years actually were.
2020–2022: Demand Pulled Forward, Not Created
From 2020 through 2022, the yachting industry experienced an unprecedented surge in demand. Travel restrictions, lifestyle re-prioritization, excess liquidity, and supply-chain disruptions combined to create conditions that compressed several years of buying activity into a very short window.
Unit sales accelerated sharply across most size categories. Inventory supply collapsed. Days on market fell to historic lows, and pricing followed sharply.
But this was not organic growth — it was demand pulled forward.
Many buyers who might have purchased over a five- to seven-year horizon instead bought within two. When demand is pulled forward like that, the years that follow are destined to feel quieter — even when the underlying market remains sound.
2023–2025: Normalization, Not Decline
What followed was predictable.
From 2023 onward, transaction volume moderated toward pre-pandemic norms. Inventory rebuilt. Days on market lengthened. Pricing behavior became more disciplined.
These shifts are often described as “softening,” but viewed over a five-year window, they represent normalization.
A healthy market does not mean perpetual acceleration. It means:
– steady transaction flow
– realistic pricing
– time for buyers to evaluate their decisions thoughtfully
– sellers adjusting expectations to conditions more consistent with pre-pandemic norms
Those characteristics are now broadly visible across the market.
Inventory: Elevated, Uneven, and Widely Misunderstood
Inventory levels today are higher than during the pandemic years, particularly in the 30–50’ production-boat segment. In some categories, listings are up materially compared to 2021–2022.
This has led to the assumption that demand has fallen off sharply. The data tells a different story.
Sales continue — but production has proved far slower to contract than demand was to normalize. Builders expanded output aggressively during the surge years, and many continued producing at elevated rates even as buying behavior cooled.
The result is inventory accumulation driven by supply lag, not demand collapse.
In contrast, inventory in larger, crewed segments remains comparatively constrained, reflecting:
– longer ownership cycles
– fewer speculative sellers
– and more deliberate production decisions
Inventory today is uneven, not unhealthy.
Pricing: Discipline Has Replaced Emotion
One of the clearest indicators of market health is pricing behavior.
During the pandemic surge, pricing often moved ahead of fundamentals. Today, pricing has become more rational. Asking prices are more realistic, and reductions occur when expectations overshoot the market — not because buyers have disappeared.
Across most segments:
– well-built yachts continue to command strong values
– quality listings trade without dramatic concessions
– price reductions are measured, not panicked
This is what price discovery looks like in a functioning market.
What the Numbers Say Over Five Years
When viewed across a five-year horizon, current activity looks far less like a downturn and far more like a return to trend.
– 2020–2022 represent clear outliers in both volume and velocity
– 2023–2025 activity aligns more closely with historical norms
– Units continue to trade across all major size categories
– Days on market and inventory levels resemble pre-2020 conditions
In other words, the market is behaving the way markets behave when extraordinary conditions fade.
What This Means for Buyers
For buyers, today’s market offers advantages that were largely absent during the surge years:
– more selection
– more time to evaluate decisions
– improved leverage in over-supplied segments
– and far better visibility into true market value
The absence of urgency does not signal weakness — it signals opportunity for thoughtful decision-making.
Buyers focused on quality, builder reputation, and correct mission alignment are still transacting successfully. The difference is that decisions can now be made deliberately rather than reactively.
What This Means for Sellers
For sellers, the message is equally clear:
– the market is active, but not forgiving
– pricing must reflect current conditions, which are more in line with pre-2020 activity, not peak memories
– location, presentation, condition, and transparency matter more than ever
Well-positioned yachts—free of personal gear, located in easily accessible marinas, and priced realistically—continue to sell. Those anchored to yesterday’s market, lacking “boat show readiness” for showings, and are left out in the islands for the family to use this winter often linger.
This is not a market where sellers are punished — but it is a market where expectations are tested.
So — Is the Yacht Market Healthy?
Yes. But health today looks like stability, not spectacle.
The market is:
– quieter than 2021
– more rational than 2022
– more segmented than headlines suggest
Health shows up as balance:
– buyers engaging with intention
– sellers adjusting intelligently
– quality yachts are still retaining their value
– and transactions are once again occurring without panic
That is not weakness.
It is durability.
And durable markets are predictable markets—where buyers and sellers can prepare, plan, and act with confidence.
A Final Perspective
Confidence is returning to the yacht market—not through excitement or speculation, but through the predictable functioning of time-tested fundamentals.
For buyers and sellers willing to engage with clarity and perspective, today’s market offers something that was largely absent during the surge years: balance.
And in a balanced market, good decisions are easier to make—and good outcomes are far more repeatable.
AM
About Andy Miles & Miles Yacht Group
Andy Miles is the Principal of Miles Yacht Group, a Palm Beach, Florida–based yacht brokerage specializing in crewed yachts 80 feet and above, with a particular concentration in the superyacht segment. In addition to its Florida operations, Miles Yacht Group maintains a Midwest Division based in Minneapolis–St. Paul, focused on freshwater cruising yachts.
With over three decades in the yachting industry, Andy brings transaction-level insight shaped by multiple market cycles and ownership generations. Miles Yacht Group operates with a deliberately narrow focus: advising buyers and sellers as they transition into, within, and out of crewed yacht ownership, where valuation discipline, operational planning, and long-term alignment matter as much as price.
Andy serves on the Board of Directors of the International Yacht Brokers Association (IYBA) and on the Certified Professional Yacht Broker (CPYB) Certification Advisory Council, reflecting a sustained commitment to professional standards, regulatory clarity, and consumer protection within the yacht brokerage industry.
