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any thoughts on this one


haza

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hi a good friend of mine ...yes i do have one ...ask me whats. my thoughts on this where ...they have a crt  reso mooring for there 50 ft boat ...on the same mooring there is a 60 ft boat .the 60 ft boat pays £30/35 less a month .that dont seem right to me . when they got in touch with crt .and asked them why this is .they where told as my friend was bidding against someone else thats the reason why they are paying more .as now one else was bidding with the 60ft .thats why they are paying less .i have heard of bidding wars but that dont seem right but i surpose those are the rules .so the thing is bid on something  now one else is bidding on ..are there any legal eagles out there what have any thoughts on this ...

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Yes, that is the way it works I'm afraid: "Market forces". Demand ebbs and flows, so one person may bid unopposed in an auction and win the mooring for a (relatively) low rent, while six months later the mooring next door to it may attract several people bidding against each other, and so it will go for a higher price. This has certainly happened on our stretch of CART moorings in Cropredy.

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That is the nature of an auction, sometimes you get a bargain and sometimes you have to bid high against somebody else to get what you want.

When the boat with the cheap mooring goes then there will be a new auction, but because you have paid a higher price you have established that this mooring site is desirable so CaRT might set the minimum bid at a higher value.

In the early days of the mooring auctions it was "sealed bids"; you had to put in an offer without even knowing what others had bid. A friend of ours was in a tight spot and really needed a mooring urgently so had to put in a ludicrously high bid to make sure that he won.

...............Dave

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Exactly how it works, I'm afraid.

When you bid, you know that if you win it, that's exactly what you will have to pay, (used to always be for the next 3 years, but I believe they are now auctioning shorter contracts).

The (to me) bizarre thing about is that if you continue on after that initial 3 years, then the price reverts to the CRT "book" price for that mooring, (which may be much more or much less than you have been paying).  So, (assuming it is a mooring priced by the meter, rather than by the berth), eventually the person with a 60 foot boat will pay more than the one with a 50 foot boat.  But not for the first three yeras.

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2 minutes ago, dmr said:

In the early days of the mooring auctions it was "sealed bids"; you had to put in an offer without even knowing what others had bid. A friend of ours was in a tight spot and really needed a mooring urgently so had to put in a ludicrously high bid to make sure that he won.

Been there, done that!

Only when you won, (or didn't win) it, did you find out how much more you have bid than you actually needed to, (or how much more you needed to bid not to lose).

Paid around £2,400 per year for a 50 foot mooring, when it could have been £500 a year less.  Later a (lapsed?) forum member got a similar mooring for more like (from memory) £1,400.

Only after we had each served our initial 3 years, did things equalise.

I have always been firmly opposed to BW/CRT moorings auctions.  No other provider of moorings operates in this way, yet they still make money.  There is no evidence that overall CRT make extra because of them.  For everybody who pays well over "guide", you can match it with someone who pays less than "guide", or the failure to sell a mooring at all.

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19 minutes ago, alan_fincher said:

Exactly how it works, I'm afraid.

When you bid, you know that if you win it, that's exactly what you will have to pay, (used to always be for the next 3 years, but I believe they are now auctioning shorter contracts).

 

When we first got our mooring we had a three-year contract. This year it expired and we have been able to renew it only for one year.

Roz Rothwell, the CART lady who looks after moorings in the area, explained to us why this was. I think it was because our initial contract was as a result of winning an auction, whereas the renewal was at a fixed price.

Edited by Athy
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I have very mixed feelings about this. I am not a fan of capitalism and the free market as a free market is open to all sorts of interference, but in the case of moorings it does have the advantage that its "transparent" (ouch, a bit of new speak that actually works). The only real alternative is a fixed price and a waiting list, how it used to be. The problems here are getting round the list by sub-letting and dodgy dealings by whoever maintains the waiting list.

We got our boat before we had a mooring though we were on a couple of waiting lists. I rather suspect that the people who sold us the boat "had a word" with the marina owner and got us instantly elevated to the top of the list.

The big weakness of the current auction system is having moorings left empty because the reserve is set too high.

...........Dave

this post is in response to Alans post

Edited by dmr
clarification
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2 minutes ago, dmr said:

 

The big weakness of the current auction system is having moorings left empty because the reserve is set too high.

...........Dave

this post is in response to Alans post

Yes indeed, and it also ties in with our experience at Cropredy. For quite a while there were a couple of gaps in the (two sections of) LT mooring sin the village, I assume because no one had wished to pay the asking price. Now they are full, whether because of increased demand or because the asking price was lowered I don't know.

