Selling a boat privately in 2023

[jakew009]

Thought it might be interesting to start a thread to get some musings from anyone who has sold a boat in the last few months. The craziness of the Covid years seems to have died down and the boat market returning to some sort of normality.

My story is I bought a 7.5m rib in May 2020 in the middle of lockdown for 21k. It was advertised at 30k but the seller was happy to take a stupid offer in order to get a sale without a survey. I bought it knowing it needed some work doing.

I spent about 8k refurbing it (refurb thread) to get it to the standard I wanted, and subsequently have spent about 2k a year maintaining it.

At the height of the 2021 crazy season similar boats appeared to be changing hands for 40k+

I decided to put mine if the market just under 4 weeks ago and was quoted 6% plus VAT by a broker to sell it. They suggested the £36995 asking price was about right. Other similar boats on the market were priced higher, but they didn't seem to be selling. I therefore tried to price mine as the cheapest 'nice one' on the market.

I decided to chance my arm at selling it myself and created a small website (https://cobrarib.co.uk), and paid Google a few quid per day to stick it at the top of the search results.
I also put a cheap advert on Boats and Outboards (link) (£25 to include a video) and an advert on eBay (£19.99) (link) for a classifieds ad.

I put a bit of effort into creating some videos of the boat to give people a good walk through to try and avoid having the same conversations over and over again. I also made a bit of an effort with the photos and made sure the boat was nice and clean. I created the website using Webflow and the domain (cobrarib.co.uk) cost £3.99.

The Google ads ran from 4 - 27 June when I sold the boat and the total cost was £79.30:


These are the search terms that people were searching for:


And the vast majority of traffic came from the south coast:


So my total advertising cost was £128.28 and I had 11 enquiries about the boat.

- 6 of those enquiries turned out to be pretty much time wasters, didn't go any further than a single phone call or text message.
- 7 enquiries wanted to do a part ex. Most of them were chancers (thinking their boat that barely floated was worth 15k) but a few were genuine. Clearly people were struggling to shift their own boats in order to upgrade. I briefly considered a couple of part ex's but my offer would have had to be so low the buyer would probably have been offended.
- 2 enquiries resulted in a genuine interest and one subsequently bought the boat.

I am based in North Devon (not exactly prime rib selling location) and I think some of the buyers were put off by my location. It would have been much easier to sell the boat on the South coast.

The buyer who bought the boat had already worked out he wanted the boat and effectively bought it over the phone on his first enquiry. He then drove down, paid me, and I delivered the boat to Poole later that afternoon. I ended up selling it for 34.5k including me delivering it and going out for a short trip with him to do a handover.

If I had sold it via a dealer, I would have had to receive an offer over the asking price in order to end up with the same money. I don't think that would have been achievable in the current market so I think the hassle selling it myself was worth while. I think a dealer would have sold it for about 35k (I had a couple of tentative offers in the 34-35k range).

Looking through Boats and Outboards now, lots of similar boats seem to have had price drops in the last few weeks, some quite considerable.

I'm now looking for a new boat (Merry Fisher 805) and prices are all over the place. Everything from 60k -> 30k being asked for similar boats. There doesn't seem to be a lot of correlation between condition and price. Realistic selling prices currently seem to be mid 30s and I'd guess they will continue to fall into the Autumn.

Closing thoughts

- if you want to sell a boat privately, put some effort into taking decent pictures, do a walk around video and put together a little website. Most adverts are so bad it's not hard to stand out.
- Google ads will get you at the top of Google for very little cost. Websites like theyachtmarket.com are expensive by comparison.
- eBay generates lots of leads
- Boats and Outboards generated a few leads but it's not worth paying extra for a featured listing
- Location matters a lot, if you're not on the south coast be prepared to deliver it there
- selling stuff private is a pain, broker's probably make the process a lot easier (at a cost)
- the boat market is slowing down, people are dropping prices.

Now I need to go and mark all the adverts as sold...

