as bad as estate agents

[dutch11]

nearing the time in life to buy a catamaran and liveaboard for half the year in greece but, by scouring the boat market and the big differences i see between companies selling the same boat is unbelievable, do the owners not realise it makes a potential buyer like myself to not trust the agents in anything they say about their boat, it really is a jungle out there,also in making an offer for a catamaran around the 100k mark what is a realistic offer to make percentage wise off the asking price..

 

[superheat6k]

Your question has an air of the length of a piece of string conundrum. If its been on sale a while and you like it then think long and hard about the role reversal situation, i.e. imagine you are selling it and expect shortly that the reality check will arrive.

So I would suggest if it meets all other criteria, and presumably you are not stood in a line of folk with part written cheques - 40% off to start with looking to 30% for the clincher.

DO NOT be afraid of causing offence - I bet your opening bid will not be completely ignored, no matter how derisory, BUT once you have set your starting price you can not lower it.

Or book a few cruises - SWMBO will be on side, plus its good fun and some other sod does the anti fouling ...

 

[maxi77]

The asking price is an irrelevance, the key question is what the boat is worth to you, if the seller will not sell it to you for that price then it is too expensive. Unless you are happy paying over the odds you have to be brutal that's life. Many owners have an unrealistic idea of the value of their boats, and some brokers simply see this as an opportunity for higher commission. A good broker will advise the owner of the reality of your offer and hopefully help you reach agreement on a fair price for your chosen boat

 

[Tranona]

There is no %age to take off. The asking price is an invitation to prospective buyers and an indication of what the seller would like for his boat. You therefore have to decide what it is worth to you and the seller can either show interest in your offer or reject. Do not make the mistake of thinking that every seller is desperate to sell his boat and will accept any offer. He is exactly the same as you - he wants the best deal for himself and many owners would rather keep their boat than sell it at a price they do not like.

The market does have an appearance of a jungle because there are many people looking to sell a boat and many who would like to buy one, but it is often a long slow process matching buyers and sellers together. Typically on a boat such as you are looking at it takes up to a year to sell as the number of people in the market at any one time who are in a position to buy a specific boat is very small.

Brokers in most cases do not overstate asking prices - it is not in their interest to do so as they only get paid if the boat sells and they usually have access to data on prices achieved for same or similar boats as a guide. However they are not the one setting the price - the owner does and it is inevitable that some owners have unrealistic expectations - just as some buyers have equally unrealistic expectations.

For most buyers it can be frustrating searching for a boat - first finding a suitable boat in suitable condition, in a convenient location at a particular point in time and at a price that is acceptable. If it takes a year to sell a boat, not unreasonable to expect to take a similar time to find one to buy - particularly if it is your "forever" boat. And inevitable that in that time you will have lots of disappointments and false dawns.

So, unless you are very lucky you have to be prepared to do your homework, clearly identify what is important to you to try and minimise the amount of time spent on looking at boats that are too different from what you are looking for.

 

[dutch11]

thanks for all your input, very useful tips for when i've found "the one" although i have narrowed the make/model down to 2, same make different models, it's just that one agent was a little dearer than a different agent,ie same boat different price..was that the agent or owner who put it up, probably never know the answer to that, but it is still not sold in over 12mths of being on the market..the games people play...regards dutch11

 

[cliff]

There is no %age to take off. The asking price is an invitation to prospective buyers and an indication of what the seller would like for his boat. You therefore have to decide what it is worth to you and the seller can either show interest in your offer or reject. Do not make the mistake of thinking that every seller is desperate to sell his boat and will accept any offer. He is exactly the same as you - he wants the best deal for himself and many owners would rather keep their boat than sell it at a price they do not like.

Well said. There is no % reduction applicable - asking price is asking price. Get a survey done if you are interested, deduct coast od necessary repairs and then make an offer. Take 30% off to start and you will likely be told to go away and commit an illegal act upon one's self. There are too many tyre kickers out there who expect a good condition 1 or 2 year old boat for the price of a 30 year old or a 30 year old 35'er in good condition for the price of a rotten pram dinghy or knackered wayfarer.
Be realistic - if the boat ticks most of your boxes make a sensible offer subject to survey but do not be surprised of the owner declines even a 5% reduction unless you have evidence of critical work needing done.

 

[jwilson]

Well said. There is no % reduction applicable - asking price is asking price. Get a survey done if you are interested, deduct coast od necessary repairs and then make an offer. Take 30% off to start and you will likely be told to go away and commit an illegal act upon one's self. There are too many tyre kickers out there who expect a good condition 1 or 2 year old boat for the price of a 30 year old or a 30 year old 35'er in good condition for the price of a rotten pram dinghy or knackered wayfarer.
Be realistic - if the boat ticks most of your boxes make a sensible offer subject to survey but do not be surprised of the owner declines even a 5% reduction unless you have evidence of critical work needing done.

Much of this is true, but if buying through a broker you will not generally be allowed to get a survey done before committing to an offer, signing a sale and purchase agreement, and putting down a deposit. There are good reasons for this, and it protects both buyer and seller. The seller is letting his boat be scraped, tapped, poked at by a surveyor (and on wooden boats the surveyor maybe sticking spikes into the timber), and is giving up the opportunity of someone else coming along just afterwards and making a higher offer, as the written agreement ties him in to selling to you.

