Super High Dollar Morphs

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Originally Posted by MitsuMike

To your first statement. Lambos, Ferrari's, ZR1s go for ridiculous pricing. But people still buy them. My point was, seemingly people don't get it, was the animal really WORTH that much. I proved that it was in fact with time and investment BUT to counter the point many other hobbies put more time and effort into things and charge much much less.
Now like I already said (I repeat myself alot) it all comes down to supply and demand not "fair".

To your second statement, you misunderstand and seem confused. So I will help you out. Saying something is "sad" doesn't mean agreeing or disagreeing. It is what it is, sad. And I say this because people who spend over 5K on an animal and in 4 years 100+ other people have the animals and it was worth not even half of what you paid for it.

And thank you Angllady for proving my point. This market will crash, for better or worse, and the example you gave is great. Now if the market will bounce back again, no one really knows (I hope it does, I like the reptile industry much to see if go). But I do see the BP market falling in suit with the bird example you gave.

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What all you knuckleheads are forgetting is that you breed these animals. Sure if you buy a snake and let it sit in your rack it's going to lose value. If you do this, a Ball Python Morph is a lousy investment. However, if you breed your animals, you should be able to produce enough to make your "investment" pay off. The smarter(sometimes dumb luck) your choices when purchasing, the better chance you have to make money.:gj:

The funny thing is...the more money you invest, the better your chances of making money. Look at some of the "Joe Smoos" that invested a lot of money, and are now at the top of the game in a few short years paying off their house and taking vacations.:D

The ball python industry is really different than any other animal market. We are dealing with tons of morphs, that is constantly evolving and changing. With change comes interest and that will continue to be the case. With ball pythons we not only have change, but we also have quality to base our own motives to buy and sell. I personally think that ball pythons are really just starting, and far from collapsing in 5 years. Anyone who has taken a class on economics and business will understand how the market changes.

Also, take in consideration the large drop in snake prices having a lot to do with the straight fact we are in a serious economic depression? When you guys start throwing numbers around and percentages, please take the cost of a dollar and how it has changed in 5 years. You'll surprise yourself with those statistics. The funny thing is people are still spending out the ass on ball pythons during a depression rather than essentials in life because of the straight obsession. That won't change... as the market changes, so will the industry. Obviously people who want to try and do this for a living are going to have to stay a cut above the market, and like BG said, you gotta spend money to make money.

I've had snakes since I was a kid because I loved them, just like every other large snake breeder in the world. When I began collecting I didn't think about profit as much as the pure enjoyment of producing my very own morphs that I thought were my favorite. Does that consider me a wannabe because I don't own a warehouse of snakes?? The growth of hobbyist is the most important thing and is the backbone for this industry ESPECIALLY for the large breeders. Even hobbyist want the next cool thing. I make a fine living not breeding snakes, but I'll tell you what I'll still be a huge fan for a lot longer than 5 years, lord willing. Just my 2 cents.

I think at this point it's all been said. It's basic supply and demand, but to add yet another illustrative point to this thread, consider this as a high level overview:

Ball Python Breeders both small and big = 100%. The big breeding houses likely comprise about 20% and small hobbyist breeders likely comprise 80%. This is not verified - I'm just using it for illustration.

So now the 80% of smaller breeders/hobbyists have, say, an average budget of 1-5k. They all bought affordable dominant or co-dom morphs they could afford when they were on the market. In this example, let's use the last 2-3 years and what used to be expensive morphs - spiders, pastels, supers, bees, and pinstripes (lessers probably as well) - in the recessive gene market, albino and ghost.

So now we have 80% of the breeding population grabbing up all of the above named animals. This year, the market is flooded with super pastels, bees and spider crosses galore, lemonblasts, lessers, BEL's etc. Of course when the majority of the market is producing the same or similar animals, the prices drop and then the next group of newbee breeders come in and snatch up the new affordable morphs.

Meanwhile, while prices have dropped for the group of 2008 breeder stock, a lot of them can now afford to trade up or buy a new triple or quad gene animal to insert into their mix. They also have mature animals to breed next season while all the newbees snatching up the 2010 stock will have 2 years to really start producing (females anyway.)

Up at the top of the chain, we have the 20% of big breeders producing high cost animals for each other and mid-grade breeding programs to step up and create some new morphs. For example, let's say Brian at BHB produces a new chocolate morph that sells for 10k. The 2008 breeder may have 6-10k in revenue from the sales he produced this year from his 2008 stock and can now look at investing in the chocolate that will increase the average dollar sale of next year's clutch by, say, 25 - 50%.

By that time, the 2010 class of breeders will be coming up with their offspring and will be able to afford a new animal from the 2008 class and so on...

It's all a business life cycle. Some of the little guys flame out and bigger houses absorb their collection. The thing I don't see too often is mergers of breeding houses. Look for that in the future. I can see a day where it will make sense for breeders to merge based on projects. While we love it as a hobby, it is a big business for a lot of people as well. So all that being said, you can expect an annual tier of animals on the low end of the morph scale to drop in price. Next year, look for pied's to continue to drop, BEL's and Ivory's will drop, double co-dom mutations will likely be down, and (simply because they've become common) albino's will continue to drop.

Where I see stability in the next year or two is in the fire crosses (not a ton out there) Enchi crosses as well, Desert (for the next 3 years anyway - the co-dom variety may drop within two years by 40% or more depending on what's out there.) Clowns, sugars, etc. The good news about the drops is that the 2008 class can trim their losses on the breeding stock they bought high by buying 2010 stock of double co-dom's and breeding back to the 2008 adults. That's the great part of our hobby/business - you can always stay current by keeping a healthy stable of adult females, so while the new breeders may see it as saturated and bleak, it's not. It's just a cycle and it WILL continue with or without you :)