Berthon Forecast 2025

By Sue Grant

The Berthon Sales Group Annual Forecast from the Garden Shed, is now a familiar part of the start of any new year. In the UK we continue to have plenty of weather of all types, yet it’s warm and snug inside, delivering the headroom to consider the landscape now, to review 2024 and our amateur crystal ball gazing for last year, and to opine about what 2025 may have to offer.

The world continues to be a volatile place. As I write, massive fires in LA have been extinguished to be followed by torrential downpours, the Middle East is unstable, the war in Ukraine stumbles on and the inauguration of a new President of the world’s largest economy is keeping everyone on their toes. In fact a slight redraft of this Market Report was necessary because of the breakneck speed of change, so it is as current as possible, but the helter skelter of change has collided with the need to set text, so we stop right here.

Many democracies are lurching to the right, whilst the world order wobbles in unexpectedly new directions, and all the while, our planet continues to warm alarmingly. Things are not cool in any sense.

Despite that the wheels of the yachting market continue to turn, amazing sailors are doing extraordinary things and technology is pushing the boundaries of what anyone might have thought possible in yachting five or ten years ago.

Bluewater sailing continues to gain in popularity, and we are seeing many sailors who are not European (including the Brits of course) enjoying the wonderful waters of the Mediterranean, Northern Europe and the Baltic, freed from the constraints of paying VAT and managing the Schengen 90 day rule without fuss. The Pacific is a seriously big subject and those with the time to spend are staying for quite a few seasons dipping into its amazing cruising grounds, refitting in the Southern Hemisphere and eventually sailing (or shipping back) to the Northern Hemisphere when the adventure is done.

In the UK, the market has stabilised and there is now a well-established stock of UK VAT paid yachts that are trading and remaining in these waters. It has meant that the market has contracted but particularly with mid-range motor yachts and coastal cruising yachts, many Brits prefer the convenience of a short trip to their yacht and sailing in local waters. These yachts can happily cruise in Europe but must return to the UK to find their new owners to achieve sensible residual values.

There are still yachts coming to the market that are both UK and European VAT paid but the numbers of yachts to which this applies is dwindling as new owners decide which jurisdiction they are going to choose on purchase as they cannot have both. Because of the rules, it is most definitely not – have cake and eat it.

Prices are stable in the brokerage market, with a normal depreciation curve and whilst a yacht is never an investment, there are no surprises, provided yachts are well maintained. Refit and repair are not cheap and buyers in the main are not interested in projects as the time, cost and risk is unattractive in a market where costs are going only one way. Increasingly, the running costs are more significant to buyers than the headline price and so yacht owners do well to maintain their yacht as they go along as a £20,000 standing rigging change is likely to take double that off the offered price.

The small yacht and boat segment is most affected in this market and dealers and brokers in this part of the market are the ones feeling the slow down most keenly. The most difficult part of this awkward segment is in new boat sales where the market is not so much on go slow as stop, and some builders have downed tools until stock levels can hopefully be cleared.

New yacht sales across the board are challenging and this will not change this year.

Looking at our view of the likely outcomes in 2024, the year behaved much as we expected.

There was stability in the brokerage market. Prices did not collapse, held to a reasonable level by the significant cost increase for new yachts. Sailors were still ready to change yachts – although now the driver is not so much to have a newer model as to buy a new yacht for a new project. 2024 was not the year for bottom fishers particularly for more recent yachts with good service records and good specification levels. This was as we expected.

We also predicted that new yacht manufacturers would have a hard time – and so they did, in spades. Not only were they forced to turn the super tanker of high-volume production, a number of them halted production altogether, in recognition of the fact that their dealers were unable to take more stock from them in a market where buyers were not just looking for a good deal, in many areas demand had dried up almost completely. Those manufacturers building to order – normally larger and always of a higher quality, have fared a lot better as we thought, but they are working hard to keep the wheels turning in this market.

Supply chain issues have been a problem since the Covid pandemic. We are used to long waiting times and this continues to be the case, with little stock held as cash is tight. This is an ongoing issue with refit programmes and yacht owners need to anticipate waits, as was the case in 2024 and will continue to be so this year. Moving stock into the UK from Europe and vice versa continues to be a challenge and this is the new normal.

We opined in 2024 that yachts in faraway locations that came to the market would find it hard to attract viewings because yacht buyers are now working hard, are present in the office and don’t have the time for adventurous and multiple day trips to see one yacht. This was most certainly the case and our hub in Valencia has an increased number of Berthon yachts for sale, offering good support and an airport 10 minutes away from the ports with flights to all the major international centres. Despite the best efforts of Mr Ryanair and Mr EasyJet – once the charter flights have stopped for the winter, getting to many lovely ports becomes a 4-day adventure and thus tumbles into the too difficult to deal with pile, however lovely the yacht for sale might look.

