Hi Guys & Gals,


I'm sure you've all had experience buying boats. I'm seeking advice on
how to understand used boat prices.


The 2005 Guide to Powerboats has a listing of used boat prices showing
Low Retail and Average Retail prices.


The online NADA Used Boat Prices shows retail prices which you can
customize by dialing in all the features and options on a given boat.


Here is where the problem comes in:


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?


=A4 Are the Price Guides totally off base when it comes to real market
prices?


I've heard that today we are in a "buyer's market". Is this a myth? Or
is it only true for certain boat models/sizes/ages? Is it normal to
find prices on 10-year old boats above their prices BRAND NEW in 1995
?!?


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?


Or should I hire a BUYER'S BROKER to defend my interest... and possibly

jump into the snake pit?


Your mystified rec.boats.cruising buddy,=20


Rich

Prices are nuts. Most of what you pay for is newness and surface
cosmetic condition. If you can tolerate a little surface wear,
scratches, and age, there are some incredible bargains out there.

We bought this boat for $15,000. The inside looks as good as the
pictures at the end show.

http://home.maine.rr.com/rlma/Boat.htm

I walk into a marine store a few days later and there is a four seat
outboard boat with a price tag two thousand dollars more. I was just
at the Maine Boatbuilder's Show and saw a boat with no berths, no
place to sit down except the top of the engine box (which did have
indoor/outdoor carpet on it), compass, wheel, engine, and hull for two
and a half times as much money. Buy, it's new and shiny. Crazy.

You don't need a buyer's broker but you do need a top notch surveyor
and the willingness to walk away from any boat.

Buy fresh water if you can. Prices are lower in the Great Lakes. I
feel about brokers about the way I feel about sharks but Shawn Taylor
who sold us our boat left nothing to be desired. You might start
the

http://www.yachtworld.com/toledobeachyachtsales/

--

Roger Long

Hi Roger,

You're painfully dead right when you say "Prices are nuts".

I couldn't care less about newness and surface cosmetics. So you are
reassuring me that with some scratches and tears there will be a boat
out there waiting. That sure is one INCREDIBLE bargain you got!

I'll try to find the best possible surveyor whereever I see a boat
worth checking out. The Power Boat Guide shows a listing of surveyors,
maybe that is a good place to start?

I'll try to go for a fresh water boat, or if not feasible at the right
price, at least a fresh water cooled engine. I looked at Shawn Taylor's
listings but he hasn't got the model I'm seeking.

Thanks!

Rich


Hi Dave,

I'll see if I can get a broker to dial me into his internet databases,
who knows if it can make things move on a sale? :-D

Cheers,

Rich

Hi Roger,

You're painfully dead right when you say "Prices are nuts".

I couldn't care less about newness and surface cosmetics. So you are
reassuring me that with some scratches and tears there will be a boat
out there waiting. That sure is one INCREDIBLE bargain you got!

I'll try to find the best possible surveyor whereever I see a boat
worth checking out. The Power Boat Guide shows a listing of surveyors,
maybe that is a good place to start?

I'll try to go for a fresh water boat, or if not feasible at the right
price, at least a fresh water cooled engine. I looked at Shawn Taylor's
listings but he hasn't got the model I'm seeking.

Thanks!

Rich


Hi Dave,

I'll see if I can get a broker to dial me into his internet databases,
who knows if it can make things move on a sale? :-D

Cheers,

Rich

This is the best listing link I have found:

http://www.boats.com/listing/cache/a...clk_srcrvs_nav

Almost nothing I found on the web elsewhere wasn't also there and the
search engine worked better than any of the others.

Be sure to get a surveyor from:

http://www.marinesurvey.org/

http://www.acms-usa.com/

These are the two national organizations. Both have good search
engines. Other than belonging to one of these groups, a "marine
surveyor" is someone who knows the name of a shop that prints business
cards and letterheads.

--

Roger Long



wrote in message
oups.com...
Hi Roger,

You're painfully dead right when you say "Prices are nuts".

I couldn't care less about newness and surface cosmetics. So you are
reassuring me that with some scratches and tears there will be a
boat
out there waiting. That sure is one INCREDIBLE bargain you got!

I'll try to find the best possible surveyor whereever I see a boat
worth checking out. The Power Boat Guide shows a listing of
surveyors,
maybe that is a good place to start?

