Yachtworld listing fees.

Mr Hippo said:

I do not think you reading my post correctly. If you are willing to take 5% in a split. Why are you worth 10% with no split.

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If I may intone:

You (we) get (pay for) what the market will bear!

One magic of capitalism is that it provides a broad span of "automatic equalization", i.e. a self regulating game that forces the leveling of costs in most financial arenas. That is why "corrections" happen when a sector of the market gets too heated, i.e. out of balance (caught up in a bubble... as they say!) regarding its true value at time of occurrences. Point in fact the housing market and stock market corrections (bubbles) of recent years. And, oh by the way... we’ve not seen the end of that debacle – yet!

If the market would bear a boat broker getting 15% then that is what they would set their commission at... therefore, if they had to split commission with another broker they would each get 7.5%. But in today’s marine sales climate market reality has kept the brokers’ commissions at 10% with no increase for years... even while boat prices have decreased; which is not a good deal for hardworking boat brokers. Reality of all of capitalism’s markets’ automatic equalization "regulating game" is as I mentioned at beginning... “We get (pay for) what the market will bear!”

Art said:

If I may intone:

You (we) get (pay for) what the market will bear!

One magic of capitalism is that it provides a broad span of "automatic equalization", i.e. a self regulating game that forces the leveling of costs in most financial arenas. That is why "corrections" happen when a sector of the market gets too heated, i.e. out of balance (caught up in a bubble... as they say!) regarding its true value at time of occurrences. Point in fact the housing market and stock market corrections (bubbles) of recent years. And, oh by the way... we’ve not seen the end of that debacle – yet!

If the market would bear a boat broker getting 15% then that is what they would set their commission at... therefore, if they had to split commission with another broker they would each get 7.5%. But in today’s marine sales climate market reality has kept the brokers’ commissions at 10% with no increase for years... even while boat prices have decreased; which is not a good deal for hardworking boat brokers. Reality of all of capitalism’s markets’ automatic equalization "regulating game" is as I mentioned at beginning... “We get (pay for) what the market will bear!”

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In the Information Age, commissions for middle men have generally gone down. I.E. stock brokers, with the advent of online brokerages, and real estate agents with Redfin and Zillow. Why should the commission rate increase as technology and sites such as Yachtwold make them more productive and their job easier?

(Mr Hippo-- Sent a Private Message on the value of a broker.)

Mr Hippo said:

If you have that kind of cash to throw away, good for you. In a previous life I once had a boss that was fond of saying if you saw $100 on the ground would you pick it up?

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One doesn't have to have plenty of cash to see the value of a boat broker. To me, they are well worth what they charge for relieving me of the things that I would have to do to sell a boat. I even gave my broker cash when I bought my current boat, even though he was getting a share of the selling broker's commission. I gave him 10% of the difference between the asking price and the final sale price. I didn't think that it made sense that his commission would be cut as he negotiated a better price for me, so I proposed to him the 10% deal when I asked him to represent me.

A 10% commission is not cheap but reasonable, even if they don't split it with another broker.

pilothouse king said:

I broke my promise.

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Huh?

A good and honest broker is worth his weight in gold.

We have worked with several over the years, and have really only had one bad experience :ie... looked at a boat, came to a deal, did the survey, found out lots of problems, requested new deal with paperwork listing all the problems with pricing to repair said problems, no reduction in price, so no deal.

At this point, we say, too bad for us, but that's the way it goes, even though we had spent thousands of dollars on travel, hotels and surveys.

The sour taste in our mouth came when we saw the listing go back up with no changes: ie no recognition that there were any problems with the boat and now the broker is, I assume, hoping for a new sucker to come along and spend money checking for problems that he definitely now knows exist but isn't telling anyone about!

Not a broker worth any amount to me!

Many people here have made statements about WHY it is advantageous to use a broker in which I am very much in agreement with. My concern is am I getting value at 10%. Let me pose the following questions.

1. Why not use a flat fee. Do you really work twice as hard selling a 100K boat verses a 200K boat? Or does the 200K boats subsidize the 100K boat?

