"Janet O'Leary" yeahright wrote:
,, are you familiar with short selling? *Stock market short selling?

Yes.
It has absolutely nothing to do with buying-selling boats.


... *By asking the seller to shoulder half of the survey
expense, the seller is forced to reveal the flaw before the survey .. and
this helps reach the "true" price of the boat.


That's just plain stupid.
There is no broad based market for any particular boat, thus no
'market price.' The boat is worth what a given buyer will pay for it,
and it costs what the seller will take for it.

First of all, there is certainly no guarantee that a surveyor will
find any particular flaw the seller may have in mind.
2nd there are almost certainly flaws the seller doesn't know about
3rd there is a tremendously wide range of possible 'fixes' for any
given boat problem, and thus no definable cost to repair... until the
specifics of the individual's preferences are applied AND a specific
repair put out for bid.


This seems reasonable to me ..

That's because you know nothing at all about the process.

OTOH there's no reason why you can't try to buy a boat your way. Lots
& lots & lots of sellers out there. And you can always convince
yourself you got a "deal"

DSK