I'll try to go for a fresh water boat, or if not feasible at the
right
price, at least a fresh water cooled engine. I looked at Shawn
Taylor's
listings but he hasn't got the model I'm seeking.

Thanks!

Rich


Hi Dave,

I'll see if I can get a broker to dial me into his internet
databases,
who knows if it can make things move on a sale? :-D

Cheers,

Rich

Hi Roger,

Thanks for those surveyor links - saves me expensive mistakes. I've
heard horror stories about surveyors recommended by, or influenced by
unscrupulous brokers. Not exactly reassuring when it comes to buying
such a big ticket item.

I guess prices are all over the place because it is a varied market,
with some folks stretching their budget, and others throwing away good
money after bad. Sales must reflect that too, with some folks getting
a raw deal and others making out like bandits selling boats at bloated
prices. I think that the older the boats get, the more informed and
educated the buyers are; this means that actual sales will tend to
better reflect real market value, even if asking prices are in fantasy
land. For more recent boats, it seems that some folks hope to resell
for more than they bought them for, at least for the first few years
of trying to sell them. Maybe given time, and the expenses of keeping
a boat, reason slowly sinks in?

Cheers,

Rich

Just sold a boat for quite a bit after several painful months and
bought a new used one at a good price. Here's the scoop, boats
devalue by average around 5% per year. Think about it, why on earth
would you pay more for a used boat than a new one? No one would, and
no one does.

First, narrow down exactly what you want and why. That will help
immeasurably. People don't mind showing off their boats, but they
don't like "potential buyers" showing up who can't decide between a
racing catamaran and a trawler (not making that one up unfortunately).

Then go to a place like www.yachtworld.com and look at the prices, that
will give you a good idea of the market and get a broker to give you
prices from a place like sold.com and find out what people are actually
spending for their boats.

Sellers assume someone will buy their boat at around 80 percent of the
asking price, regardless really of the asking price. They start with
their ideal world price, realize that people aren't buying and that
boat payments are starting to add up, and get more and more desperate.


Boat sellers want to give themselves room to negotiate down, and you
want to give yourself room to negotiate up.

Last, the boat market tends to follow the real estate market. The
real estate bubble is allowing people to take out ridiculously large
home equity loans on appreciated houses and spend lots for new boats.
When that bubble bursts, prices will fall accordingly in the used
market, and some new boat manufacturers will probably be found sunk.

So there you go, research your boat by seeing the selling price and the
asking price, god forbid you try to get it without a boat surveyor, you
absolutely need one. Call several brokers and let them know you are
looking for a particular model and they may help you find someone with
a good deal, but as a condition for having them keep an eye out for
you, ask for the price lists from their sources for sold boats so you
can have a realistic eye for value and price.

Last, be up front, make sure you have your finances lined up and ready
to go and keep your appointments to see boats. Nothing ****es people
off more then "buyers" taking up their time when they have no ability
to actually buy the boat and finally end up leaving you standing on a
boat launch waiting for them to show up.

Good luck, you are swimming with sharks,

Doug

Hi Doug,

Thanks for your helpful comments for a newbie. Knowing that sellers
price their boats at about 20% above their real acceptable sale price
helps me better understand which boat ads to respond to, and at what
level to make offer at.

If they have vectored in a negotiating margin, by advertising at a
slightly inflated price, logic would have a buyer vector in his own
negotiating margin at a slightly deflated price, say 20% below real
market price. So a smart first offer might be at around 60 to 65% of
the seller's asking price. That doesn't mean that you won't pay more,
but it could later on in the negotiation help them see that you are
making a financial effort to meet them midway at the "real" market
price, in other words their advertised price minus approximately 20%.

Unless they've waited ages without any buyers interested in their boat,
and they're hit hard by payments and expenses, it stands to reason that
extremely low offers won't go anywhere but in the wastebin. Aside from
possibly insulting the seller, it also can discredit the buyer even if
they come back with a higher offer: "Look at what this joker is
offering this time!" instead of "Here's a buyer who isn't making high
enough an offer, let's counter offer!" Keeping channels open is
probably useful, as price expectations may change over time, and if
looking to find a good boat value you may be looking around for quite a
while.

Your suggestion that most sellers, and/or brokers, might price boats
for sale at about 20% above what they think they are worth is very
reassuring indeed. I was alarmed at a twofold price spread between the
Used Boat Price Guides, in print or online, and advertised prices for
same model boats. I guess this means that maybe the guidebooks are off
- as in lower than current high market prices due to home equity loans
boosting the boat market - but also that advertised prices aren't an
exact reflection of real sales prices for boats either.

