Re: Which has a higher resale value Outboard or Stern Drive
Well for one thing with used boats, nothing has a high resale value, but some boats are lower than others!
I'm sure that will be very different in different regions. Also, when you are looking at the used market, you might not see the better boat since people will hang on to them, or sell them word of mouth, but the market may be full of the undesirables. In my market there are a lot of i/o's for sale but they are for sale because they are a mistake.
It seems to me that while a newer i/o may be preferred by some over a newer OB, once they are old, an older OB would sell better than an old i/o. They last longer, are easier to see if there are problems, easy to swap out or upgrade.
When you say "fishing boats" keep in mind that the center console design is a very good design for general recreational boating on the coast; few coastal boaters who knows their stuff would buy an i/o bowrider even if they never fish. So if you were looking around here, most boats are "fishing boats" to some but not used as such.
So another factor on resale is not necessarily the power plant but the whole design. Since i/o's are usually found in lake-boat bowriders, you may sell more i/o's in lake country based on the boat style and the opposite on the coast. There are a few models that go either way but not enough to really put them side by side on the used market.
Outboards on any boat are preferred here, so they would have a better resale value; you can't give away an i/o except to someone who just moved here from inland.
All also assuming in the small boat recreational market. Some people around here have i/o on boats between 23-30' but as they make bigger OB's, more go to the OB on newer boats. Or, with bigger boats, you go to direct drive since you run them in deeper water.
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