Our last prediction was about ports and locations. Those glamorous, must go to centres where everyone must go and be seen, understand that they have real star appeal. They have never been cheap and over the last period their prices have edged upwards at an alarming rate. We felt that they were close to the edge of the abyss where yachts would start to ship out as prices reached ridiculous levels – as however glamorous and wonderful a location, it must still be value. This has certainly been the case in 2024, and new locations are now attracting these yachts, and they are filling in the infrastructure around their new guests, making their locations sticky and real competition to the old, must go to locations.

So – what does the crystal ball hold for the market in 2025…?

A lot of the changes seen in 2024 have longer term consequences and we think that these will be seen in 2025 and beyond. Economically, Europe is not in a great place and this territory will be most affected. The USA is the world’s largest economy, and in early 2025 we saw activity in the yacht market move ahead of Europe. In January 2025 we were confident that the American market would be the most important of our market this year. Because of the promised tariffs, we felt that we would see a lot of the activity in the USA being played out in Europe and in the Pacific as American buyers with their strong US dollars ($) buy and cruise outside home waters, avoiding the tariffs and other restrictions at home. However, the world order is changing and whilst we still feel that America will be a power house of yachting activity this year, we may see more domestic yacht sales and activity in the Pacific rather than in European waters in 2025.

Our second prediction is around the yacht sales market and particularly around those selling new yachts, whose business model involves stocking new boats in volume. Many of these, will not survive in 2025 unless they are nimble and dispose of their stock. Because of the pressures on them, manufacturers who rely on their dealers to fund their build costs by taking stock will be vulnerable and we will see some of these go too. There will be bargains to be had in this segment in 2025, which in turn will impact brokerage prices.

Now that the glam ports are starting to empty, we expect that prices will not drop until later in the year when revenues dip, as these ports wake up to the fact that the golden goose has flown and they need to attract them back into the nest with prices that are reassuringly expensive rather than stratospheric. In the meantime, the pendulum will have swung and many of those ports to which the goose has fled will retain these yachts as owners and crews enjoy their new locations. This will deliver more choice, more great locations and more scope for those wanting to cruise in the wonderful Mediterranean and further afield.

Our next prediction is about multihulls, the segment that is growing fastest in our market. The move from production multihulls for charter to high quality yachts for private use is now well developed. We are starting to see the super yacht yards move from one hull to two and the mid-range market will move in this direction too. As ever the problem with the multihull is parking and we expect to see the beginnings of better facilities for these yachts which are wide but not deep. This will change the natural cruising programme for multihull sailors and the change from one hull to two will increase for experienced yachts people as the speed and volume is coupled with better sea keeping and quality of build. This will mean that we will see different glamour harbours who can accommodate these differently shaped craft which will change cruising patterns for bluewater.

Saving the planet is a crucial part of what drives much in life today and the yachting industry is playing its part. Electric drive is becoming more common, and we will see more of this. We predict in 2025 that other innovations will start to develop in hydrogen, solar and wind as well as other technologies which will become common place in the next 10 years. Gas guzzlers and old technology will decline.

Part of this change will be death of the teak deck in favour of the synthetic alternatives which are improving all the time. Not for 2025 but in the next 5 years, expect to see a forest of synthetic, green and planet saving decks in ports across the planet. And quite right too.

For the Berthon Sales Group, our focus in 2025 is to look outwards. Our little ship is careened, painted and updated with our developing new CRM called BOB and a firm marketing plan. Our new yacht offering of Solaris Power and Sail, Pegasus, Moody, Rustler, and Sealine are built specifically to our clients’ wishes, and we have a fantastic brokerage fleet.

With offices in 4 countries and Filippo working for us in Italy as well as strong relationships with professional brokers in the Southern Hemisphere and elsewhere, we have refined our local broker programme which delivers as we work as a team (more of a family really). This means that wherever our clients call home, they can work with their nearest Berthon office on the purchase of a yacht far away interfacing with the other Berthon offices to provide a seamless service respecting local taxes, flag issues, VAT and other local needs. Our focus is to make the business of yacht arbitrage through Berthon a pleasant one for buyer and seller alike.

The UK Mothership continues to raise the game on marketing and support for our 5 international offices, so high tides and higher taxes willing, we look forward to working with you this year.

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