 

[jakew009]

Oh and some other musing on my refurb

I just about got my money back on all the new electronics / nav gear I put into the boat, but I could have done it way cheaper and still got the same money. No one knows the difference between Class A or B+ AIS, likewise no one knows what an autopilot is. So might as well not bother and save the money unless you want it for yourself. I think it helped to sell the boat though because it looked very modern.

Buyers struggle to understand that lots of boaty stuff has a shelf life and you don't want to be the one 'holding the baby' when it comes to replacement time. You want to buy a rib that's just been retubed, not one that needs retubing in your ownership. However, as a seller, it doesn't make any sense to do such jobs yourself as you won't get enough of your money back.

Boat buyers are obsessed with engine hours even though it's a totally stupid meaningless metric. As a seller make sure you sell well before you hit the 1000 hour glass ceiling.

As a seller you are better of focussing on cosmetic stuff rather than mechanical stuff if tarting up a boat prior to a sale. Most boat buyers will spot upholstery that needs replacing much more quickly than they will notice 20 year old fuel hoses. Likewise fresh antifoul will cover up even well done hull repairs.

 

[limecc]

Thanks for taking the time to put these posts together. I'm in pretty much the same selling position and for similar reasons, looking at Merry Fisher, Quicksilver or similar.

 

[Greg2]

Interesting post.

We have sold 4 of our 5 previous boats privately and most were in better shape when we sold than when we bought. I can’t say that we were always sensible on the money we spent on them but then I generally enjoyed doing the work so that is all part of the hobby to my mind. I have also never seen a boat as something to make money on and am happy to do what I can to recoup some costs and don’t lose sleep if we don’t. That doesn’t mean to say that we are a push-over but we are pragmatists when it comes to pricing.

We always spent time getting them in turn-key condition when selling and made sure that they were well presented. It amazes me that so many people just put their boats on the market needing work or servicing and with photos that show it as their living space with not even an attempt to tidy up.

 

[jakew009]

Thanks for taking the time to put these posts together. I'm in pretty much the same selling position and for similar reasons, looking at Merry Fisher, Quicksilver or similar.

I’ve gone round in circles before deciding a MF 805 is my next boat.

Don’t want outboards because lugging it from petrol station is tedious when you need hundreds of litres.

Don’t want a trailer because boat trailers are the work of Satan

Want something with plenty of space to mount big solar panel because no shore power

And don’t want something with any canvas on it - I want to chuck everything inside at the end of the day and close the door.

That fairly narrows down my options

 

[jakew009]

Interesting post.

We have sold 4 of our 5 previous boats privately and most were in better shape when we sold than when we bought. I can’t say that we were always sensible on the money we spent on them but then I generally enjoyed doing the work so that is all part of the hobby to my mind. I have also never seen a boat as something to make money on and am happy to do what I can to recoup some costs and don’t lose sleep if we don’t. That doesn’t mean to say that we are a push-over but we are pragmatists when it comes to pricing.

We always spent time getting them in turn-key condition when selling and made sure that they were well presented. It amazes me that so many people just put their boats on the market needing work or servicing and with photos that show it as their living space with not even an attempt to tidy up.

Yes agree with all of that. I did the upgrades to the boat because I enjoyed fitting and using it - the fact I got most of my money back was a bonus.

But you just need to be careful you buy the right boat in the first place at the right price…

 

[Greg2]

But you just need to be careful you buy the right boat in the first place at the right price…

Yes, I agree and we have generally done that with the odd exception.

We bought our Hardy post-lockdown in 2020 so knowingly paid more than we would have done a year earlier. We have spent a lot but have IMHO transformed the boat and if we sold now we might just recoup much of what we spent. They don’t come up on the market very often and one that did recently that was similar to ours in age and condition (but not electronics) was asking what I thought was a high price but it sold within a week.

 

[Farmer Piles]

We bought our boat, Aquador 32, off the back of a passing comment in a post on here and m sending him a private message.
I found the Google stuff really interesting, partly because my daughter works in marketing and all the optimisation, Google stats and info are so involved.
Thanks for sharing.

