The Pandemic Panic Rollercoaster
Safety bar check, please keep all hands and feet inside the ride at all times and, enjoy the vomit inducing ride of your life.
We have now cleaned up any credit issues, started putting away deposit money, cut our expenses and have started off loading items not "boat friendly" at garage sales and Goodwill. We did a video walkthrough with friends and family and put their request on a list, so we made sure people got what they wanted. After taking whatever dryer lint was left in people's pockets for the larger items that no one wanted, we were truly heading to our point of no return. We decided to reskin the deck and make a few other upgrades to get the best offer for the house as possible. We were all set and on track, nothing could stop us now. Well, maybe short of a global pandemic, but what was the chances of that, right?
6 months after the pandemic, the housing market started to shift, at 8 months we could see the trends were up to sell. Then there was a complete panic buying situation and we started getting phone calls from realtors asking if we wanted to sell our home. Prices rising fast we jumped in and sold. We had 90 days to move out and the runs to Goodwill started. We downsized a large home to small apartment in the Seabrook area. Now all we had to do was buy the boat...yeah right.
The job market was insane, no one had employees, no one wanted to go back to work. It seemed like everyone was waiting on the next government check that wasn't coming. Everyone except the thousands of people who somehow had access to a large disposable amount of cash to buy up every boat available...anywhere. For months we searched and watched as boats that were once $120k rise up to $200k. We watched bidding wars for yachts that had significant damage and needing major repairs. Boats that were considered unsellable were now a hot commodity. After getting a call not once, not twice but three times from a broker telling the yacht we were in route to see, was already under contract with a backup contract. We went from having financing secured on a Monday to being told the bank decided not to finance anything older than a 2001 on Thursday. Our deadline to start our adventure in mid 2022 was closing fast and we had to make the decision that if we did not have a boat by the end of September 2021, it wasn't going to happen for another year, maybe two.