Boat Offer Prices

[BetweenBoats]

I'm between boats at the moment (in user name and real life), having had a hiatus for a few years.

I've seen the question come up a few times on the forum, while searching but I'm keen to get the latest view.

I have £100k cash in the bank. I want to buy the best 40ft+ boat I can. All of my experience has been with shaft driven boats, so I would prefer to stay shaft driven. Oh, and I want it to be a sports cruiser.

I've been having a look for a couple of years, just browsing, seeing where the market it is, but now I'm going to get serious and start looking at some boats.

Here's the nub of my question... A couple of boats that interest me have been on the market for 2 years, at the £150k level. Am I wasting my time and everybody else's if I try to get such a boat for my £100k budget?

Would welcome your thoughts before I get serious about buying

 

[tom52]

Nothing ventured nothing gained.

But anyone accepting a 33% reduction for a six figure boat would have to be desperate. I might consider taking £2K for a boat for which I was asking £3K, a 33% reduction, but dropping £50k would be difficult to swallow and such an offer might antagonise the seller.

A 5% reduction for a well equipped desirable boat that starts with a realistic asking price would be the minimum.

A 20% reduction could be achievable for a boat needing some cosmetic work that starts with an optimistic asking price.

All IMHO of course.

I expect someone will be along shortly to tell you that they have bought sought after boats in showroom condition at all price ranges but never paid more than 50% of the asking price !!

 

[petem]

I'd phone the brokers and tell them I'm after xxx boat and I've got £100k to spend. Let them work on the seller.

 

[rafiki_]

Welcome to the forum, and best wishes in your boat search. As others have said, it is well worth talking to the broker, and sounding out a sensible starting point.

 

[jrudge]

It is worth what someone will pay for it. If it has been on the market for 2 years then it is not worth. £150k and it is not an appreciating asset.

I had a Fairline targa 40. It was up for £130k. This is a fair price. Didn't sell so pxd it for £100k when new boat came. I would have taken the same from a private seller net of broker commission. I was not desperate, I simply did not want the cost and hassle of 2 boats, and it was worth what someone would pay for it, which was £100k.

Owners of boats typically over value what they own. The depreciation is significant and there is an element of denial going on. Will they object to a low offer. Who cares. Quite frankly they will be pleased to get an offer I suspect. If not then they simply decline it.

 

[Mymobo]

Always worth an offer, boats can be over priced and you never know.

 

[Richard10002]

I put my boat on the market in Malta for £120k on the brokers advice and that is what it was asking for about a year. I thought it was unrealistic, but worth giving a go whilst I had other things on my mind.

I brought it back to England, dropped the price to £105k, and sold for £85k.

If someone had offered me 85k in Malta, and meant it, I'd have taken it. Some did, but they didn't have the money, or didn't mean what they said.

Selling the boat changed my life, (for the better).

The boat I'm on right now started its life on the market at £35k on the brokers advice. I bought it for the asking price 2 days after the owner insisted the price be reduced to £18k.

Some brokers take boat owners into an unrealistic world...... Some owners realise it after a while...

You can see what I'm thinking can't you.

 

[oldgit]

FWIW. Popular sports cruisers do tend to be in demand at certain times of the year ,suspect more of an impulse seasonal purchase esp. in UK than flybridge stuff..
Best time to get a boat at a very competitive price would be to wait until the depth of winter, when a snow covered sportsboat is attracting nil prospective buyers.
Depends on how long you can keep the cash in your pocket. ?

 

[Beamishken]

I've never been frightened to bid low my theory is you can always go up but you can't go down
I certainly wouldn't be frightened to knock a big chunk off
Go for it & enjoy the hunt!

 

[Nigelpickin]

I think that it would be sensible to be looking at 150k with your budget, esp if you can home in on something that has been on the market for a while...
Make an offer in the Autumn and the seller is faced with the choice of a long potentially expensive winter or your cash.

Have great fun looking and don't be upset by people being 'offended' with your offers. Oh and just my opinion but I would't give any indication as to your finite budget to a broker or seller. They only need to know what you are prepared to pay for the boat.

 

[superheat6k]

Reflecting what has already been said, first find the boat you really want to buy, which for 40' sports boat on shafts at the £100k buying / £150k asking might be tougher than you would expect. Most boats in this category sadly now have DEWs. Then if its been on for several months or more offer what you think it will sell for were you selling it, and do not take such emotions as the owners feelings into account. This is a complete irrelevancy.

Insult him - perhaps, but remember you can only increase from your starting price, and the seller can only reduce from his, so the lower you start the bidding the better from your perspective. The worse is he tells you (hopefully) politely to go forth, but at 2/3 the asking for a boat not moved for 2 years, I bet you will be lauded more than you realise.

 

[BetweenBoats]

Thanks all for the advice so far - please keep the opinions coming as they are very useful

@superheat6k - pardon my ignorance, but what is DEWs?

 

[jrudge]

Not ignorant. I wondered the same thing !

