Selling Broker or not?

[Sadlerfin]

I'm about to market my Bavaria 30 Cruiser. She is I believe worth about £40K.

Broker fees are around 6-8 % plus VAT so I would make a good saving selling privately, however, my concern is the passing of title and monies, a broker would handle all these giving a buyer a lot more comfort.

What do others here do?

Thanks

 

[Fr J Hackett]

Standard RYA form money in the form of a bankers draft.

 

[[3889]]

You can pay a broker, or a solicitor, just to manage the financial and title aspects of the sale. This works if you think your a good salesman and are happy to deal with the purchaser directly over negotiations and disagreements, which are almost inevitable at some stage. It's akin to selling a house without an estate agent. Personally, I'm a rubbish salesman so use a broker.

 

[rotrax]

We used John Rodreguez to handle the conveyancing.

Good thing we did-he found issues with the paperwork that the vendor had to sort before we paid.

Unlikely we would have noticed, so worth it for that peace of mind.

 

[ridgy]

Do you live near the boat? You'll probably get to enjoy a few wasted visits.

 

[Tranona]

One of my neighbours in the club has just sold his Bav 30 privately for around that sum to a local person using the RYA contract. Only negative bit was dealing with a nit picking surveyor.

You may well get a similar or higher net price using a broker with less input on your side - dealing with time wasters, handling the money side etc.

Suggest you talk to Peter Keats peterkeatsboats.co.uk/boats-1 ex Clipper Marine and Ancasta who knows Bavarias inside out. He sold my 33 (last but one line of sold boats in the link). Excellent at identifying serious buyers and getting the sale completed. Full service is 5% no VAT but he will also handle just the paperwork.

 

[Sticky Fingers]

One of my neighbours in the club has just sold his Bav 30 privately for around that sum to a local person using the RYA contract. Only negative bit was dealing with a nit picking surveyor.

You may well get a similar or higher net price using a broker with less input on your side - dealing with time wasters, handling the money side etc.

Suggest you talk to Peter Keats peterkeatsboats.co.uk/boats-1 ex Clipper Marine and Ancasta who knows Bavarias inside out. He sold my 33 (last but one line of sold boats in the link). Excellent at identifying serious buyers and getting the sale completed. Full service is 5% no VAT but he will also handle just the paperwork.

That’s great value in my view. Well worth it.

 

[Stemar]

Standard RYA form money in the form of a bankers draft.

A friend lost a fair bit of money because he accepted a bankers draft that tuned out to be forged. I'd want a bank transfer. AIUI, once you see the money in your account, it's yours.

 

[oldgit]

The case for selling privately.
The boat really needs to be on your doorstep, a couple of no show buyers can be very annoying, you need an good knowledge of the qualities and selling points of your boat, plus a good realistic idea of the real value of your boat in todays market.
Forget brokers listing prices.
Be fully prepared for time wasters and folks who have their own boats to sell before they can buy yours and those offering camels or caravans in P/X.
Is the £5K "saved" worth the grief ? for some its the difference between being able to fund your next boat or not.
The case for the broker sale.
All thse whinges about brokers, they are there to make money and if you make things as easy as possible to sell the boat they will do their best.

Have always bought privately until the latest boat which was via a broker, broker did great job and was probably in a better position to tell the seller a few home truths, which had they come directly from me , would only got the sellers back up resulting in no sale.
Did however sell my old boat without any broker in the price bracket you are considering ......without any problems.
Was as honest as could be about the boat, including the bad bits and got all the money before he got the boat.

 

[Kelpie]

Having bought three boats and sold two, with no broker involved in any of these transactions, I'm not really sure why I would want to lose 6%+ for the dubious pleasure of introducing a third party to the deal.
I have had a few dealings with brokers and found most of them utterly useless. They didn't know anything about the boat, and simply acted as a go-between, slowing down communications between buyer and seller.
As others have said, the RYA bill of sale is perfectly good. If you're feeling paranoid, ask a member of the boatyard or marina staff to witness. Direct bank transfer for payment.

 

[shan]

We didn't use a broker for our small sailboat but we did for our motorboat. The advantage for us of using the broker is that he was really knowledgeable and hands on. We couldn't travel back and forth to sell the boat and wanted a more arms-length experience, especially after some of the stupid questions that were asked about the sailboat.

There was a repair that needed doing to the motorboat, that only came to light once it was put up for sale (typical bloody boats). The broker handled everything. It was quite stress free. As a further point, the broker was Mike from Boat Shed in Neyland. Excellent broker and we have been on both ends of the process with Mike.

 

[Paulfireblade]

My impression is once boats reach a reasonable amount say £40k + buyers are nervous about not buying through a broker, mid 2021 when boats were selling within 20 mins of the broker advertising them and taking a 10% deposit over the phone I knew of a very nice boat (good spec, history and sensibly priced) being sold privately that took around six weeks to sell.

Six weeks isn't long but compared with minutes!

