Motorboat Brokerage

[BrokerBen]

I am growing the brokerage of a successful new boat sales outfit, and I would like to know what the good people of the YBW forums would like to see from it!

Are there any things you feel brokers could offer that you haven't seen?

I am aiming to list as many boats as possible, mostly motorboats, hence my posting here.

Thanks

Ben

 

[Dave3729]

The truth ! /forums/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

 

[BrokerBen]

Valid Point.

If you were going to sell your boat, I would meet you on board and take current photos, along with recording the inventory directly from your good selves.

I will them be marketing using the internet and lots of leg work to find a buyer asap.

Further than this, obviously speedy good service.

Any other suggestions?

 

[thamesS23]

How about keeping the boats in your brokerage in a clean and presentable condition.
There have been many discussions on here about this point, and who's responsability it is (the owners or brokers), but from a person who is looking to buy a boat at the moment, I can say that I have walked away from a couple of boats simply because of the state they were presented in. I don't want to see the owners old clothes lying around, dirty dishes in the galley, etc.

 

[BrokerBen]

Thanks inlandnewbie

I can understand your point! Techincally it's the owners job to make the boats presentable, but it's in our interests to make sure we can sell them.

Smell and mess are the biggest off-puts going! Luckily we somebody who does cleaning for us, the costs of which we may pass on to the owners, but it will help sell the boats.

Part of most people's brokerage agreements includes the owner signing something agreeing to keep the boat presentable, but so often their idea of clean and tidy is very different to buyers'!

PM me your requirements if you like and i'll see what clean boats I can find you.

Ben

 

[thamesS23]

went and saw a couple of boats last weekend. First boat, the other half walked into the cabin first, got covered in cobwebs! needless to say, we didnt venture any further.
As the second boat was at a different brokers, I rang ahead first to check if the boat was the there for viewing and if they would still be open. When we turned up and made ourselves known, he informed us that the boat was all opened and ready for us. It was evident that he had got off the phone and made the effort to go to the boat and give it a tidy up, open all windows, lay out some info sheets on the boat on the cockpit table etc. As it happened it wasn't really the boat for us, but we were both impressed by the effort made, and will therefore happily go back to that brokerage to look at future boats.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

Hello.

Read this post.

<span style="color:blue"> " Quote:


But you do expect a pre-owned car to be clean and functional inside and out and the car dealer does seem to see this as part of his job.</span>



<span style="color:green"> Difference being car dealers own the cars they're selling whereas brokers don't own the boats the sell and therefore have no rights to do anything with them without the owners consent. Also; houses that are sold while occupied are maintained by the occupiers (vendors?); not the estate agents. Believe me; I've had many conversations with brokers on or around this very subject over the past few years!</span>


<span style="colorurple">
I love business sectors that say, "Well, it's not done this way in this industry." Well, why doesn't someone break the mould and try a bit of pro-active selling instead of this awful attitude.

If I was running a brokerage, I would employ the boaty equivelant of the wash and bucket man you see on most used car forecourts and with permission of the owners, every boat would be swabbed, polished, hoovered and checked over in rotation.

After my experience at the so called great Essex Boatyards - I wouldn't step into their premises again if they were the last brokerage left - I thought back then that they were nothing better than a car breaker's yard, with disinterested staff and disgustingly dirty boats."
</span>

 

[Deleted User YDKXO]

OK, here's what I look for when dealing with brokers

1. Accuracy and completeness of sales particulars
2. Plenty of photos, both inside and out, particularly on website
3. Honesty when it comes to answering questions about the boat's history and provenance
4. Knowledge of the product
5. Ensuring that when appts to view are made, the boat is available and in a proper state to view
6. Efficient and conscientious dealing with paperwork
7. Don't hang on to vendor's money for days and weeks making spurious excuses not to pay
8. Being open Saturdays and Sundays all day. I want to be looking at boats when I want to not just when you want me to

 

[BrokerBen]

I am glad I posted in here!

Thank you for all of the excellent feedback, I will be putting all of this into practice, do not worry!

We have several people employed to keep the boats shiney! There is loads of boating knowledge on hand, I have worked on CE Marking boats and own a large boat myself.

Keep the tips coming! They are greatly received.

 

[beejay190]

So broker cleans the boat , owner comes along and uses it and boat gets dirty again.

Cannot expect broker to clean boats F O C - owner may change his mind and keep the boat or sell it privatey.

 

[Major Catastrophe]

[ QUOTE ]

Cannot expect broker to clean boats F O C - owner may change his mind and keep the boat or sell it privatey.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not really sure why this should be such a problem. There is an estate agent that that took us around a house a couple of years ago, not a big house, but we got there early and caught the estate agent chappie hoovering the house with a vacuum cleaner he had bought with him.

