I guess broker with a consience would steer you away from anything that was
beyond your need or where you might later have buyers regret.

Heck yes. Sellers are a dime a dozen, genuine buyers are extremely rare. One
sure way to sell a lot of boats is to build up
an honorable relationship with the buyers.
When a lot of boats are sold, a lot of sellers are happy.

Remember that most brokers have access to hundreds and hundreds of boats. Yes,
they are getting paid by the seller- but they are under no compulsion to
represent one seller's offering to the exclusion of all others. The broker
doesn't make a dime unless the buyer finds *something*, and a smart broker will
help a buyer make a wise decision from a broad inventory rather than try to
"stuff" the buyer into a wrong boat.

I always chuckle when I hear the old chestnut, "Always deal with the private
sellers, avoid brokers like the plague!"
If there's anybody with a definite agenda to shoehorn a buyer into a single,
specific, boat it's the private seller. He only has *one* boat for sale, not
hundreds. Most private sellers, like most brokers, are generally honest- but a
crooked private seller (and yes, Elizabeth, they do indeed exist) can get a way
with a lot more on a single isolated transaction that a crooked broker could
ever hope to pull off as a regular course of business. Most states have some
sort of consumer protection laws in place that would eventually shut down the
crooked broker- but nobody bothers to go after the crooked private seller
because the crime is an "isolated incident."