 

[DavidJ]

Interesting thread
The problem that I envisage with sites like boatsandoutboards is that unless someone specifically searches your make/model of boat then they are unlikely to find it.
I‘m inspired to find out more about Google

 

[BB1]

Thought it might be interesting to start a thread to get some musings from anyone who has sold a boat in the last few months. The craziness of the Covid years seems to have died down and the boat market returning to some sort of normality.

My story is I bought a 7.5m rib in May 2020 in the middle of lockdown for 21k. It was advertised at 30k but the seller was happy to take a stupid offer in order to get a sale without a survey. I bought it knowing it needed some work doing.

I spent about 8k refurbing it (refurb thread) to get it to the standard I wanted, and subsequently have spent about 2k a year maintaining it.

At the height of the 2021 crazy season similar boats appeared to be changing hands for 40k+

I decided to put mine if the market just under 4 weeks ago and was quoted 6% plus VAT by a broker to sell it. They suggested the £36995 asking price was about right. Other similar boats on the market were priced higher, but they didn't seem to be selling. I therefore tried to price mine as the cheapest 'nice one' on the market.

I decided to chance my arm at selling it myself and created a small website (https://cobrarib.co.uk), and paid Google a few quid per day to stick it at the top of the search results.
I also put a cheap advert on Boats and Outboards (link) (£25 to include a video) and an advert on eBay (£19.99) (link) for a classifieds ad.

I put a bit of effort into creating some videos of the boat to give people a good walk through to try and avoid having the same conversations over and over again. I also made a bit of an effort with the photos and made sure the boat was nice and clean. I created the website using Webflow and the domain (cobrarib.co.uk) cost £3.99.

The Google ads ran from 4 - 27 June when I sold the boat and the total cost was £79.30:

View attachment 159138
These are the search terms that people were searching for:
View attachment 159139

And the vast majority of traffic came from the south coast:
View attachment 159140

So my total advertising cost was £128.28 and I had 11 enquiries about the boat.

- 6 of those enquiries turned out to be pretty much time wasters, didn't go any further than a single phone call or text message.
- 7 enquiries wanted to do a part ex. Most of them were chancers (thinking their boat that barely floated was worth 15k) but a few were genuine. Clearly people were struggling to shift their own boats in order to upgrade. I briefly considered a couple of part ex's but my offer would have had to be so low the buyer would probably have been offended.
- 2 enquiries resulted in a genuine interest and one subsequently bought the boat.

I am based in North Devon (not exactly prime rib selling location) and I think some of the buyers were put off by my location. It would have been much easier to sell the boat on the South coast.

The buyer who bought the boat had already worked out he wanted the boat and effectively bought it over the phone on his first enquiry. He then drove down, paid me, and I delivered the boat to Poole later that afternoon. I ended up selling it for 34.5k including me delivering it and going out for a short trip with him to do a handover.

If I had sold it via a dealer, I would have had to receive an offer over the asking price in order to end up with the same money. I don't think that would have been achievable in the current market so I think the hassle selling it myself was worth while. I think a dealer would have sold it for about 35k (I had a couple of tentative offers in the 34-35k range).

Looking through Boats and Outboards now, lots of similar boats seem to have had price drops in the last few weeks, some quite considerable.

I'm now looking for a new boat (Merry Fisher 805) and prices are all over the place. Everything from 60k -> 30k being asked for similar boats. There doesn't seem to be a lot of correlation between condition and price. Realistic selling prices currently seem to be mid 30s and I'd guess they will continue to fall into the Autumn.

Closing thoughts

- if you want to sell a boat privately, put some effort into taking decent pictures, do a walk around video and put together a little website. Most adverts are so bad it's not hard to stand out.
- Google ads will get you at the top of Google for very little cost. Websites like theyachtmarket.com are expensive by comparison.
- eBay generates lots of leads
- Boats and Outboards generated a few leads but it's not worth paying extra for a featured listing
- Location matters a lot, if you're not on the south coast be prepared to deliver it there
- selling stuff private is a pain, broker's probably make the process a lot easier (at a cost)
- the boat market is slowing down, people are dropping prices.

Now I need to go and mark all the adverts as sold...

Perfect if your IT savvy and have the time, also easier with a small trailable boat.

