Eight million dollars is a meaningful threshold. It is the point at which a buyer can acquire a well-kept 30-35 metre motor yacht with modern systems, recent refit, and a five-year ownership runway before the next major capex cycle.
The sweet spots in 2026: a 2018-2020 Princess, Sunseeker or Ferretti from a single-owner programme with full maintenance records, or a lightly-used Sanlorenzo SL or SX series with under 1,200 engine hours. Avoid hulls that have switched ownership in the last eighteen months, the signal is almost always 'something emerged at survey'.
The harder question is programme. A $8M yacht still costs roughly $800,000 a year to run properly. Clients buying in this bracket should commit to ten weeks of personal use annually or enter into a charter management agreement that offsets 40-60% of running costs. We would rather lose the sale than see a new owner learn this lesson on their own.