Richardo wondered:

The boats for sale at brokers - in the brand and model I am looking to
purchase - are listed at around DOUBLE their official pricing on the
price rating lists.


=A4 Is this due to a Poker style "bluff" of the sellers trying to push
people to make higher offers?


=A4 Is it due to the brokers trying to swindle unexpected first time
buyers who don't know the market?

********************************

Used boat pricing works like this:

Unless you're looking at a little trailer boat that the dealer accepted
on trade, the used boats in a broker's inventory are not owned by the
broker. They are consigned to the broker by the owners of the boats.

The owners of the boats set the asking prices, not the consignees. The
broker is expected to spend a great deal of time and no small amount of
advertising money in securing a buyer for the consigned vessels. Under
the typical arrangement, the broker is out of pocket for all expenses
and will not be reimbursed unless he or she finds a buyer for the boat
and earns a commission.
For this reason, most brokers resist listing boats that are
ridiculously overpriced. At the end of the listing contract period, the
owner can simply say "thanks, too bad you couldn't sell my $90,000 boat
for $200,000" and walk away with no further obligation to the broker.

Although the sellers, not the brokers, set the asking prices most
sellers have included a good bit of "negotiating" room in the asking
price- fully expecting that a buyer will come along and hope to pay
something less than full sticker. (Imagine that!)
How much room depends on a lot of factors, but there is usually a lot
more room in the initial price offered when a boat first comes to
market than there will be several months later after the disappointed
seller discovers that dime-a-dozen suckers aren't in season right now
and the broker has finally influenced the seller to face reality with
regard to likely sale price.

Throw the price guidebook away. Boat prices are not only seasonal,
they're regional. Boats that sell well and for high prices in Florida
can go begging in the Pacific NW, and the reverse is often true as
well.

Your goal should not be to buy a boat at some arbitrary price printed
in a guidebook, but to buy a boat at or below its current market value
in your region.

Here's a procedural tip for you: Find the boat you want and make an
offer. No matter what amount you offer, the broker will hope to
influence you to amend it to a higher number before he takes your offer
to the seller.
(Yes, in nearly all states the broker is required to present your
*written* offer (with deposit) to the seller. The broker is not
required to present "wouldja takes?"
without earnest money. Cash talks, and we all know what walks.)

Before caving in to the broker's demand for a higher offer, ordinarily
based on a proclamation that your offer is *way below* what similar
boats are selling for in your area, you can ask the broker for a little
substantiation. Have the broker use his Boatwizard password on the
yachtwold website and pull up the sold boat database, for your area,
showing the listing and selling prices of similar boats during the last
few months. If the book is way off and the market is truly higher
(often the case, especially on boats that are the most suitable for use
in a given location), the report will confirm that. The seller should
not be expected to sell you his 34' Pileknocker for $110,000 simply
because the National Automobile Dealers Association says he should, if
everybody else selling the same model in your area recently has been
able to command $160,000.

Richardo also asked:

Basically, I'd like to make offers on boats which correspond to the
official pricing on professional lists. Do Brokers have an obligation
to communicate my offers to sellers? Can I write a seller a letter,
explaining my offer, and will it reach the seller? Or will the Broker
just put it in the shredder? Do I need to send it notarized and by
registered mail, just to make sure it reaches the seller?


*************

Don't plan on the broker disclosing the name and address of his
consignor before you have inked a finalized deal.

You wouldn't do this, of course, but there are buyers who will do
*anything* to get the seller's name and address from the broker simply
so they can contact the seller and try to engineer some "work around"
to cut the broker out of the deal, (assuming that the seller will then
cut the price by at least some portion of the commission that the
broker actually already earned by finding him a buyer for his boat).

Sending a letter hoping to "educate" the seller about the value of the
boat he is trying to sell is probably going to tick the seller off
about as badly as anything you could do, save one. Try sending a
letter, prior to survey, outlining all the deficiencies from which you
believe his boat is suffering. That would be worse. Telling the seller,
"your boat is overpriced, a piece of crap, or both" won't do much to
inspire the seller to work with you to arrive at a price that is
affordable to you as well as fair to him.

Most of the time, that's about as well as you will really do: A price
that is affordable to you, as well as fair to the seller. It isn't
realistic to expect to buy a decent boat far, far, below the asking
prices of any similar boat in your region simply because the NADA book
says you should.

One line that frustrated brokers have been known to use when extremely
aggressive buyers want to start with an unrealistic book price and then
dicker downward from there is "See if the guy who wrote the book has a
boat for sale at that price."

A final safety net, price wise. Even if you are planning to pay cash
for the boat, apply for a loan. If you are really nervous about paying
too much, apply for a loan at a couple of competing banks, credit
unions, or marine mortgage lenders. (You can always change your mind at
the last minute and pay cash instead).
Lenders are usually very, very, cautious about boat loans. Boats are
the first thing to be surrendered when the economy goes into a soft
cycle and unemployment ticks upward, so savvy lenders will want to be
sure that your boat isn't financed for a lot more than it could be
resold for, maybe in a soft market. (And, of course, so will you).
Marine mortage lenders, particularly, will have a front row view of
local sales price trends.

Some credit unions, etc, simply go by the NADA book.
When I was a broker, I had an amusing conversation with a credit union
loan officer once. He said, "We can't do the deal, the boat is way
overpriced."

"Why would you say that? We sold two almost identical boats in the last
several months, one at this price and the other just a little bit
more."

"Our underwriting standards require us to use the NADA book if we're
going to do a boat loan."

"How many boat loans do you do?"

"We actually haven't done a boat loan for many, many, months. Every
boat on the market is pretty well overpriced right now."

Final observation: If every boat price in the area is way over your
guidebook numbers, please believe there is not a vast conspiracy
working against you and it's not that "the rest of the army is out of
step." :-)

Good luck, hope you find the boat of your dreams at a fair, perhaps
even advantageous, and affordable price.