Brokerage market watch: N63 availability dwindles

What’s the saying, “You don’t know what you’ve got til it’s gone”? That’s certainly the case when it comes to the inventory on the Nordhavn brokerage market. Specifically speaking, not four weeks ago, there were four N63s listed by Nordhavn Yachts Sales. We don’t like to use the word “languishing” around here, but for one reason or another, these 63s were all put up for sale on or before April 2024 and nearly a year later, were still without new owners. Today, only one N63 remains.

It’s an example of a phenomenon that happens with some regularity with brokerage Nordhavns and is identifiable by three distinct incidents: 1) the mere coincidence that owners of the same model decide at the same time to list their boats, 2) the boats themselves exist on the brokerage market for a very long time, and 3) without any sort of warning, the boats get picked off, one by one, in a very short amount of time. We have seen it occur over and over, and it has happened again with these brokerage Nordhavn 63s. After months and months and months on the market, offers were made and accepted on three of the N63s within three weeks of each other. Today, the sales of Asturias and True Blue closed.

It’s a puzzling pattern that Nordhavn president Dan Streech has seen repeated time and again. Before he and business partner Jim Leishman co-founded Pacific Asian Enterprises, Inc., they formed a yacht brokerage in the mid-1970s so he’s been watching the market going on five decades, but says the phenomenon that has occurred among pre-owned Nordhavns is hard to explain. “It runs counterintuitive to what one might think,” Streech says. “When the number of used Nordhavns of a given model grows to three or four or more, sales will actually slow down.” At face value, it doesn’t seem to make sense, especially since Nordhavn.com analytics shows that thousands of people are searching brokerage listings every week. According to Streech, the theory is that buyers will achieve a level of complacency because they think there is plenty of inventory – and therefore, time – from which to buy their boat. But when the stalemate breaks and the first boat goes, it sets off alarm bells of sorts. Buyers don’t want to miss out on the boats they have sat and watched and envisioned about owning for so long.

“I tell people this all the time,” says Nordhavn Southeast Sales manager Garrett Severen, who watched as his listing Asturias sat on the market for well over a year. “It’s hard to explain why clusters of same models sit without much action and then all of the sudden they become the hottest commodity. But they do. And buyers can get burned by it.”

In the case of Asturias, the owners are moving up to a new Nordhavn 80. They knew they had a while before taking delivery of their new boat so put it on the market at a high price to see what kind of bites they would get. “They didn’t really want to be boatless but they wouldn’t turn away someone who was comfortable paying a premium,” Severen said. In the end, they lowered the boat to a more realistic asking price. It was after another brokerage N63 got a deal on it that days later Asturias had an accepted offer.

As of this writing, Anura also has an accepted offer on it. It’s a boat that lies in Florida but due to duty owed, was not available for U.S. buyers to view unless it was in a slip designated a Free Trade Zone.

Sometimes, like Asturias and Anura, there are reasonable explanations why boats might linger on the brokerage market. “But we know that Nordhavns are always sought after,” says Streech. “They always eventually sell.”

Nordhavn Southwest salesman James Leishman, whose listing True Blue was the first proverbial N63 domino to fall, said where buyers are mistaken in their thinking is having the opinion that seeing four or five of the same model listed for sale means there are four or five of the same boat listed for sale. “Each boat commands its own merit,” he said. “Contrary to what some believe, the brokerage boats aren’t directly competing with each other. These are semi-custom boats and they are all so different from each other in their order, layout, equipment, their history, how well they were maintained. You’re not comparing apples to apples.”

Severen agrees. “There’s the popular saying in Nordhavn circles: once you’ve been on one Nordhavn, you’ve been on one Nordhavn. Each boat appeals to each buyer differently.”

It’s about encouraging clients to seize the opportunity in front of them. Leishman tells his clients about the pattern that has existed in the Nordhavn pre-owned market for as long as he has been a salesman. “Over the past twenty years, I have seen it with 43s, 47s and repeatedly with 55s,” he said. “Each time they go as quickly as they came, and then you can’t find that size boat anywhere. Clients get upset about missing their opportunity.”

As with the N63s, the number of hulls built can be telling. There have only been 20 Nordhavn 63s delivered, so the fact that one-fifth of the total fleet was on the used market at the same time doesn’t bode well for an over-abundance of available listings in the near future. “If you see your perfect boat on the market, you’ve got to act on it,” Leishman said. “Or you’ve got to be OK with the risk of watching it go to someone else.”