2. For those who think brokers should make more, isn’t the fact you are paid via percentage mean your commission is automatically adjusted for inflation? In real dollars are you not making the same as you made 20 years ago? Have sights like Yachtworld not made you job easier?

Would someone please tell us what an average is for $ paid to a broker
for hours worked selling a $500k boat.

They aren't all $500,000 boats, some are under $100,000 (a lot under) and the broker has to work just as hard, if not harder, to sell one of those as the more expensive models. Sometimes the broker has a lot less to do with the listing than they wish, the seller has the final word on how the vessel is listed. My broker worked his butt off, the seller was unrealistic in his asking price, and the broker commiserated with me over how unreasonable the seller was. I worked with him for over three months before my purchase went through, couldn't begin to guess how many phone calls and e-mails, and would go back to him without hesitation if I ever do it again. The closing date moved 7 times over 6 weeks, and his company made less than $5000 off all of their effort. He tried to steer me to a different vessel because the seller was so unreasonable, but I wanted THAT hull, not something else. That's how we wound up with a vessel on the East coast, shipped to the West coast, and still under the asking price of the other vessel available. My broker was worth every dime he earned (key word, earned) and I felt guilty about how hard he had to work for the little he earned. People who buy expensive boats are probably easier to deal with than people who are scraping every dime they can together to make a purchase...

While the internet is a great tool, most brokers MUST advertise their presence and offerings in print , which is very costly.

Boat shows are a must for a broker with new product to sell.

And then there are the Lookey Lous , that can take 7 days a week of severe effort just to avoid.

Mr Hippo said:

1. Why not use a flat fee. Do you really work twice as hard selling a 100K boat verses a 200K boat? Or does the 200K boats subsidize the 100K boat?

Selling homes for $200K as opposed to $100K there was no difference in the mechanics of the deal. There was also about 5 to 10 $100K houses sold to each $200K house.(when I was in that business) So from that perspective is was more difficult to find a buyer for the more expensive unit (smaller pool of potential buyers) IE - more time, effort and expense.

2. For those who think brokers should make more, isn’t the fact you are paid via percentage mean your commission is automatically adjusted for inflation? In real dollars are you not making the same as you made 20 years ago? Have sights like Yachtworld not made you job easier?

I sold homes in the pre-Zillow dark ages so we used to rely on "yard sign calls" and "ad calls" or "open houses" to locate prospective clients. The primary function of Yachtworld is advertising and not at all unlike our old fashioned newspaper ads in RE. Seldom if ever did a sign or ad call or open house visit(yacht show equivalent) actually result in a sale of the property that was the subject of the call or visit. It only served as a means to meet a prospective client and start a dialogue. Often times, with a lot of hard work, I could turn that dialogue into an action of some sort and make a sale. Sadly many times it was wasted time but either way the subject property still did not sell to the one calling on that ad. Pure numbers game, plain and simple.

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When a person is purchasing residential RE typically there is a life event that serves as a motivating factor for the transaction. (child birth, death of loved one, marriage, promotion or relocation of employment etc, etc...) Personal motivation, both real and perceived, typically calls for reasonably quick action. Pleasure boat sales are often predicated upon similar life events however pleasure boat purchases, regardless of price, are primarily motivated by ego and desire and have little if anything else based in reality demanding action on the part of a buyer. Purely disposable income purchases of a depreciating asset. Brokers have both through postings here and telling me in person that the average buyer spends well over a year looking before buying, if then at all.


The real problem with selling anything yourself(boat, house, car) is you only have one item to offer when someone calls, whereas a broker can have dozens and if not one of his listings he can represent you in the purchase of potentially thousands of others. So it's more an inventory problem than anything else, not too many auto dealerships with only 1 car sitting on the lot and no ability to get another. Brokers are middlemen that act as a funnel attracting a large quantity of buyers and concentrating them on the listings that suit their needs and pre qualifications.

Ultimately if the fee is not worth it to you sell it yourself. A lot of folks do, or at least try to. Some folks are quite good at it.

