Do Presidential Elections Affect Boat Sales?

The last two weeks marked the official start of the general election campaigns of 2016, with the GOP and Democratic nominations of their candidates. We decided to research whether presidential elections have any influence on boat sales.

For this analysis, we combined the data on every boat bigger than 20 feet sold by brokers in the U.S. from 2004 to 2016 provided by Soldboats.com and separated the election years from the regular ones. In the graph below, you can see the average number of boats sold in the U.S. from October to December.

We can see that that the numbers in the election years are slightly lower than in other years, on average by 5% among all sold boats. But if we examine, for example, if we just look at boats over 50 feet, the difference in favor of non-election years is more than 10%.

We included figures for December because boats that close in December typically go under contract in November. 

The results are about what we expected. Elections bring an additional factor of uncertainty, which is very important for investments and big purchases. Although there are many other factors that influence boat sales, such as market indexes, real estate, and corporate profits, the presidential elections are indeed an additional factor to be considered when we analyze the market and create forecasts.

To learn more about factors to consider when purchasing a boat, contact Sales@denisonyachtsales.com or 954.763.3971.