 

[ChromeDome]

So many sites to search if you're looking for at boat. Many of them are nothing more than click baits, showing boats that have been off the market/sold for ages.

Small ads in some places are more accurate and maintained with interest

 

[DavidJ]

Looking for IT savvy advice
I don’t particularly want to set up a website so if I had, say, an advert on boatsandoutboards, can I somehow pay Google and set up a link to the advert?

 

[philipdawsonladds]

Thought it might be interesting to start a thread to get some musings from anyone who has sold a boat in the last few months. The craziness of the Covid years seems to have died down and the boat market returning to some sort of normality.

My story is I bought a 7.5m rib in May 2020 in the middle of lockdown for 21k. It was advertised at 30k but the seller was happy to take a stupid offer in order to get a sale without a survey. I bought it knowing it needed some work doing.

I spent about 8k refurbing it (refurb thread) to get it to the standard I wanted, and subsequently have spent about 2k a year maintaining it.

At the height of the 2021 crazy season similar boats appeared to be changing hands for 40k+

I decided to put mine if the market just under 4 weeks ago and was quoted 6% plus VAT by a broker to sell it. They suggested the £36995 asking price was about right. Other similar boats on the market were priced higher, but they didn't seem to be selling. I therefore tried to price mine as the cheapest 'nice one' on the market.

I decided to chance my arm at selling it myself and created a small website (https://cobrarib.co.uk), and paid Google a few quid per day to stick it at the top of the search results.
I also put a cheap advert on Boats and Outboards (link) (£25 to include a video) and an advert on eBay (£19.99) (link) for a classifieds ad.

I put a bit of effort into creating some videos of the boat to give people a good walk through to try and avoid having the same conversations over and over again. I also made a bit of an effort with the photos and made sure the boat was nice and clean. I created the website using Webflow and the domain (cobrarib.co.uk) cost £3.99.

The Google ads ran from 4 - 27 June when I sold the boat and the total cost was £79.30:

View attachment 159138
These are the search terms that people were searching for:
View attachment 159139

And the vast majority of traffic came from the south coast:
View attachment 159140

So my total advertising cost was £128.28 and I had 11 enquiries about the boat.

- 6 of those enquiries turned out to be pretty much time wasters, didn't go any further than a single phone call or text message.
- 7 enquiries wanted to do a part ex. Most of them were chancers (thinking their boat that barely floated was worth 15k) but a few were genuine. Clearly people were struggling to shift their own boats in order to upgrade. I briefly considered a couple of part ex's but my offer would have had to be so low the buyer would probably have been offended.
- 2 enquiries resulted in a genuine interest and one subsequently bought the boat.

I am based in North Devon (not exactly prime rib selling location) and I think some of the buyers were put off by my location. It would have been much easier to sell the boat on the South coast.

The buyer who bought the boat had already worked out he wanted the boat and effectively bought it over the phone on his first enquiry. He then drove down, paid me, and I delivered the boat to Poole later that afternoon. I ended up selling it for 34.5k including me delivering it and going out for a short trip with him to do a handover.

If I had sold it via a dealer, I would have had to receive an offer over the asking price in order to end up with the same money. I don't think that would have been achievable in the current market so I think the hassle selling it myself was worth while. I think a dealer would have sold it for about 35k (I had a couple of tentative offers in the 34-35k range).

Looking through Boats and Outboards now, lots of similar boats seem to have had price drops in the last few weeks, some quite considerable.

I'm now looking for a new boat (Merry Fisher 805) and prices are all over the place. Everything from 60k -> 30k being asked for similar boats. There doesn't seem to be a lot of correlation between condition and price. Realistic selling prices currently seem to be mid 30s and I'd guess they will continue to fall into the Autumn.

Closing thoughts

- if you want to sell a boat privately, put some effort into taking decent pictures, do a walk around video and put together a little website. Most adverts are so bad it's not hard to stand out.
- Google ads will get you at the top of Google for very little cost. Websites like theyachtmarket.com are expensive by comparison.
- eBay generates lots of leads
- Boats and Outboards generated a few leads but it's not worth paying extra for a featured listing
- Location matters a lot, if you're not on the south coast be prepared to deliver it there
- selling stuff private is a pain, broker's probably make the process a lot easier (at a cost)
- the boat market is slowing down, people are dropping prices.

