Asking Price, Want Price & Pain barrier Price

superheat6k

superheat6k

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So a boat openly for sale (BTW they are all for sale always !) has an asking price, that no sensible vendor expects to achieve, and no sane buyer expects to pay.

So then there is the ambition price which he / she hopes to achieve.

Then there is the pain barrier price the buyer needs to discover and work on.

Am I right to consider all boats openly for sale are on a slow descent towards the last of these ?

So how then do you establish where this is ?

(I scored above the ambition price from first to view so I know I have been lucky on that score)

Tips to anaesthetise the pain barrier with a vendor most welcome (one day I will be a vendor again, but thats for tomorrow).
 
The price can depend on just how much of the boats selling price belongs to the seller and how much is other peoples.... ie. the bank.
Doubt many of the boats in our club have any finance simply due to the age and profile of the the boats and owners.
An offer that is not taking the wotsit may well have the seller heaving his/her shoulders and shaking your hand.

Some sellers may have to stomach the fact that by the time the finance has been settled nothing will be left or they may even have to top up the balance.
A more "mature" boater packing it all in rather than a young aspirational type on his way up the boating ladder could be better bet for finding a bargain. ?
 
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Depends on what is being asked in the first place.

Have sold two petrol boats in the last 7 years, one a 26' sports cruiser with twin Mercruisers and the other a 34' flybridge.

Both I was told difficult to sell. sold the first in 2 weeks at 95% of the asking price and the second sold in 4 days and was completed in 7 as a condition of accepting an offer of 90% of the asking price.

Both priced keenly and presented in good order with a full polish.

Coincidentally I have also just paid 97.5% of the asking price for a Sealine F43 but still consider I have picked up a serious bargain.

There are plenty of boats up for sale that if you achieved a 50% reduction you would still be paying too much.
 
There is a danger that whilst you hang around waiting to kick someone in the nuts someone else will come along and pay a fair price.

This does assume the boat is a desirable model in good condition. If it's a pile of poo then you are pretty much guaranteed that it will eventually sink to the bottom of the market.

As to what a boat is worth - well there lies the million dollar question. In truth no one knows and that's why I have very little confidence in the whole boat market. If I pay £500k for a boat knowing it will make 300k or £400k in a few years I can take a view. As it is when I pay £500k I don't know whether other people paid £600k, £500k or £400k and I don't know if the boat will be worth £200k or £400k.

The new boat market still seems to think it has to work on the basis people get what they paid back for their boats within a few years if they trade up to a bigger model. Clearly that means new list price is somewhat skewed and it all goes downhill from there. People able to afford new boats are grown up enough to understand how it works.

When you stand in the Bentley or Mercedes showroom you know the rules. In the case of the latter the numbers are eye watering on some of their larger saloons but still people buy them. Yes, deals will always done but you know to within 10% or so where you stand. With boats I'm not sure you know to within 30 or 40%.

All that happens is people with no confidence just play it safe and think it's all about waiting a few years then bidding hard.

Henry :)
 
superheat6k said:
So a boat openly for sale (BTW they are all for sale always !) has an asking price, that no sensible vendor expects to achieve, and no sane buyer expects to pay.

So then there is the ambition price which he / she hopes to achieve.

I,am struggling with the above .
I think there are two mkts IMHO
1- well looked after with paper evidence to support - priced via brokers input .
2- none of the above priced by "Walter Mitty " aka the current owner .

Last Sept in SoF ( season 8 th) a chap came up.one evening to enquire about our Passerelle -where did we get it from .
Conversation turned to buy our mooring-12x3.55 .We bought a bigger mooring .This opened up the fact that we could have a 15 M boat .
So casually strolled into the local SS office ( after a bit of googling ) 3weeks later my boat was in the Baltic ( German guy )
We -that's me and SS broker priced it €20 under the next .
This guy flew down one w/e with family for the day --agreed with the broker helming -taken em out -bay of Cannes .
Deposit arrived Monday Am -while broker did another viewing -only to tell the 2ndguy back at the office .
Sea trail Survey -Wednesday -lorry picked up Thursday .Done ..No pain no nowt -gone cash in the bank .

I rented out by 15 M birth until I bought back in
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I think that, when buying, people should be clear about their exit strategy. For example, if that £200,000 boat will likely be capable of being sold for £100,000 in five years time when you expect to sell, do you want to afford £20k per annum plus running costs throughout your period of ownership? If so, it's worth it.

Of course, as they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy...
 
I kind of agree with all the above.

I've seen a boat advertised for £9,995 with a broker, reappear with another broker for £6995 then £5995.

Then it goes under offer and sells - at what price who knows...... so 60-70% off where they really started...

Others come on the market and then go again almost immediately - either withdrawn or sold I guess, probably for a lot nearer the asking price - but then perhaps the asking price was more realistic....

All I know is in the last few years brokers seem to encourage "kick them in the nuts" offers quite happily whereas a few years ago it was pretty much "we might knock the 50p off sir.....

I think with a lot of sellers, there is this pain barrier they have to go through where they reject a few poor offers, and then if your offer comes in at the same or similar they begin to realise that's perhaps what it's worth..... So it often depends how long it's been on the market.

By the same token, a really well maintained boat in excellent condition won't usually hang around if priced sensibly...
 
I know of a chap who has just bought from a well know & established broker on the south coast, boat up for £1.7m, offered £1m hoping to get broker off his back, offer accepted.
 
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benjenbav said:
I think that, when buying, people should be clear about their exit strategy. For example, if that £200,000 boat will likely be capable of being sold for £100,000 in five years time when you expect to sell, do you want to afford £20k per annum plus running costs throughout your period of ownership? If so, it's worth it.

