Has anyone bought an aircraft recently?

[tailslide]

Hello! Just wondering if anyone has purchased a small aircraft recently, under a 100k? If so who did you find the easiest to finance with. Any companies that will lease?

TIA!

[fish4life]

If you can wait prices have been coming down and will most likely continue to decrease over the next year at mortgage renewals and general economic slowing will hurt prices

[JasonE]

If you need to finance, don't buy one. That's my advice.

I expect fish4life is correct that prices will fall in the next 2 years.

[ant_321]

If you need to finance, don't buy one. That's my advice.

I expect fish4life is correct that prices will fall in the next 2 years.

+1. For an airplane or a boat if you can’t buy it twice you can’t afford it.

[BGH]

Have you tried talking to the financial institution that you do business with?

Daryl

[digits_]

If you need to finance, don't buy one. That's my advice.

This.

And try to budget for unexpected expenses.

I mean, it's great you want to buy an airplane, but going into very expensive debt seems like a bad idea. Especially in this market. Higher airplane prices, high intrest rates.

There are some fairly cheap single seaters out there, even some ultralight constructions that seem like fun and are fairly cheap.

[tailslide]

I can write it off as a business expense so it makes more sense to finance than pay for it outright.

[PilotDAR]

JasonE wrote: ↑Mon Dec 18, 2023 4:48 pm
If you need to finance, don't buy one. That's my advice.

I expect fish4life is correct that prices will fall in the next 2 years.

+1. For an airplane or a boat if you can’t buy it twice you can’t afford it.

These.

If you're financing for cunning business reasons, fine. But, you have to have the "extra" money available for the "just in case" things which come up with airplanes. I have always recommended that people spend no more than half their budget on the purchase price of the airplane, that way the first couple of years of care and feeding are not a financial strain.

[CpnCrunch]

You also will need to use it entirely for your business, or else pay your company market rate rental rates when you fly it personally.

[digits_]

https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency ... craft.html

If this gets applied as written for small piston planes, it could get very expensive.

Where the shareholder or employee takes a flightFootnote5 on the aircraft in circumstances where there is a business purpose for the flight and their presence on the flight, and there is a personal purpose for others taking the flight, the value of the taxable benefit for the personal use would be equal to the highest priced ticket available in the marketplace for an equivalent commercial flightFootnote6.

Seems a bit silly to add 3 first class tickets as a benefit if you take your wife and 2 kids on a business trip in a 172, but that's how it's written for now.

No idea how that gets dealt with during an audit.

There are accountants out there that are not aware of this document or this policy.

[CpnCrunch]

Seems a bit silly to add 3 first class tickets as a benefit if you take your wife and 2 kids on a business trip in a 172, but that's how it's written for now.

Sounds silly until you actually add up your costs, then you realise that flying business class is a lot cheaper than owning your own plane!

[laminar]

I saved until I could make outright purchases of a plane and hangar. I bought the nicest plane I could purchase while keeping 10K cash in a rainy day fund and bought a wonderful 2 seater. I couldn't imagine the "behind the ball" feeling of financing a plane. I bought the hangar in 2020 and aircraft in 2022.

People I know who have looked into the process have a common consensus that a secured line of credit seems to be a good way if you really want to do it.