The Catamaran Quarter, Priced To Clear

One hundred ninety-three boats changed hands between July and September, half of them at or above $253,750 and at a median 91.2% of the asking price. Deal flow ran well ahead of the same quarter a year earlier, and it closed faster than that quarter too.

The third quarter of 2026 was defined less by price movement than by sheer participation. One hundred ninety-three boats sold, against 125 in the same quarter of 2025 — a 54% jump in closed transactions. The median sale was a 44-foot boat at $253,750, and the median seller banked 91.2% of the number on the listing. Cruising catamarans did the heavy lifting: Leopard, Lagoon, Bali and Fountaine Pajot together accounted for 65 of the quarter’s 193 sales, better than one transaction in three.

Market Overview

Five hundred ninety-two boats sat on the market at quarter’s end against 193 sales in the quarter — roughly three active listings for every one that closed. That is a market with genuine choice on the buy side and real competition on the sell side, but it is not an oversupplied one; at the quarter’s clearing pace the standing inventory represents about three months of absorption.

Another 77 listings came off the market without a recorded sale. Some of those owners withdrew, some relisted elsewhere, some simply decided to keep cruising. Against 193 completed sales, withdrawals ran at roughly one for every two and a half closings — a reminder that the boats which do not transact are usually the boats that never reconciled their asking price with what the fleet around them was doing.

Owners selling without a broker represented 14 of the 193 sales. Brokered transactions carried the overwhelming majority of the quarter’s volume.

Three active listings for every sale: buyers have choice, and sellers are being compared.

Pricing

Confirmed prices are available for 112 of the 193 sales. Within that set, the median came in at $253,750 while the average reached $470,654 — the gap is the signature of a long upper tail, anchored by a top sale at $9,600,000 against a floor of $15,000. Averages in this market describe the outliers; the median describes the boat most buyers are actually shopping for.

The weight sits low. Forty-two priced sales — 38% — closed under $200,000, and another 27 (24%) landed between $200,000 and $350,000. Together those two bands carried roughly six of every ten priced transactions. Above $350,000 the counts thin quickly: 13 sales in the $350–500k band, 13 more between $500k and $750k, eight between $750k and $1M, and nine above $1M. Those are small groups, and they should be read as what happened in a handful of individual deals rather than as a rate or a rule.

The more useful comparison is between what sold and what is still for sale. The median asking price across the 592 active listings is $327,262 — about $73,500 above the median closed price. The standing inventory skews upmarket: 62 active boats are asking $1M or more, and 118 sit between $500,000 and $1M, while the priced sales above $1M numbered nine. Demand in this quarter was concentrated below $350,000; supply is distributed much further up the ladder.

Bands carrying fewer than 20 priced sales are shown as counts only; percentages on samples that small would overstate what is known.

Demand clustered below $350,000. Inventory is stacked a good deal higher than that.

Market Velocity

The median boat sold after 159 days on market; the average was 196 days. That median is faster than the 178 days recorded in the same quarter a year earlier across 125 sales, and slower than the 138-day median across 644 sales in the trailing twelve months. More volume cleared, and it cleared quicker than the comparable quarter of 2025.

The distribution is where the texture lives. Three boats sold inside 30 days and 35 more between 30 and 90 — 38 sales in the first three months. The thick middle is 66 sales between 90 and 180 days and 67 between 180 and 365. Twenty boats took longer than a year. In other words, a quarter of the quarter’s transactions wrapped up within three months, while roughly nine in ten were done within a year of listing.

Active listings show a median of 209.5 days on market. That figure measures standing inventory rather than completed sales — any snapshot of what is still available naturally carries the boats that have been waiting longest, while quick sales leave the pool. Read alongside the 159-day sold median, it says the available fleet is weighted toward listings that have already had a full season of exposure.

Size & Builders

Forty-four feet is the center of gravity on both sides of the ledger — the median sold boat and the median listed boat are the same length. The single densest slice was 41–44 feet at 47 sales (24%), flanked by 34 sales in the 38–40 foot band (18%) and 35 between 45 and 49 feet (18%). The 50–59 foot range delivered 32 sales (17%), boats under 38 feet accounted for 26 (13%), and 19 sales (10%) were 60 feet or longer. Two-thirds of the quarter’s transactions sat between 38 and 55 feet: the bluewater cruising sweet spot, and it is where the liquidity is.

Leopard alone moved 29 boats, more than the next two builders combined. Add Lagoon’s 21, Bali’s eight and Fountaine Pajot’s seven and the production catamaran yards account for 65 sales. Monohull volume ran through Beneteau at 13, with Catalina, Island Packet and Jeanneau in single digits; on the power side, Azimut and Sea Ray closed five each. For an owner of a mainstream 40-something-foot cruising cat, this is a deep and well-traded market with abundant comparables. For something further off that spine, pricing has to be argued from the boat itself rather than from a crowded sales ledger.