 

[gjgm]

You can always, politely, try, but I think you should consider why you are only offering £100k (see it from his point of view).
However, I think I would change your priorities.. find the best boat that you can and see what the price is- I wouldn't put price as the key objective. Buying a total dog just because it is within your budget is probably not going to lead to boating happiness. And look at lots of boats, physically; an internet picture might give some idea, but when you have looked at a number of examples in the flesh, you will have a much better idea of why YOU would pay X for this one and Y for that one.Accept it is their boat, and they don't need to sell it to you-don't bother getting upset that they are not being reasonable or sensible ( in your opinion !).

 

[Greg2]

This is a topic that pops up periodically and it is always interesting to hear the responses. I have been around the block one or two times buying a boat and I have never been afraid to offer low if I think it is the right thing to do.

Dont't expect to be well received and recognise that if you want a third off the asking price then assuming it isn't unrealistic in the first place (i.e. it is around what others boats of the same make/model/spec are asking) you can expect to have to look long and hard for a bargain. Sure, it can be achieved but it isn't as common as some will have you believe. Even during the depths of the recession when nothing was moving we encountered some very strong minded sellers who simply wouldn't budge.

If I were to offer any advice it would be to look higher than your budget, listen only to your head and not your heart and whilst you may drop lucky on your first attempt be prepared to play the long game.

 

[lanerboy]

I think it depends on how desperate the seller is and how they have priced their boat

my boat is on the market at 160k but I am in no rush to sell and it is also possibly the cheapest in Europe for its age anyway (I stand to be corrected) so I would not dream of taking such a low offer but if I had a low offer I would not be offended I would just politely decline it

but on the other hand if I sold my boat and had cash in the bank I would be starting low as there must be some desperate people wanting to sell out there so try your luck it cant hurt and good luck

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

I am on my 14th used boat and counting. IMHO there is no such thing as a low offer, especially in today's market in which real selling prices are volatile and often well below asking price on many deals. In addition, despite 6yrs of recession, some sellers have still not accepted that the real value of their boat has depreciated heavily and are still asking unrealistically high prices. The fact that a boat has been on the market for 2yrs and not sold tells you that the asking price is too high for that particular boat and therefore you would be foolish to offer near to the asking price anyway. In any case, no mainstream boat appreciates in value so these boats which have been on the market for 2yrs are probably worth less now than they were 2yrs ago. As a seller, I am never insulted by what I consider to be a low offer as I would view that offer as a starting point from which I would try to move the buyer upwards. If we cannot agree a price after negotiation, then I would have no hard feelings providing I felt the buyer had been genuine. If a seller tells you he is insulted by your offer, he is probably not a seller you want to deal with anyway.
So, if you want to make a £100k offer for a boat with a £150k asking price, the first thing you need to do is to make it absolutely clear to the seller or his broker that you are a serious buyer with cash waiting in order to concentrate their minds. Then make your offer (subject to sea trial and survey of course) and sit tight resisting all efforts to move you up. Btw, a broker is legally obliged to pass on all offers to the seller so ignore any bleating from the broker about not being able to pass on such a low offer to the seller. If the seller doesn't bite, then move on to another boat. The key thing when making low offers is not to get fixated on a particular boat and start edging up on the price against your better judgement; be prepared to walk away and move on to the next one

 

[gjgm]

A comment on that though, Mike. Boats are not like VW cars, where there are millions of identical ones. If the objective is actually to own a boat, being too "stubborn" as a buyer means you end up being the mirror image of the stubborn seller. In the end, do you want to go boating...? Of course it is a negotiation, but if you want a particular boat, sticking your head in the sand probably doesn't get you the boat. Alot of people say it is a buyers market. If you (not you!) don't manage actually to buy a boat, you probably have got something wrong.

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

but if you want a particular boat, sticking your head in the sand probably doesn't get you the boat. Alot of people say it is a buyers market. If you (not you!) don't manage actually to buy a boat, you probably have got something wrong.

As I said, the buyer shouldn't get fixated on a particular boat. We've all been there and got the t shirt on that one, seen a boat, fallen in love with it and ended up paying too much for it. It's not actually about finding a boat, its about finding the seller, the guy who is desperate enough to let his boat go for a low offer, amongst all the other sellers who are not that desperate. I'm not advocating this as a tactic because I don't think its very ethical but some Med buyers in recent years have been placing multiple low offers on various boats at the same time without even looking at them, the idea to smoke out the desperate seller without the buyer wasting his time looking at boats and then having his low offer turned down. Yes of course you're right, boats are not like cars in that with cars, there is plenty of data available to both buyer and seller to indicate what cars actually sell for and yes of course you're right if sellers won't sell at the price any buyer is willing to buy at, there is no market. However, if like the OP, you want a boat that your budget might not stretch to, the only option is to try to find that one seller who is keener than the others to get rid of his boat and in the present market, there are sellers like that around

 

[superheat6k]

Thanks all for the advice so far - please keep the opinions coming as they are very useful

@superheat6k - pardon my ignorance, but what is DEWs?

Sorry - Devils Egg Whiskers - Outdrives