I have no problem swimming with sharks, as long as I see them coming
and can clobber them on the nose (only sensitive spot within our short
reach). I imagine that the boat market bubble has gotten sharks
swarming at the smell of blood - your hard-earned ca$h - but there are
sure to be honest brokers out there, plus lots of for sale by owner
boats to be found too.

With the Fed planning on raising long-term interest rates, plus
economists predicting a bursting of the Real-Estate bubble soon
starting in California where it has stretched much like the dot.com
bubble, we are probably at a hinging time between high used boat prices
and rapidly deflating used boat prices. This would IMHO be an
interesting time to market one's used boat at a reasonable price
somewhat below most people's asking prices, before it becomes next to
impossible to sell one's boat. Otherwise, hope you already own a boat
which meets your needs and budget, as you will probably be keeping it
for some years to come unless you fancy (I actually do sometimes)
making someone's day by selling at a giveaway price.

As a boat buyer, I am myself toying with the idea of delaying my
purchase by a year or two, not to make a deal off somebody else's back,
but to buy a used boat at a price which I truly believe corresponds to
the unit, its equipment, and its condition. Today, I find that the For
Sale Ads show prices which are well above that amount. And it is not
because I am cheap. I sometimes refuse free giveaways and even price
reductions offered by sellers when I think that they are already giving
me a good deal.

Banks and Insurers both think that today's boats are overpriced. Often
they will even refuse unsecured loans on this basis, realizing that if
they lend more than the boat is worth and then have to impound the
boat, they'll get stuck with the market shift full-fledged in their
ledgers, that would not be an acceptable prudential consideration for
any financial institution. So why should it be for Joe 6-pack buying
his first boat? Not to blame sellers or brokers for this state of
affairs. They are just trying to stick to what appear to be the actual
prices that boats are selling for.

I guess that those really to blame are unreasonable buyers, who don't
think too far down the road, and get into hock deeper than sensible for
boats that may not be worth all they are paying. Today's new boat
prices are an extremely clear example of that. Anyone doing a cost
accounting analysis of current boat prices will have a darn hard time
making any sense of current pricing sheets of boat builders. And unless
they are prepared to back down fast in their pricing policy, as you say
quite logically: "some new boat manufacturers will probably be found
sunk."

So as boat buyers, we have a number of options.

- be in a hurry to buy a boat NOW and pay whatever we have to in order
to get the one we want fast: expect to overpay, if not by today's high
boat price standards, at least later on when you look at where you
stand several years down the road

- take your time finding the right boat at the right price: luck may
intervene, you won't get as good a price as waiting for the market to
take a downturn, but you still get a fair shake plus get to enjoy the
boat sooner

- wait for a market downturn: here you main worry will be to treat the
sellers decently, not taking advantage of their vulnerable situation by
pitting them against one another in a disrespectful and abusive
exercise of your purchasing power

I'm planning on taking the middle road here, taking my time to find a
reasonable seller who is willing to part with a decent boat for a
decent price. I didn't win the Lottery, and if the seller bought it
themselves at too high a price, I will be compassionate but cannot take
it upon myself to finance their mistakes: it may well be a crying
shame, but I shouldn't be the one doing the crying.

Cheers,

Rich

Hi Dave,

This sounds nice, but apparently some (informed or disinformed?) guys
have stated in other threads that sometimes brokers don't feed the BUC
or other professional databases the real prices of sales, and tend to
sometimes exagerate the numbers. This might be untrue for most, but it
is arguable that high prices would be in the interest of anyone on a
percentage commission - plus being able to pull high prices out of a
professional database can also possibly help cinch a difficult sale,
convincing a reticent buyer that he is actually paying real market
price.

Brokers in this newsgroup, I am not alleging that this actually occurs.
It is possible that your profession is the most ethical around, and
that the vast majority dutifully respect the trade's deontology. But
I'm not actually aware of the existance of an regulatory body which
sets industry standards for boat broker behavior. Does one indeed
exist?

We know all too well that when you leave a large number of unequally
qualified self-proclaimed professionals around a pot of cash without
strict industry guidelines and accompanying sanctions, things tend to
happen. Is there an official, published, monitored, set of
deontological guidelines for boat brokers? If not, a broker can be the
most honest and circumspect individual in the world, they are left wide
open to the assumption that they are probably crooked dealers motivated
exclusively by greed and self-interest.

