When to buy a Banana

[West Coast Jungle]

My advice is if you want one and can afford it, buy it. If your in it just for $ I would suggest stocks and bonds

[Badgemash]

I've seen some two go for under that even snake. One went for around $1000 at an auction and I seen one go for $1200 as well. I mean granted even that you can still make your money back if you breed to a few females but still.

I also know of a few going at this rate. I guess if you're going for recessives and have those females ready to rock, then you might as well go for it. Personally I'm not even going to bother with bananas, with the male maker issue I think in 3-4 years they're going to be as common as spiders are now. With the way they're getting churned out by everybody trying to make their money back they'll be available pretty cheaply in whatever combo you want.

[MarkS]

The thing about bananas is that they are eye catching good looking snakes, even people who don't know anything about ball pythons are attracted to them. They will ALWAYS be in demand and you will always be able to sell them . Just look at albinos, selling albinos is easy and they've pretty much stabilized in price right around the $300.00 mark. I honestly don't see bananas ever going lower than that

[4theSNAKElady]

I agree with Mark. If you want one, buy one. How could you not? Theyre just such gorgeous animals.

sent from my incubator

[zues]

I offered an albino genetic stripe female in trade for a male coral glow a few months ago when they were going for 4000-5000. I am glad the breeder passed on that deal. I've seen prices drop on morphs before but I don't think this hobby has ever seen a morph drop so far so fast. With that being said I will still end up picking one up. They are just to cool not to have one.

[rickm]

I will probably pick one up this year. I agree though, get this animal because of how awesome they are...not for the money aspect. they are dropping fast, but I learned a long time ago...that is just how the market works. I buy the animals I like to work with, not the ones I think are going to make me the most money...they are awesome animals and I want one, so I am going to buy one now that they are not stupid expensive...and enjoy the heck out of having one in my collection, even if it never breeds...but we all know better than that, lol. if they are 500 next year, oh well...I am getting it for how awesome they look.

[Badgemash]

I just re-read my post from yesterday, sorry I came across so negative, I didn't mean to be a jerk.

[Ronin]

I can't wait to get a banana!! But I am probably going to have to wait till next year. I want to start a banana cinny pied project!! I know that will be behind the curve a bit but from what it sounds the demand will still be there. And if not, I DON"T CARE! It will be so awesome to have a banana cinny pied in my collection.

[Rawbbeh]

I was at the reptile expo here in Houston this weekend. Only saw 2 bananas. Couldn't believe how the prices have tanked!

[Neal]

I also know of a few going at this rate. I guess if you're going for recessives and have those females ready to rock, then you might as well go for it. Personally I'm not even going to bother with bananas, with the male maker issue I think in 3-4 years they're going to be as common as spiders are now. With the way they're getting churned out by everybody trying to make their money back they'll be available pretty cheaply in whatever combo you want.

But like others have said, they will still find a balance. This is how the market usually works, or it has in the past. Don't quote me on price as I'm just using a general price to give people an idea.

Brand new morph = $50,000
The year after = $20,000
The year after that = $10,000
The following year $3-4,000
The year after that $1,000, later that year $600ish
The following year $500 but could drop to $300, maybe even cheaper eventually depending on how many people breed them and want them gone versus how many people are willing to buy.
Once stock runs out and more people want them, price goes up to $350, then 400. Then eventually it'll level out.

Pieds and Albinos have held their price the best versus how long they've been out. I've watched a hidden gene woma BP drop from $7k to under $5k in a few months. It's all on how many are out there and who wants to move what. Then when the price drops below what the price finally stabilizes at is because people are in a rush to get rid of stuff instead of holding onto it.

Say a person has 4 snakes that he paid $10,000 for the breeder, well he's asking $6,000 for each of the babies and he sees that morph sell for $5,000 well he may panic and sell his for under $5,000 to move them to make his money back immediately or try and that's how the market starts to crash. If people would hold on to their animals and not fall with the market then the price wouldn't drop nowhere near as fast as it does.

A good instance is Bamboo's right now are at what, $20,000? By mid next year they'll be half of that. Depending on if their selling babies or adults for that much. If it's babies then maybe not half that but say it'll drop to around $15,000. Especially if the males are ready to go. Your larger breeders will get that bamboo male and hook it up to several females and that increases the amount of bamboos he has and gives different morphs and that's when you start seeing a slight price drop.