Selling boats on the net

[doris]

I have to admit that I have always been v. sceptical about the internet and selling things like boats and houses. Now although I've still to sell a house on the net the efficiency with which my boat sale has just gone through has been marvellous. A bit of help from a couple of more computer literate friends enabled me to put together a big PDF file on the boat with lots of piccies and serious detail about all aspects of the boat. Then a URL connecting to a website displaying the PDF resulted in no time wasters as all possible detail was there. Boats and Outboards.com enabled a Google search for that particular model to pick up the boat top of the list and hey presto, happy buyer and happy seller. No brokers and the RYA provided all legal paperwork, whole deal done and dusted. Having all the required paperwork, eg. paper trail of all Bills of Sale etc makes life easy! Always nice to report a positive rather than a negative.

 

[Guest]

I found my boat via the net! Contessa Association website /forums/images/graemlins/smile.gif

 

[Scillypete]

Sold a Halcyon 27 through Boats and outboards loads of enquiries and all seemed fairly serious and the first that got to see her bought her. Like you say having all the paperwork to back everything up helps. 100% of the sale price kept by me and not shared with some broker somewhere.

 

[oldharry]

last 4 boats sold/bought through Internet Boats and Outboards: quick, convenient, no hassle, and very very few timewasters. Like Doris, I prepared a file to send to enquirers giving all the info, so avoided the timewasters. All boats sold within six weeks.

The few occasions in the past when I did use Brokers always ended in tears and frustration, and were incredibly slow. 'Oh yes sir, plenty of interest in your boat' - are ALL brokers ex used car salesmen? Last one I used we nearly ended up taking him to court after he lost the 3rd potential buyer by simply doing nothing. Another one tucked our boat away at the back of the yard with no evidence it was for sale, then tried to send a huge bill for 'storeage' 6 months later. Photographic evidence put him in his place after his Office Girl told us they had no boats of that class on their books at present when I posed as a buyer.....

I have 3 times tried Ebay - the first time the buyer never turned up to complete the sale, and the second time the boat failed to reach the modest reserve, but sold privately 3 days later through Boats and Outboards for nearly the asking price. Only useful if you are in a hurry and can afford to cut the price, or for selling on that awkward 'restoration project' boat (qv derelict!)

 

[FullCircle]

Bought Limbo off boatsandoutboards.co.uk 3 years ago. Sold my Limbo 2 years ago on boatsandoutboards.co.uk in 3 weeks First to see and only 200 quid off the asking.
Bought the Jouet 680 while checking to see the Limbo ad had been deleted! Sold the Jouet 680 (a lesser known boat) of apolloduck after 2 months for full asking, again first to see.
Both free of course.

Bought and Sold dinghies and rubba dubbas on ebay no probs at all, good prices. Dont think ebay is a good place for full blown boats over 5 grand though.


Jim

 

[Lakesailor]

I've sold boats on the net (boats and outboards) and cars on e-bay. Although I agree about high value items not being a safe bet on e-bay I did sell a 5 series Touring for £12k and a Mini for £4k without any problems.
There was a 'prototype racer' (mini tonner) for sale on e-bay last week which I went to look at. The pics were taken about 4 years ago and the boat in reality was a ply/balsa nightmare. The best thing about the whole package were the tyres on the yard trailer.
Someone paid £540 for it. I bet he hadn't viewed it.
Like you say, a good description and a web page of pics can be useful in sorting out the dreamers.
I will stick with boats and outboards in the future. The vendors are more knowledgeable and the boats tend to be genuine sales rather than 'sell on for profit' jobbies.

 

[alldownwind]

Tried selling online last time we changed boats, selling our Sadler. I put an ad on the boat section of Autotrader online one Thursday evening (cost £25), had a phone call the next day, and cash deposit in my hand the following Monday. Sale completed very quickly, I also used the RYA legal forms, no problems at all.
No doubt there are matching horror stories but the experience was great for me.

 

[nicho]

I posted about this recently. We have just sold our Bavaria 36 via just one ad. in Yachting Monthly. With an ad. cost of only £130 (including photo), and no broker involved, I managed to put it on at an attractive asking price. We had five serious enquiries, two serious offers, and it sold in 3 weeks at a fair price to both parties(probably around £2000 more than the net price we could expect after brokers fees)

She sailed away yesterday, leaving Mrs Nicho weeping on the shore (even though she loves our new boat much more - she becomes seriously attached to our boats)!!

In my view, it's worth a try to sell without a brokers' involvement.

 

[doris]

Ere, 'ave you been put up to this by the powers that be on the forum.....can't have free internet sites doing IPC out of advertising revenue. Hell they may get like marina operators and out their prices up!!!

 

[Sans Bateau]

Are you asking should you sell your house on the net?

You confirm you had a good result with your boat, others have agreed.

So why not sell your house on the net? I certainly would be more than tempted to. 2years ago we sold through an estate agent, Connells, and apart from putting up a board, advertising and showning around a few people the did absolutely NOTHING! That'll be £7000 then please (it was only a cheap house).

The point is, the ombudsman pointed out that contract with an agent is to 'find a buyer that goes to completion', they are not obliged to do anything else. So do it yourself on the net or give it to an agent, still do it all yourself and give the agent a load of money. No brainer is'nt it? /forums/images/graemlins/confused.gif

 

[Lakesailor]

We've sold 2 house by putting a board up in the garden and 2 by using Agents.
Far better without the agent as we had to ring them every day to remind them what they should be doing to progress the sales.
The Agents tend to have things pretty tied up these days as they control (effectively) the advertising of the property and the marketing of the house selling services. That is to say a Private Ad looks cheap and tatty and gets stuck away out of sight.

 

[Sans Bateau]

Yes well next (heavan forbid!) I'll use my own design resource and take a 1/4 page in the local comic, still chaeaper than the low-lifes.