 

[Slowboat35]

As far as payment goes surely bankers' drafts are ancient history now?
Electronic transfer on the spot is instant and instantly verifiable, or else the vendor can buy a card-reader for under £30 on Amazon and the purchaser pays with a debit card. Again, instant transfer and instantly verifiable.

 

[Sadlerfin]

One of my neighbours in the club has just sold his Bav 30 privately for around that sum to a local person using the RYA contract. Only negative bit was dealing with a nit picking surveyor.

You may well get a similar or higher net price using a broker with less input on your side - dealing with time wasters, handling the money side etc.

Suggest you talk to Peter Keats peterkeatsboats.co.uk/boats-1 ex Clipper Marine and Ancasta who knows Bavarias inside out. He sold my 33 (last but one line of sold boats in the link). Excellent at identifying serious buyers and getting the sale completed. Full service is 5% no VAT but he will also handle just the paperwork.

Thanks, I've just spoken to him

 

[lustyd]

As far as payment goes surely bankers' drafts are ancient history now?
Electronic transfer on the spot is instant and instantly verifiable, or else the vendor can buy a card-reader for under £30 on Amazon and the purchaser pays with a debit card. Again, instant transfer and instantly verifiable.

Instant transfer has daily limits. Transfers with higher limits are not instant or free.

 

[Tranona]

Having bought three boats and sold two, with no broker involved in any of these transactions, I'm not really sure why I would want to lose 6%+ for the dubious pleasure of introducing a third party to the deal.

If only it were as simple as that. What matters are a clean transaction and maximising your net receipt. So you have to weigh up whether you will achieve both of those using a broker rather than selling yourself. Of course not easy to predict but in general the higher the value of boat the higher the probability of achieving either, but hopefully both through a broker. Boats as we know do not have a fixed value so to say you are "losing" 6% is simply not true - you could gain more than that. For some people selling privately is not an option - no time, remote from the boat, not confident in their ability. Buyers also often prefer to deal with an intermediary, particularly for high values. Brokers only exist because they perform a service valued by their clients, and just like estate agents they perform an economic function. As an aside interesting to see how little long term impact "disrupter" companies like Purple Bricks had on the housing market and indeed how quickly their offering moved toward the "traditional" model. Similar things happening in the used car market.

As you see in my first response it is quite possible to sell boats like the OPs privately and probably get the "best" deal, but my friend is retired, lives 10 minutes walk from the boat (which is immaculate) and sold to somebody who lives about 5 miles away! Still pinching himself that he managed it!

 

[shan]

If only it were as simple as that. What matters are a clean transaction and maximising your net receipt. So you have to weigh up whether you will achieve both of those using a broker rather than selling yourself. Of course not easy to predict but in general the higher the value of boat the higher the probability of achieving either, but hopefully both through a broker. Boats as we know do not have a fixed value so to say you are "losing" 6% is simply not true - you could gain more than that. For some people selling privately is not an option - no time, remote from the boat, not confident in their ability. Buyers also often prefer to deal with an intermediary, particularly for high values. Brokers only exist because they perform a service valued by their clients, and just like estate agents they perform an economic function. As an aside interesting to see how little long term impact "disrupter" companies like Purple Bricks had on the housing market and indeed how quickly their offering moved toward the "traditional" model. Similar things happening in the used car market.

As you see in my first response it is quite possible to sell boats like the OPs privately and probably get the "best" deal, but my friend is retired, lives 10 minutes walk from the boat (which is immaculate) and sold to somebody who lives about 5 miles away! Still pinching himself that he managed it!

You forgot to add in "dislikes most other people".

 

[pragmatist]

We sold without a broker to a Swiss buyer. Yes, there were time-wasters and tyre-kickers - one wanted to rip up a VERY good teak deck ! But once we'd found a sensible and keen purchaser it was all fairly easy. We used the RYA form and registered mail. The purchaser paid by electronic transfer and we did not hand over the keys until the bank had confirmed that the funds had arrived - and, importantly, were cleared - ie they could not be recalled. When we bought we paid the balance over a period of days as our bank had a 10k per day limit - until the total was paid. Again, nothing happened until all the money had been paid and then we had the handover. Not sure what a broker could have added - other than the % !

 

[davethedog]

We have sold all our previous boats privately, last one was 41ft and a value of approx £90K. You may have to deal with some time wasters, or people that are just far too fussy (expecting a new boat for used boat prices) but to save in effect 8% of the sale price is not insignificant.

We even bought our current boat direct from the previous owners and paid a lot more than we got for the previous boat.

There will have to be a certain level of trust, on both parties, when it comes to the money and title transfer of course.

 

[wonkywinch]

Instant transfer has daily limits. Transfers with higher limits are not instant or free.

I've bought and sold several cars over the last few years with prices between £40k and £50k and used banking apps to transfer the money. Apart from one where it was delayed a few hours for security checks all payments were within 10 mins.

Recently bought our first boat and preferred the security of escrow/client account payment through an agent as we were novices in this field. The £130k payment was made over 3 days due £50k daily limits but funds hit agents account in minutes.