Predators can infest any profession left undisciplined. Whether such is
the case for boat brokerage is a matter of opinion and personal
experience. Thus far, the only marginally unethical behavior I have
witnessed from a broker is the refusal to commuicate a verbal offer to
a seller - mind you the offer was NOT accompanied by the usual deposit
check. He didn't inform me that sending a check was customary to an
offer. So maybe his only failing was one of properly communicating,
nobody's perfect. But maybe he was trying to eliminate a potential
purchaser looking to bring the price to a reasonable level (comparable
to other similar boats advertised) in hopes of finding someone more
gullible to influence into paying him more commission?

To resume my response to your statement, that "most brokers do have
access to actual sales prices on the major sites", are the prices in
those databases subject to verification by banking and tax authorities,
or are they strictly a matter between the broker keying them in on his
computer - and his own conscience? In the latter case, we'll just have
to hope that the brokers have a higher level of conscience than in any
other profession.

So I guess that hiring a buyer's broker is just multiplying the problem
by two, all it takes in one weak link in a chain for it to break, and
the more the links, the more the chances of problems.

For my part, I will use only one measure of knowing if a deal is a good
one. It is a technique taught me by an art expert. Discussing a fake
Toulouse Lautrec oil painting (in his shop) and detailing what looked
authentic and what didn't, he said: "I'll let you into a little known
secret, if there is the least nagging detail worrying you about the
painting, it is most likely a fake. Real master paintings don't leave
room for doubt - they ARE plain and simply, and are never 'almost' what
you think they should be."

To me the same will hold true for a boat purchase. If it feels 100%
right, a good boat for a good price, I'll buy without hesitation. If I
need to rationalize the purchase by looking at online professional
databases, that probably means that I am trying to justify making an
expensive mistake: it is either the wrong boat or the wrong price, and
maybe both!

Cheers,

Rich



Dave wrote:
On 20 Mar 2005 23:11:52 -0800, said:

Or should I hire a BUYER'S BROKER to defend my interest... and
possibly

jump into the snake pit?

Most brokers do have access to actual sales prices on the major
sites.
They're not supposed to show them to you, but if you can find a
friendly
broker they've been known to make the information available.

about sold.com and other sources for pricing.

At one time I had access (just before a YachtWorld web page rebuild) to the
sold boats inventory.

In buying our boat, a couple of brokers had offered us those pages (the list
of sold boats).

If you'll get your broker to give you a screen shot, the links will remain
in the HTML code.

I called each of the boats' original brokers. I found some discrepancies
between the posted sale and reality - but most were correct.

However, no broker is obligated to record the sale. As a result, several of
the make/model we were pursuing hadn't been recorded. I used those know
points to add to my database.

In the end, over a 5 year period, known sales were at 88+% of list (though
there may have been some reductions along the way). High in that time was
about 92%; low was about 85%, in any given year.

Included in those were the couple which were at 67/75% - all the rest were
in the 80-90s.

YMMV, and the market may well have changed. However, when a broker I trust
told me that, on the whole, boats are selling in the 88-90% range, I was
able to confirm that with a reasonably extensive (25) sample of our type.
Because it would fit under a threshold, our broker recommended the seller
lower his price by 10% of what he'd originally thought it worth. Based on
what we'd seen to that point, likely that (the higher price) was reasonable
market value. In the end, we wound up buying at 83% of the higher price and
92% of the lowered-to-meet-a-threshold price. So, it still fits...

So, find the type you want, and get a broker to send you the page(s) of sold
boats for the entirety (since late 88) that YachtWorld maintains the list.
Do your due diligence and call the brokers involved. In our case, two of the
boats we'd looked at had sold twice in that period. Some of the boat prices
represented were entirely out of line with reality, so we chucked them from
the database.

The cool thing about the listing is that - if you've got the links - they
stay up. We were able to access boats all the way back to a 4-digit (I
thought it had to be a mistake) listing! That is, if you've not got a great
intimacy already with the type, the sold boat list will be accessible after
the sale, and you can see pictures of many more boats than are currently
available. In our case, it gave us some ideas for modifications we wanted
to do...

L8R

Skip and Lydia, refitting as fast as we can


--
Morgan 461 #2
SV Flying Pig
http://tinyurl.com/384p2

"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you
didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail
away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore.
Dream. Discover." - Mark Twain