is this a desparate business in need of funds?

I'll probably catch hell for this, but MHO is
If people are getting into this as an investment, they need to play the stock market, buy CD's (not the music ones lol), get into real estate, whatever. These are snakes (geckos etc), it happens. It's not uncommon, and it's not uncommon for whomever put big money into it, just to see the bottom drop out, to lament it.

I don't have any of the really expensive morphs of BP's
1. because I think they are overpriced. This is only my personal opinion, I don't begrudge any who are able to get what they feel is a good return on their investment, nor those who are willing to pay the market price.
and
2. I think the ball market is flooded with to much stock, and expect there to be lots of supply. BP's are/ have been pouring into the states for years. Mostly normals, but as the morphs came out people picked up some hets or homogonous, and a bunch of female normals, that's why the price for females "skyrocketed". When you think about it with the amount of females, it wasn't like there was an importation ban or "true" low supply, it was because people were picking them up in large numbers, especially breeder sized ones. The end result will be a glut (relative, of course. There is still decent pricing on stuff). If we were talking about say..the Black headed python morphs coming out, I would expect more long term stability, as there are nowhere near the numbers of snakes around.

I have to disagree to an extent John.
IF someone has a real interest in breeding reptiles to begin with, ball python morphs remain a fine investment. It does come with it's own set of risks as with any other investment, but it retains it's probability for return on investment regardless of the normal decrease in market value.

I play the stock market myself. In reality, even with the significant fall in prices, you can still easily beat the average return from the market, especially in the short term. While you can't get the 2000% return in 3 years that was possible a few years ago, you can very realistically see a 100% return.
Even if you paid $5k for a mojave a year or two ago and haven't yet produced any, barring the death of the animal you'll still make a nice return even if they are selling for $500 or less next year, it will just take a little longer. In the end though I still say you'll beat the average return of most conventional investments.

Now, I of course I wouldn't recommend someone to choose this as a way to invest say an inheritance or something if they had no previous experience with breeding or any real love of it. Failures happen, and all but perhaps the smallest breeders expereince some failures every year. Overall though ball pythons are still a sound investment for someone with the interest and a couple thousand dollars they have no real need of.

I don't have any of the real expensive morphs either. I just won't pay 10 grand for a snake period. But even if albinos are $300 and pastels are at petco, I'll still recover my initial investment and make a profit in the end.
The biggest danger to the entire snake breeding industry, but most especially to things like the ball morph breeding is the nation's economy itself. Should we experience a serious recession or even another degree of actual depression, as many speculate is inevitable at some point, ball python morphs would become worthless overnight. If times get hard, and I don't just mean $3 a gallon gas, then the very last thing anyone will be considering spending money on is a pretty snake.
In the mean time prices will continue to decline until within a few years nearly all the currently available single gene mutations will be available for under $1k. But if you ask me, $500 is still a tidy sum for a snake, considering what it actually takes to produce it.

The main problem as I see it with the entire industry, ball pythons especially, is the vast majority of people involved with it have no real idea how to operate an actual business. How to look ahead and plan for long term sucess. They've never seen a business plan, don't fully understand expenditures vs. income, or many of the other finer points of operating a business, but yet they can buy a few animals and take on the appearance of one.
The result is they produce animals that they basically see as having no real investment in, therefore anything gained from it is profit as they see it.This translates into selling a half dozen $2k snakes for $1k each for a quick return of 6 grand as opposed to taking 6 months and making 12.
In the retail world, these people would go out of business in a year, but in breeding reptiles they can keep doing it, prematurely driving the market down in the process, partly because they see anything as profit, and partly because as herpers we are all blind to a point to what our hobby actually costs us to pursue simply because we enjoy doing it.

I'm very new to ball pythons and hopefully will be getting one in the not too distant future. I've mainly spent the last 18 months reading, and waiting until I get a bigger place with more room to put it in, so I'll apologise if my comments come across as naive.

