Boat buying etiquette

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

So, Ken, if someone made a minus 30% offer on your Oyster, you'd be insulted personally and not respond, hoping to negotiate a deal?

....

It really doesn't take a lot of effort to respond to each offer, even a low ball. An email takes 60 seconds to put together that says:
Thanks for your interest in XXX. As you can tell from the listing she is an outstandig example of YYY yachts, with key features 1,2,3.
Your offer is lower than we are willing to accept. If you'd like to place an offer closer to our asking price we would be happy to negotiate a deal.
Best Regards
Intelligent Seller

Ignoring offers probably means the seller is unrealistic and not motived to sell.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

So, Ken, if someone made a minus 30% offer on your Oyster, you'd be insulted personally and not respond, hoping to negotiate a deal?

Jim

Absolutely 100% correct.... I wouldn't waste my time.

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Absolutely 100% correct.... I wouldn't waste my time.

Your choice, Ken. I guess if you don't really want to sell the boat, that makes sense. Paul's response above makes more sense, at least to me.

But I suspect that your position is not all that common... where you have alternative use for the boat and don't urgently want to be rid of her. There certainly are boats that have been sold for 30% or more off the original posted price. And that's something that the OP should be aware of in his planning.

Jim

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Your choice, Ken. I guess if you don't really want to sell the boat, that makes sense. Paul's response above makes more sense, at least to me.

But I suspect that your position is not all that common... where you have alternative use for the boat and don't urgently want to be rid of her. There certainly are boats that have been sold for 30% or more off the original posted price. And that's something that the OP should be aware of in his planning.

Jim

The method seems to have worked out quite well for us over the years, so I'll stick with my plan.... which is to price the boat at a fair market price and wait until I have an interested party who actually has the cash to pay for it. I have no time for dreamers or bottom feeders who just want to play games.

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

Absolutely 100% correct.... I wouldn't waste my time.

So you promoted the boat on CF for 455,000. Then awhile later you offered it on CF for 370,000. That's a 19% drop. So why would you ignore someone who made you a 30% drop offer? Its clear you have room to negotiate and 30% would have been only 11% lower than you repriced at. Spilt the difference sell the damn thing. It sounds like the listing is just fishing and potential buyers might be the one wasting their time, not the seller.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Paul L

So you promoted the boat on CF for 455,000. Then awhile later you offered it on CF for 370,000. That's a 19% drop. So why would you ignore someone who made you a 30% drop offer? Its clear you have room to negotiate and 30% would have been only 11% lower than you repriced at. Spilt the difference sell the damn thing. It sounds like the listing is just fishing and potential buyers might be the one wasting their time, not the seller.

I'm presently offering our Oyster 53 without a broker at $370,000 to CF members, therefore passing the sales commission savings onto the buyer. A win win situation for a smart shopper in the market for a turn key ready yacht to sail wherever they wish to go.

The boat is fully loaded and located in Italy, only 26 miles to Croatia which is a great spot to get started on a trip of a lifetime. If it doesn't sell at this very competitive price by April 15th.... we plan on keeping Orinoco to enjoy the next 15 summers in the Med.

[Fore and Aft]

Kenomac I usually find things listed at “Fair Market Price” sell fairly quickly? How long has your Oyster been on the market?
Cheers

[Paul L]

Originally Posted by Kenomac

I'm presently offering our Oyster 53 without a broker at $370,000 to CF members, therefore passing the sales commission savings onto the buyer. A win win situation for a smart shopper in the market for a turn key ready yacht to sail wherever they wish to go.

The boat is fully loaded and located in Italy, only 26 miles to Croatia which is a great spot to get started on a trip of a lifetime. If it doesn't sell at this very competitive price by April 15th.... we plan on keeping Orinoco to enjoy the next 15 summers in the Med.

No comment on the fact that a 30% low offer on your original price is actually a really good starting point and your statement that you would ignore it and not waste your time answering is at odds with actually selling? Given where you are priced now, it would have been a great starting point for negotiation.

The reasons you havs lowered your price are not really important. Its your asking price and a potential buyey will make an offer based on what they are willing to pay. You get to set the asking price only, not the market price.

[Dave_S]

Ask what you want, offer what you want, don't take it personally. If you dont expect your offer to be taken personally, don't take it personally if they do and don't answer you.

Don't get attached to a boat before you buy it, ever noticed whenever you go looking for houses, boats whatever big ticket item, you always seem to find just the one, that's because there are lots of "just the ones".

It's fun buying, it sucks selling, that's because your exposed to criticism. Don't be criticised, what you like someone else will too. Maybe not everyone but someone.

Kenomac, I hope you sell it or have 15 great years sailing.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Fore and Aft

Kenomac I usually find things listed at “Fair Market Price” sell fairly quickly? How long has your Oyster been on the market?
Cheers

Two months at $370,000.

If someone came along today and offered me $260k which is my price minus 30%, they shouldn’t expect a response. Their offer alone would tell me everything I need to know about the buyer... they don’t understand the value of what they’re lookin at, they most likely don’t have the money to close the deal, and I can expect more issues and problems with the individual during survey.