It was apparent he had also swept leaves outside. If the house had been suitable, the person I was with would have bought it. As it happened the house she did buy was from he same agent.

The first boat brokerage to break the mold and starts presenting the stock properly will be a winner.

Two weeks ago I had a nosy around some of the brokerage boats at Dickies in Bangor. Afterwards I needed a change of clothes and a bath they were so filthy. What is the cost of a bucket and sponge man, that most car dealerships seem to have no problem getting?

The other point is about VAT. Ask your owners for the VAT details so that when you are asked if it is VAT paid, you don't have to bluff.

 

[thefatlady]

Agree with keeping boats clean, etc. Particularly, check and close up after careless viewers have left everything open to the weather.

On second thoughts, don't bother. When I sold one Sealine privately, I said to prospective buyers "There are a couple the same on Sealine's yard. Go and look at those before viewing mine." It worked wonders.

 

[pheran]

[ QUOTE ]
Are there any things you feel brokers could offer that you haven't seen?


[/ QUOTE ] Yeah. 2% commission rates /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif

 

[Renegade_Master]

Good point Bob. Owners can always sell the vessel privately and we then get nothing.

A lot of boats we have for sale in our Marina are already on guardienage with us, so the owner already has a contract with us to clean the vessel twice monthly, daily warp & fender checks and running up engines.

The daily checks also turn up any problems which we fix for them.

In actual fax even if they dont have guardienage if we have an appointment made for someone to view then we make sure our staff wash the boat before the viewing.

The inside is of course another matter, as not all owners want anyone inside where their belongings are . This therefore can be a problem as not all owners leave the inside tidy and uncluttered. Not least fridges turned off with door shut = mould
plus clothes etc.

Naturally boats we have for sale outside our Marina often up to 100 miles for us to travel to show a client, we cannot be held responsible for the up keep. In this case we are in the owners hands to ensure shes ready for presentation.

As others have mentioned it may well be worth putting a clause in the sale agreement to encourage the owner to keep the vessel presentable.

One final point made by thefatlady of course is that we have a responsibility to ensure viewers dont disrupt the vessel or its contents in an adverse way

 

[thailand69]

Website - LOTS of photos and LOTS of written details (have a look on yachtworld.com and see what the Yank brokers do).

The boat being clean and presentable, unless the advert says otherwise........and then priced accordingly.....which come on to perhaps the hardest part:-

Being realistic with owners on the price they can expect to receive - no harm asking more, but tell them they will need to be realistic on what they get (not the same as selling at a bargain basement price).....and to get top price you do need a top boat. IMO having a load of stock that all appears to never shift / be overpriced cannot surely be in your long term interests of building a reputation.........

 

[Andrew_Fanner]

Agreement on who does the trial if you get that far. I had to do one on Saturday for very wooly reasons from the broker. Serendipity actually as the eventual buyer and I hit it off pretty well, but it did mop up a fair bit of my day which i would otherwise have spent working on the new boat. For some reason the broker still feels that his slice of the pie is unaffected.

Actually T&C based on a we will and you will list seems too simple so might be a way forward.

Eg
We will keep the outside of the boat presentable based on the state in which it arrived, bird poo but not polish or scrapes
You will present the boat clean inside and out, or prepare to take a price hit or slow selling.
We will show the boat and have a broker display the equipment and supervise any trials
etc

 

[Renegade_Master]

Sea survey & trial normally follows a deposit. Otherwise you can get lots of folks not serious but intent on getting rides in my experience

 

[ari]

Keeping my boat clean and tidy for me whilst you sell it (as has been stated above) and of course a free prime berth (surprised no one's mentioned that).

Oh, and the name of your company once you'd done that so I can put my boat up for sale for 20% too much and never have to clean or pay for berthing again.

Cheers! /forums/images/graemlins/smirk.gif

 

[Major Catastrophe]

One assumes that the boat will be berthed at the owners expense at a nearby marina. Well within the range of a man with a pop and bucket, employed by another man that wants to sell boats rather than sit in an office all day polishing his backside like Swiss Tony.

I really don't understand why is so difficult to grasp the fact that if you want to sell thousands of pounds worth of boat, that posting a few pics on the interweb and sitting back waiting for the money to roll in, isn't very proactive.

One day someone is going to come along and work this out.

If there was ever an industry that needed a revolution, it is boat brokerage.

As I have said in earlier posts about this subject, look at how they do it in Florida. They place boats on one lot and sell, sell, sell.

The nearest example in England is Essex Boatyards, but the one and only time I ever went there, I found disinterested staff, filthy dirty stock and had to spend half a day peering through boat windows.

 

[Gludy]

I agree with every word of that.

A revolution is needed and maybe it will happen sooner than some may think. /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif