I'm with Art. Broker is not necessary. Gonzo, you could do it without a broker. If you can change the oil in your motors then you can certainly buy a boat without a broker.
Not true at all for many boat buyers. If you have a lot of experience with boats of this type, that's one thing. But how many newbies post here saying they are switching from sail to cruiser and have no experience with cruisers, or who want to get into cruiser boats for the first time? A lot. And it's apparent from their questions that they are in no position whatsoever to accurately judge the condition of this type of boat.
My wife and I were like this. We had a lot of experience boating the area in our small Arima fishing boat. We had tons of experience flying throughout the entire region from here through SE Alaska in our floatplane. So we certainly knew the area we'd be boating in. We'd been running narrowboats in the UK for years. I'd fished and sailed on other people's boats in Hawaii. So we were very comfortable being on the water.
But in terms of knowing the engines, systems, structure, etc. of a diesel cruiser we knew virtually nothing. We chartered a GB36 to see if we liked the experience but that certainly didn't give us any sort of background with which to judge the condition of a similar boat.
So we were in no position whatsoever to look over a boat we were interested in with any degree of competence in judging the condition of the boat, its systems, and equipment. Unless an electrical panel was actually on fire we wouldn't have been able to determine if the wiring was good, bad, or indifferent.
So when we decided to get into the cruising thing we enlisted the aid of a broker to find a boat for us. He was (and still is) extremely good, he knows GBs inside and out, and he deals with his customers with the utmost integrity. And he found us a boat that fit our budget and does what we want it to do.
There is no way we would have found this boat on our own. It was out of state and it had not even been listed for sale yet. But like real estate agents, brokers have an unofficial "network" and often find out about boats that are coming onto the market before they actually do.
In our case the owner had bought a newer and larger GB and simply didn't want to own two boats. So he told a broker in Alameda to "get rid of" his older GB for him. The broker called the GB dealer in Bellingham with whom he'd done business in the past and asked if they knew anyone looking for an old but decent GB36. He did this an hour or so before my wife and I walked into the building. We later learned that had the SFO broker not found a buyer right away he would have listed the boat for some $20,000 more than we paid for it.
In some cases and for some people a broker may not be needed. They have the experience, the time, and the resources to find and evaluate boats on their own. For others a broker can really aid the boat-buying process. In our case we decided we wanted a boat but I didn't have the time to read ads, walk docks, and look at lots of boats even if I
had had the experience and knowledge to accurately judge them.
And frankly, I didn't have the interest. We wanted a boat and we wanted one that would suit us but neither one of us are interested enough in boats that we were willing to spend a ton of time finding one. Better to find a good broker, tell him what we wanted in a boat, and let
him do the searching and initial evaluating.
If we decide to replace the boat we have now we will do exactly the same thing. We have learned a ton by owning, operating, and working on the boat we have for the last 14 years. We're in a much better position to evaluate a boat of this type now than we were in 1998. But I still don't have the time and more important, I still don't have the interest. I have other things to do that are far more important to me than pore over boat ads and walk docks. So I'll happily pay someone to do that for me. "When you find one you think will work for us, give us a call."
Brokers are like any other professionals. There are good, bad, and indifferent ones. So in my book, one doesn't need to be able to evaluate boats, one needs to be able to evaluate people. Determine who's good, bad, or indifferent. Select a good broker, as we did, and the rest of the boat-buying process is a snap. Miss on your evaluation and select a bad broker, and the process can be a nightmare.
I'm talking about a buyer's broker here. You've got no control over who the selling broker is but if you have a good person working for you, the seller's broker is irrelevant, as he was in our case. His sole contribution to the process-- other than letting the Bellingham GB dealer know the boat was available--- was giving us the keys to it when we got to Alameda.
We've been out of the water for about 6 weeks and itching to find the next. Haven't been without a boat for 25 years!! LOVE your story though.
. We found our perfect boat though. I'm glad it didn't take us four years (can't imagine Art!!) to find her!