Firstly keeping prices high to protect investment sounds suspiciously like price fixing. If supply increases faster than demand, prices will fall, and as more hobbyists produce more morphs we are seeing an increase in the number of 'rare' morphs.

Secondly there seems to be a prevailing attitude that some people are only into ball pythons to make money, and that these people are 'bad' for the rest of us, and for the hobby. On the other hand those people who complain about the money makers are crying because their investments are falling in value. Are you hobbyists or are you breeding ball pythons to make money? The term 'investment' suggests the latter.

It might be upsetting to find out that had you waited a year to buy a Mohave morph you could have saved yourself $500, but why is this different to the $5,000 Plasma tv that is in a 50% off clearance sale 12 months after you bought it?

Either you have a free market economy, where people are free to sell goods at whatever value they choose, or you don't. I realise that this flys in the face of public opinion so I'll just put on my tin helmet and wait for the flak.

Clay,
I don't think we are disagreeing a whole lot. I agree with everything you said pretty much, in fact, I don't see really where you are disagreeing with me. . Even the investment part really, that's why I noted that even with a "glut" or the expected rise in availability of morphs 3-5 years down the road, there will still be "decent pricing". My post is just in general as it relates to these kind of threads. Those "sell now cheaper vs keep the price up by waiting" guys have always been here. There's people who get mad at me for the prices I sell my common stuff for, because now they can't get the price they think they should.

John,
I think the only part of your post that I was actually disagreeing with was this one line:

If people are getting into this as an investment, they need to play the stock market, buy CD's (not the music ones lol), get into real estate, whatever.

It's just that ball morphs shold be viewed as an investment, and a legitimate one. The reality is VERY few people pay a couple thousand dollars for a snake just to have it. Nearly all of them intend to breed it and hope to at least make a little profit from it.
I breed other species of snakes, some at a distinct loss financially, just because I enjoy doing it. I have to view the balls as investments though. If they weren't I still wouldn't have any morphs and would just have waited until they were all priced in what I would consider to be the nice pet range.

Grant,
To be honest, your comments are somewhat naive. I'll address a few of your points to explain.

Firstly keeping prices high to protect investment sounds suspiciously like price fixing.

You have to understand price fixing. If all the top breeders of ball morphs, no need to name them most know who they are, got together and decided they were all going to charge X dollars for a given morph, that's price fixing. That's not what we are talking about here. In fact with any but the most rare morphs it can't even be done because there are too many other people breeding them.

If supply increases faster than demand, prices will fall, and as more hobbyists produce more morphs we are seeing an increase in the number of 'rare' morphs.

This is true, but this thread has nothing at all to do with supply and demand, it is about one breeder (MKR) intentionally cutting his prices to almost 50% of normal market value. Until this week, normal market value for a Mojave was around $1500. Being a free market as you stated, the consumers really determine the value of a given morph by what they are willing to pay. Breeders then price their animals in the range of that amount give or take a few percent, in order to sell their animals for what is considered top dollar at the time. Extra supply didn't cause these mojaves to be sold for $800, neither did decreased demand.

Secondly there seems to be a prevailing attitude that some people are only into ball pythons to make money, and that these people are 'bad' for the rest of us, and for the hobby. On the other hand those people who complain about the money makers are crying because their investments are falling in value. Are you hobbyists or are you breeding ball pythons to make money? The term 'investment' suggests the latter.

Everyone working with ball python morphs is in it for the money to some degree despite the "I do it for the love of the animals" crowd. As I stated earlier, no one pays anywhere from $2k to $20K for a single snake with no desire or intention of breeding it to make a little money.
If you only did it for the love of the animals as a hobbyist, you'd be completely satisfied with a group of normal balls and breed them to sell for $30 each. It's all the same, except for the price tag on what you produce.
Besides, there's nothing wrong with making some money doing what you enjoy. There's a section of the hobby that tries to make you feel dirty or greedy for making money off them. Ironically that's the same section that cannot afford to pay 2 grand for a snake to begin with.
Being a hobbyist and investing in ball pythons are in no way mutually exclusive. By definition, anyone who does not breed snakes as their primary income is a hobbyist.