[a64pilot]

Yet when I bought my boat which was offered at fair market value and we found out was the price the owner paid two years before, I offered an amount that was 26% under his asking, and he took it, the caveat was as is where is, he wasn’t going to allow a lower price after survey.

I wrote a check and paid for it.
The idea of people who try to get a good price can’t afford what they are buying is more wrong than right. I have found that more often the people that buy new and pay “too much” are most often the ones who can’t afford the item, they are shopping for someone to finance them often, and financing older boats that are better deals is more often difficult.
They can’t write a check even for the older less expensive boat, yet they can make monthly payments on the newer more expensive boat.

[Kenomac]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

Ask what you want, offer what you want, don't take it personally. If you dont expect your offer to be taken personally, don't take it personally if they do and don't answer you.

Don't get attached to a boat before you buy it, ever noticed whenever you go looking for houses, boats whatever big ticket item, you always seem to find just the one, that's because there are lots of "just the ones".

It's fun buying, it sucks selling, that's because your exposed to criticism. Don't be criticised, what you like someone else will too. Maybe not everyone but someone.

Kenomac, I hope you sell it or have 15 great years sailing.

Thank you Dave.

[Spartyman]

Originally Posted by Checkswrecks

The best advise above is to never fall in love with a boat or anything else till you own it.

Interesting thread and the answer to the OP is clear as mud, but boats are like airplanes in generally taking one of two tracks. One on one with the seller versus working through brokers, which I generally avoid because I've flipped a lot of stuff, do my research FIRST, and have a good idea technically of what to look for/at. (Note my avatar name)

So here goes with an uncommon person to person story IF you know what to look for/at and have a backup plan.

A local person really HAD to get out of ownership fast and I happened to see her CL ad 20 minutes after she posted at a salvage price. On the phone she said that the 1985 Ericson 323 needed the rub rails repaired and after 4 months of ownership, she'd gotten in for more than she wanted, upkeep cost more than she thought, and she couldn't afford the repair. She sent me a survey from several years ago and I already knew a little about Ericsons so spent the evening learning as much as possible about that one model. Unfortunately, a woman saw the ad too and the seller had us show the next morning at the same time. I HATE that but it happened.

While I have no problem doing the glass repairs I expected to see another junker. But it didn't take long to realize that this had been a well-kept boat till the last couple of years and was the cleaner-upper I had been looking for. The price was small enough to write the boat off and I'd have no problem chopping up the rest for salvage if need be. But - This boat had a 3 inch technical log detailing it's history to show the previous owner had been a local doctor (2 minutes Google stalking on the phone) who had a high end local yard do maintenance till after nearly 30 years he donated to the non-profit that the seller got it from. PLUS I could sell the new-ish set of sails or motor and make back much more than the purchase price if I found a bad surprise and still have the rest to profit from. It'd taken me months of looking at trash boats to find this dirt-encrusted jewel.

So after looking it over close enough to have a good idea about condition AND a backup plan AND be willing to write off my money, I came up on deck where the seller and woman were. The seller looked at me, like "what do you think?" I told her flat out to consider it sold and that I'd buy it at her price. Her face went blank and after a second, she said the other person just said she was interested in buying the boat. Pissed me off to miss by two minutes but I kept my smile.

Unlike the woman who wanted contingencies (husband, survey, possible loan) I offered immediate cash and then offered the other woman $500 cash on the spot to back out and use toward another boat. Cash talks, the other woman walked, and I still got the boat I wanted for a lot less than I was willing to pay.

A week after buying the boat, a local boat repair/flipper guy came by while I was working on the boat and I learned the seller had asked him to look it over while giving her the repair estimate. He agreed that it was a great boat to either keep or flip for a profit and said he was kicking himself because he'd liked to have bought it.

Think of me as crazy but I now own a model of boat that is solid with a great reputation that I've never sailed and I'm a happy camper.

Gutsy great story, reminds me of myself!

[SurlySailor]

I think the big deal thing to remember is that the sailboat market is extremely soft right now. There is a ton of inventory and not a ton of buyers. I recently just upgraded boats and I knew that when selling my old one but I wanted to sell it quickly so I took a pretty big discount off what I thought it was worth. The boat I just purchased I offered about 60% below asking price and said I could close in cash within 2 weeks. I knew the buyer needed to sell and I got what I thought was a good price.

One thing to try if you are using a broker is ask the brokder to pull every boat that sold in the size and relative year range in the last few years from YW. The brokers have access to list and sale price. Two things you will notice, almost nothing is selling without a pretty steep discount from ask and there are a lot less sales than you would think. Bring that to the seller and paint the picture of reality for them.

[mglonnro]

I think it was perfectly good to make your offer per email since the broker didn’t really ask for anything else.

Whether 30% below is offending, it all depends on the seller, the boat, the asking price and his/her ”motivation to sell”. I’ve been offered that and it wasn’t offending at all. When the prospective buyer over the phone tried to bully me into selling it — that was a bit offending 😊

Being honest is great.

Call the broker and confirm that he/she received the email. You may be able to get some feedback on your offer/possible selling price at the same time.

Cheers,