Actually, there's still one space, though beside it is a sign, handwritten on wood, which reads "Dunflotin - home mooring". I do not think that such a craft exists, it's more likely that some wag put it there because that bit is known to be quite severely silted up. (No, not guilty!)

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A higher proportion of moorings seem to be sold on a 'Buy It Now' basis than previously. A similar system operates here in that the initial price will be set against the maximum length of the mooring but renewals are priced at the actual length of the boat concerned. These are often sold as one year contracts so it's worth bearing in mind on these moorings the price will drop after one year.

JP

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11 minutes ago, Athy said:

Yes indeed, and it also ties in with our experience at Cropredy. For quite a while there were a couple of gaps in the (two sections of) LT mooring sin the village, I assume because no one had wished to pay the asking price. Now they are full, whether because of increased demand or because the asking price was lowered I don't know.

Actually, there's still one space, though beside it is a sign, handwritten on wood, which reads "Dunflotin - home mooring". I do not think that such a craft exists, it's more likely that some wag put it there because that bit is known to be quite severely silted up. (No, not guilty!)

That would be a good name for a house when extreme old age forces one to give up boating.  

Have seen both a DunWorkin and a DunRushin in the last couple of weeks.

..........David

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Forget the nature of it ...... boats, moorings, canals, C&RT etc.

It's an auction.

You choose to get involved with an auction why get surprised with how it works or the outcome?

Go to a local house clearance auction. Spot a box of books you want and decide to bid up to £30.00. You get it for £25, so have ascertained it was worth £25 and saved yourself a fiver to boot. Well done you. When you pop back next day to pay and collect you get chatting to somebody who also bought some books and their maiden bid won the auction costing them £15.00.

Are you now going to complain and are planning to appeal to some ombudsman or whoever? Really? ..... just enjoy your books!

  • Happy 1
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1 hour ago, dmr said:

I have very mixed feelings about this. I am not a fan of capitalism and the free market as a free market is open to all sorts of interference, but in the case of moorings it does have the advantage that its "transparent" (ouch, a bit of new speak that actually works). The only real alternative is a fixed price and a waiting list, how it used to be. The problems here are getting round the list by sub-letting and dodgy dealings by whoever maintains the waiting list.

We got our boat before we had a mooring though we were on a couple of waiting lists. I rather suspect that the people who sold us the boat "had a word" with the marina owner and got us instantly elevated to the top of the list.

The big weakness of the current auction system is having moorings left empty because the reserve is set too high.

...........Dave

this post is in response to Alans post

I agree - the last time I contemplated going back to a CRT mooring the reserve price on those I looked at wasn't a lot less than I'm paying in a marina.   

On our recent trip along the Leeds Liverpool is was very noticeable how few boats were on CRT linear moorings compared to 5/6 years ago.  It seems senseless to me to hold the prices artificially high when they seem to be choking off demand.    

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13 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

I agree - the last time I contemplated going back to a CRT mooring the reserve price on those I looked at wasn't a lot less than I'm paying in a marina.   

On our recent trip along the Leeds Liverpool is was very noticeable how few boats were on CRT linear moorings compared to 5/6 years ago.  It seems senseless to me to hold the prices artificially high when they seem to be choking off demand.    

I think CART have realised that some people ( me being one ) will pay higher prices for a towpath mooring if its the area they want to be in. I prefer online moorings when not ccing as now.

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33 minutes ago, Neil2 said:

I agree - the last time I contemplated going back to a CRT mooring the reserve price on those I looked at wasn't a lot less than I'm paying in a marina.   

On our recent trip along the Leeds Liverpool is was very noticeable how few boats were on CRT linear moorings compared to 5/6 years ago.  It seems senseless to me to hold the prices artificially high when they seem to be choking off demand.    

Then it will be " we tried to sell the moorings but nobody wanted them so now we will do away with them"

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there is talk of involving ombudsman ..not that they are .i have enjoyed reading lots of books ...some good some crap ...lol and i  agree it is what it is .i brought a book once £25.99...two months later the same book £1,99 ..and not an auction in sight ...

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1 hour ago, Neil2 said:

 

 It seems senseless to me to hold the prices artificially high when they seem to be choking off demand.    

IIRC that's the point. CaRT cut down the supply of moorings online when marinas have spaces, as marinas become full they make them available. I think the supply is controlled to some extent by the price, length etc of moorings. E.g. Near us they refused to negotiate on mooring length despite people needing moorings. There's an official doc out there in google land that explains this in official speak. Not sure where though.

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