I've bought a few boats, 2 airplanes, a bunch of cars, and a dozen houses
and rentals. I've never had anyone bellyache about picking up the cost
of
the inspect IF I bought. Let's all assume a reasonable man standard
here.
A home inspect is around 25 cents/foot, a car inspect at autoclub is
under
$100. My last boat checkout on a 25 Searay was $250. Big deal in the
scheme of $20K for the seller.

There is no broker in the world who will accept this, nor any larger boat
seller, and no sane small one either.

You'll always pay, whether he simply adds the $250 to the asking price
(and
won't negotiate lower) or otherwise.

You will ALWAYS keep your deals cleaner if you simply pay for those
expenses
out of pocket. You're going to pay anyway, and you can expect that anyone
who agrees to such a thing will mark up the actual cost in their "best and
final" offer price.

Thus, it always costs you more to have the seller pick it up. You want me
to pick it up if you buy it? Cool; I'll do that. My "lowest acceptable
price" on the boat just went up $500 (unknown to you), which means I made
100% profit on your demand, and you have no way to even know that this
happened to you.

You think you're getting the seller to "eat" the cost, when in fact not
only
is he not eating the cost, he's making a tidy profit on your demand
besides.

First rule of negotiating purchases is not to muddy the water by building
in
fees and costs that can affect the seller's price.

If you spring this "you pick it up if I buy it" thing AFTER we negotiate a
price, your deal will immediately collapse with any honest and reputable
seller, because he will (correctly) perceive this as your attempt to
renegotiate the price after you've come to an agreement.

You're free to negotiate anyway your want.

Whether you're a procurement negotiator or a labor negotiator, the BUYER
always negotiates ISSUE by ISSUE and the SELLER always attempts to negotiate
a package. As the BUYER, I'm going after one thing after another, the FIRST
being that I want you to commit to a less than 1% expenditure on an
inspection IF, AND ONLY IF, I buy the boat. If you won't you're
unreasonable. If you do, then you have some OWNERSHIP in the outcome,
especially if I let you have some voice in choosing a mutually agreed upon
inspector. Either way, I win or I walk away because you're too difficult to
work with, and I'd rather know that now than later. And by the way, I've
been in Fortune 200s my entire life, managing spends from $250M to $4B
annual. I've been around the block a few times in major negotiations as the
BUYER.

As I said, you can do what you want. That's fine, it's your style.

But I would still counsel the folks in the original note to just walk away
if they can't get some sort of recognition by the seller of the costs of the
survey. I simply don't want to deal with unreasonable sellers...why should
I?




--
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Karl Denninger ) Internet Consultant & Kids Rights
Activist
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