Of course, as they say, no plan survives first contact with the enemy...
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I would agree and to me the most important part of buying a boat is what I can realistically expect to sell it for quickly if I need to, along with what I may be able to get if I can afford to wait.

For others this may well be much less of a consideration. I guess it depends on what percentage of your capital is tied up in a boat.
 
This seems to me to be the most complicated discussion of how/if to buy a boat or not, keep it simple find the boat you would like, offer what you are prepared to pay for it, then you've either bought it or been told to go look elsewhere.
Thinking about how much you can sell it for before you buy it, is dealer speak, if your a dealer fine, if not buy what you want at what you can afford, you will soon be dead!
 
fine if you can not foresee any circumstances where you would no longer be able to pay the fixed costs that come with owning a boat, and do not have any finance attached. Could just be a mortgage on the house that would be paid off if you didn't have a boat.

Not all of us are lucky enough to be in that position so being able to get out is as much a decision as getting in.
 
Firefly625 said:
I know of a chap who has just bought from a well know & established broker on the south coast, boat up for £1.7m, offered £1m hoping to get broker off his back, offer accepted.
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Which sums up the problem nicely.

No idea whether it was a well priced desirable boat or a one off obscure thing which had been kicking around for a couple of years but how can you seriously go out and spend serious money on a boat when that happens, assuming it does.

The big problem with brokers as I have said a dozen times before is they have no control over prices, they don't own the boat, have to do whatever the owner says to get the listing then stand there and swear blind it's a great buy when clearly it isn't.

They say car dealers are dodgy - we have nothing on the marine industry :)

H.
 
capsco said:
This seems to me to be the most complicated discussion of how/if to buy a boat or not, keep it simple find the boat you would like, offer what you are prepared to pay for it, then you've either bought it or been told to go look elsewhere.
Thinking about how much you can sell it for before you buy it, is dealer speak, if your a dealer fine, if not buy what you want at what you can afford, you will soon be dead!
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+1.....my thoughts exactly, 'cos what annoys me most about potential buyers who wish to screw the seller to the lowest possible price, is that when the time comes for them to sell the boat, they expect full whack for it, i.e. they want their bread buttered on both sides!!
 
I'm awful!!

I want to pay no more than I realistically think I could get out of the boat for if I had to in a hurry.

So if I boat is priced at £10k (chump change to some I know but a lot of money to me) and I think "If I listed that on eBay tomorrow what would it go for) - then I'd like to pay around that.....

That may be £8k it may be £9k it may be £5k - It's about what I think it would sell for on eBay or quickly if listed on Boats and Outboards or some similar site....

Course that logic goes out of the window if the wife likes it.....
 
henryf said:
Which sums up the problem nicely.

No idea whether it was a well priced desirable boat or a one off obscure thing which had been kicking around for a couple of years but how can you seriously go out and spend serious money on a boat when that happens, assuming it does.

The big problem with brokers as I have said a dozen times before is they have no control over prices, they don't own the boat, have to do whatever the owner says to get the listing then stand there and swear blind it's a great buy when clearly it isn't.

They say car dealers are dodgy - we have nothing on the marine industry :)

H.
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you are so right. I always compare the marine market with the motor trade in Warren Street in '50's, staggering that for the most part it has not progressed.

The fact is this chap I know thinks he's got the steal of the century... I'm not so sure.
 
Well I've just done a deal (I hope) at a price that I was happy to pay.

Boat up at €X - I offered €X-16% which I thought was not going to get accepted but I wanted somewhere in the middle. Broker came back at €Y which was exactly 50% of my reduction. Went to see it today intending to kick them a bit more but I a) really like the boat b) am happy with the price and the deal and c) can't find anything comparable on the market so I agreed. No one feels upset, no one has had to go through too much pain (I hope)
 
When I sold my last boat, one of the first enquiries I had was from a chap who started the phone conversation with 'Are you desperate to sell? I'm looking for a bargain' I said I wasnt desperate but make me an offer. Before he'd seen the boat in the flesh he offered 33% below my asking price and wouldnt move any higher, I declined (his offer was actually the first I'd received and was received within 1 week of listing the boat for sale) . I sold the boat a few weeks later for 20% under asking price to someone else.

It turned out my next door neighbour knows this chap, and now 2 years later this chap is still looking for a boat to buy and is still bidding people low.

My view is you decide what its worth to you, make that offer , if its accepted then great, if not then move on to the next boat, but if after having made lots of offers but having them all rejected, then maybe you're bidding too low, or you have an unrealistic expectation.
 
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Whitelighter said:
Well I've just done a deal (I hope) at a price that I was happy to pay.

Boat up at €X - I offered €X-16% which I thought was not going to get accepted but I wanted somewhere in the middle. Broker came back at €Y which was exactly 50% of my reduction. Went to see it today intending to kick them a bit more but I a) really like the boat b) am happy with the price and the deal and c) can't find anything comparable on the market so I agreed. No one feels upset, no one has had to go through too much pain (I hope)
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Well done, that's how I think more people should approach these matters, I really hope this one works out for you and we meet at Sant Carles one day.

Graham
 
AllanG said:
+1.....my thoughts exactly, 'cos what annoys me most about potential buyers who wish to screw the seller to the lowest possible price, is that when the time comes for them to sell the boat, they expect full whack for it, i.e. they want their bread buttered on both sides!!
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+1.
Some buyers can be worse than the sellers,they want champagne and caviar for pie and a pint prices.They expect the seller to bear the full cost of 'repairs/improvements' at yard rates,then either don't do the work or DIY.
 
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