Now I need to go and mark all the adverts as sold...

How did you manage the payments - a deposit and cash on delivery on what? Thinking of it from the buyer's perspective and reducing the apparent risk.

 

[bluetooth]

How did you manage the payments - a deposit and cash on delivery on what? Thinking of it from the buyer's perspective and reducing the apparent risk.

Sold my 2 previous boats privately with websites but in answer to your question, did BACS transfer on the day with the buyer. Bank confirmed money cleared and then handed keys, sales document and sales history, and a receipt over.

 

[philipdawsonladds]

Sold my 2 previous boats privately with websites but in answer to your question, did BACS transfer on the day with the buyer. Bank confirmed money cleared and then handed keys, sales document and sales history, and a receipt over.

Sounds the simplest approach - did you take a deposit to ensure seriousness?

 

[bluetooth]

Mmm. From memory no cause it happened within a week or two on both occasions.
Getting a BACS deposit in advance would be good as at least it shows the finance track, give you peace of mind and gives the buyer peace of mind as they can follow the same payment details.
Have to say these I'll never BACS anything over a few hundred pounds without doing a 1£ tracker first for that exact last reason.

 

[ProDave]

We just sold a boat, okay a different league to what is being talked about here, a sub £2K small sailing yacht. It was only advertised on Gumtree and Marketplace. All the enquiries came through marketplace, 11 in total, 3 viewings and one buyer, though the first viewer did want it but dithered too long and by the time they made up their mind it had sold. The old boat sold very quick, we only advertised it once we had found the replacement boat and paid a deposit, and it sold in the time it took to arrange delivery of the new boat, with the sale completing a few days before the new boat arrived.

Buying our replacement boat was totally different, advertised by a broker, had been on the market some time, presented in poor condition, owner not very helpful and did not give much impression he knew very much about it. Got it for a fair price to reflect the work the boat needs to bring it back up to scratch, less than the asking price.

Another boat we were interested in also advertised through a broker took 2 weeks to answer the simple question "is it still for sale" and then when I sent some pretty simple questions about the boat's conditions I never did get a reply.

Lets just say I have not been impressed with the brokers, and if I was the guy selling the boat that we never even got to see because the broker did not answer, i would be pretty damned annoyed and would sack them.

 

[jakew009]

Lets just say I have not been impressed with the brokers, and if I was the guy selling the boat that we never even got to see because the broker did not answer, i would be pretty damned annoyed and would sack them.

That reminds me, I sent an email about this boat when I was still on the hunt. A few days later I hadn’t had a response so I phoned and was told the broker would phone me back. I am still waiting

In hindsight I don’t care because it’s stupidly overpriced by the time you pay the VAT, I’ve paid over £15k less for essentially the same boat. Maybe the broker knows its a lost cause.

 

[j24jam]

One thing I would strongly suggest if you are selling privately and sending money via BACS (or any other non-cash transfer) is to have a contract for the sale. (whether that is an email chain, WhatsApp messages, RYA contract, etc - just get it in writing)

It is not difficult for an unscrupulous person to tell their bank they have been subject to fraud, and ask for the payment to be reversed. Your account will frozen pending investigation. It will help prove your side of the story if you have written evidence of the transaction.

 

[jakew009]

One thing I would strongly suggest if you are selling privately and sending money via BACS (or any other non-cash transfer) is to have a contract for the sale. (whether that is an email chain, WhatsApp messages, RYA contract, etc - just get it in writing)

It is not difficult for an unscrupulous person to tell their bank they have been subject to fraud, and ask for the payment to be reversed. Your account will frozen pending investigation. It will help prove your side of the story if you have written evidence of the transaction.

Agree about the written contract / bill of sale, but I think it’s scaremongering to say that a Faster Payment can be reversed / withdrawn. I’m not aware of any mechanism to do that.