It might be upsetting to find out that had you waited a year to buy a Mohave morph you could have saved yourself $500,

That's greatly oversimplifying what has happened to create this thread. Everyone expects what they buy this season to be selling for less next year. A $500 decrease in price is nothing in many cases, with codoms it's often 50%.
Here however, mojaves sold for $3k last season and this one breeder sells them for $800 this year. Taking the 50% decrease that the market dictated and cutting it nearly in half again, artificially and unnecessarily driving the price down.
It's a matter of respect for your fellow breeders as well as prior customers. If the market will support $1500 for an animal, there's no need to undercut to that degree.

I wonder how long MKR has been selling Mojaves? How do their customers feel about them setting the "new" market price? It seems like being one of the larger breeders (for a very short time) they would understand that they may be driving people/investors from the ball python market that they are probably heavily invested in.
I recall a few yrs. ago seeing one of the "larger breeders" state in an ad on KS, that they would never set the market value on an animal or have "blow out" sales etc.. This policy makes alot of sense, I call it customer service. It is important to take care of your customers even after the sale of an animal. If one of MKRs customers started a neg. thread on the BOI I feel it would be justified.

[quote=jerichoharris]It might be upsetting to find out that had you waited a year to buy a Mohave morph you could have saved yourself $500, but why is this different to the $5,000 Plasma tv that is in a 50% off clearance sale 12 months after you bought it? [quote]

Um, do you know anyone that bought a $5,000 plasma TV expecting to be able to produce and sell little baby plasma TVs and recoup at least a good portion of their investment? Perhaps keep a few of those cute little mini-plasmas back and raise them up to make even MORE baby plasma TVs?

THAT why it is different. Apples and oranges.

Just out of curiosity, has anyone asked Joe and Wes about this? Or would that just bring about alot more crap than it's worth? I don't understand why they are doing this and if it weren't right before Daytona, as was pointed out to me earlier, I MIGHT still have my original opinion, but I agree that there is no real reason for this and that it is an attempt to sell before Daytona, and that everyone that brings Mojaves there will have problems unloading them after this. It seems very selfish and like a big "screw you" to the rest of the industry. On the other hand, no one ever made much money being unselfish... I for one am a hobbyist that just happened to come across an unproven pair of cinnys that proved out. If he was doing this with them, I would be pissed, as I'm sure most everyone who bought mojaves, proven or unproven, are now and I belive that this is just direspectful and totally lacking any courtesy for all of us who are trying to fund our hobbies by breeding the animals that we love.

Cat 72

A reduction in the value of morphs doesn't stop you breeding them and selling the offspring. Like somebody else pointed out, it just takes longer to make your money back. If you are treating it as a way to make money, even if that money is to fund your hobby, I still don't see how it is different to any other business where suppliers are free to sell their goods at whatever price they deem appropriate.

If high street electrical shop A decides to have a sale to make some quick money for future ventures, high street electrical shops B, C & D can't jump up and down and say that's not fair.

Except in California, where it seems that milk is more expensive than petrol. Although I live in London, my wife is from there, and I never quite understood that one.

Personally to me, If someone wants to sell somehting cheaper than the rest so be it. If that means you will have to lower your prices to compete, once again, so be it. I saved and saved for a Pastel Ball, which i got last year for 600 dollars, and this year, they are going for 250-300, sometimes less. You don't see me pitching a fit cause the price dropped in half in less than a year. Get over it, its the name of the game. So they sell more than you, they will sell out, and then you can set your prices. It isnt screwing anyone in my opinion, it is just competition. They sell thier snakes for the price they want, and they get thier money. Look at Walmart.... why do you shop there? Cause nobody can beat thier prices. If you want to get rich, get into Oil... that seems to be the only place the prices are going up.