Private sales are sometimes done on the survey-first basis, and without deposits or proper written contracts, but it does open various cans of worms in some circumstances. The RYA advises a similar written agreement/deposit procedure for private sales. As brokers almost all the times we encounter poorly executed paperwork in previous chains of ownership is when the sale was done privately. Again and again we find owners who have an RYA sale agreement from the time, but no actual bill of sale to show the agreed sale was completed. In this the RYA are slightly to blame, as they do not emphasise that the actual sale completion document should be a legal bill of sale.

 

[dutch11]

now that is interesting, a deposit before a survey! "are they refundable" if the surveyor finds something amiss and you make a lower offer and the owner won't budge!!!...so a deposit,and the expense of a survey, if someone wants my 100k, the sale would be under my rules not under any incompetent brokers, like i say it's a jungle out there...

 

[KellysEye]

>what is a realistic offer to make percentage wise off the asking price.

It's still a buyers market so make an offer, not a silly offer it won't be accepted. I don't know if you have thought about this but marina berths are charged by length and width so a cat will pay double or more for a berth. I think it's the same on the hard.

 

[GrahamM376]

Much of this is true, but if buying through a broker you will not generally be allowed to get a survey done before committing to an offer, signing a sale and purchase agreement, and putting down a deposit. There are good reasons for this, and it protects both buyer and seller. The seller is letting his boat be scraped, tapped, poked at by a surveyor (and on wooden boats the surveyor maybe sticking spikes into the timber), and is giving up the opportunity of someone else coming along just afterwards and making a higher offer, as the written agreement ties him in to selling to you.

Having bought 3 boats through brokers but only sold one through them, I can't understand the "survey" situation. It would simplify the process if boats were surveyed at the sellers cost when placed on the market and the "rights" could be assigned to the purchaser on completion.

Some control also needs to be applied, I was well annoyed with one surveyor who scraped about a dozen holes through the epoxy and declared the hull to be in good condition but suggested the patches be re-epoxied - at whose cost? Any prospective purchaser who has a survey and then doesn't complete should be responsible for remedial treatment.

 

[dutch11]

yeah thought about that kellyseye, there are one or two greek marinas that are no difference in cost between mono's and cats so for a 12mth berth i envisage around the 5k mark with a lift out and a few months on the hard, what swayed me to cats are the twin engine for ease of short handed sailing. yacht brokers speel on their websites are laughable...eg if i had the money i would buy this,throw some cash at it and it will appreciate,they don't make em like this anymore, this is what they tell the owner and then they believe the speel they are told, then their pension pot is on the market for years, my motto in buying and selling property is it's only worth as much as someone is willing to pay so i will go forth and see if my terms in purchasing will get anywhere in the jungle...

 

[25931]

>what is a realistic offer to make percentage wise off the asking price.

It's still a buyers market so make an offer, not a silly offer it won't be accepted. I don't know if you have thought about this but marina berths are charged by length and width so a cat will pay double or more for a berth. I think it's the same on the hard.

I have owned several cats and have sometimes been charged 50% more depending on the location of the berth e. g. a hammerhead shouldn't cost any more. A few years ago when we went into La Linea we were told that as modern monohulls were becoming so wide they had made their berths of appropriate dimensions and a 9m Catalac wasn't charged extra.

 

[Tranona]

Having bought 3 boats through brokers but only sold one through them, I can't understand the "survey" situation. It would simplify the process if boats were surveyed at the sellers cost when placed on the market and the "rights" could be assigned to the purchaser on completion.

That would not work unless the surveyor is prepared to assign his survey to the buyer. The whole point of having a survey is that sales of private property do not come with any warranty as to purpose or condition. It is the buyer's responsibility to satisfy himself that the boat is as described and suitable for his purpose before he takes ownership. The survey is therefore done for him and any comeback if the boat turns out to be defective, is to the surveyor.

There are practical constraints as well. Boats often take time to sell and anything can happen between the time of a presale survey for the seller and the boat being sold. A pre sale survey might be a useful indicator, particularly if it resulted in recommendations that were carried out, but it cannot be relied on by the buyer.

 

[prv]

It's still a buyers market so make an offer, not a silly offer it won't be accepted.

It might be. We met someone the other week who bought his boat almost by mistake. He told the broker semi-jokingly that he'd buy it at price X, less than half the asking. A week later he got a call saying his offer had been accepted and could he please transfer the deposit. He didn't even have X available in liquid funds!

Pete

 

[jwilson]

Having bought 3 boats through brokers but only sold one through them, I can't understand the "survey" situation. It would simplify the process if boats were surveyed at the sellers cost when placed on the market and the "rights" could be assigned to the purchaser on completion.

Some control also needs to be applied, I was well annoyed with one surveyor who scraped about a dozen holes through the epoxy and declared the hull to be in good condition but suggested the patches be re-epoxied - at whose cost? Any prospective purchaser who has a survey and then doesn't complete should be responsible for remedial treatment.

There is much to be said for having a survey done by the seller, and made available to be re-assigned for insurance purposes to the buyer, in fact as brokers we do sometimes suggest this to sellers. This is also common practice in some European countries. However some buyers don't trust any old surveyor, and suspect that the seller will have chosen one who is not going to find too much wrong.

The potential for damage by the surveyor is one of the reasons for having a deposit: if the survey does damage (and scraping away many patches of epoxy is damage) and the sale does not complete part of the deposit can legitimately get used to pay the cost of fixing this. In practice though it is very rare for surveyors to do any damage, and usually deposits get returned in full if the sale does not complete.