Mr Hippo said:

Dear Sir,

You are no doctor, attorney or dentist. You Are a middle man. You chose your profession. According to the laws of creative destruction and capitalism you will thrive or fail upon the will of the market....so be it.

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Granted my view is better, and people are happier to see what a Yacht Broker has to offer than the aforementioned professions, but regardless, the reason we all charge so much is for our time, and the fact that we're there when you need us, but unlike the above, most brokers can be reached 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
I'm in my 39th year. I have 20 'something' pages of old print ads going back to 1988 posted. If you happen to like looking at old boats, prices, and comparing them to now. OLD print ads of mine- Long live the Internet!!

In real estate, the cheaper homes are much harder to sell. The buyers are usually less educated, the purchase is far more important simply because this may be the only home they will ever buy and $100-150k is all the money in the world to them.

I'm sure boat buyers are much the same.

Once a year or so I have an easy sale, the earnings per hour spent on that deal are high. However it has taken me 17 years of sales to get to those easy ones and 40 years in the boat industry to get into the large boat market. Then there are all the other sales that are hard to complete and the ones that do not get to a closing and I make nothing.
It comes down to an total for the year or for five years, there will be big sales and small sales, co-brokerage and selling of my own listings. A ten percent commission just makes up for the months with no sales at all which is common for me.

yachtbrokerguy said:

Once a year or so I have an easy sale, the earnings per hour spent on that deal are high. However it has taken me 17 years of sales to get to those easy ones and 40 years in the boat industry to get into the large boat market. Then there are all the other sales that are hard to complete and the ones that do not get to a closing and I make nothing.
It comes down to an total for the year or for five years, there will be big sales and small sales, co-brokerage and selling of my own listings. A ten percent commission just makes up for the months with no sales at all which is common for me.

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I understand what you mean, as I believe all reasonable people should.

Again I say: One Magic of Capitalism is that in the long run it is “self regulating”. Costs, prices, profits are always in flux, i.e. wavering at the very edge of whatever the market will bear. If too big a bubble develops in any given parameter, and a market gets too far out of whack, then the market(s) self correct. Some times to the detriment of many... sometimes it’s not so bad!

yachtbrokerguy said:

Once a year or so I have an easy sale, the earnings per hour spent on that deal are high. However it has taken me 17 years of sales to get to those easy ones and 40 years in the boat industry to get into the large boat market. Then there are all the other sales that are hard to complete and the ones that do not get to a closing and I make nothing.
It comes down to an total for the year or for five years, there will be big sales and small sales, co-brokerage and selling of my own listings. A ten percent commission just makes up for the months with no sales at all which is common for me.

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I don't think I'm telling tales out of school because my broker friend is now deceased, but it can be way longer than months between sales for sure! A good friend of mine from 78, who came into the Brokerage Business as a very successful business man, after seeing (what he thought) was "how easy and fun it is what you do for a living" decided to be a broker in late 80's- he got a job with Fraser in Newport Beach. Pretty heady upscale place for a newbie, and he sold a big yacht (alright!), but as we know- Newport isn't as busy as you would think from just looking around at the wealth. But those are homes, not yachts, they're buying out there. Pretty damn slow and California has State income taxes, and high cost of living. So he moved to Ft. Lauderdale (no State income tax's either!) where the action's at. Fraser had no room for him, so he got a job at Ardell (without a doubt the fanciest Brokerage building in town!). His first sale he made a $300k commission. Whoo-hoo -life is good. Gotta keep a pretty high profile when selling Yachts in the high millions.. paid the IRS, nice car, nice home, right Yacht Clubs, right clothes, right vacations, at the right place, with the right people. Kids, ex-wives to feed etc. THEN...months roll by, then a year roll by..NADA -deals alway's "this close" but no closing, then months rolled by, then ANOTHER YEAR -that's two years, nothing. He's broke. He ended up telling everybody he was going off on a RV trip, but in reality he went up to New Hampshire or West Mass, some bumfk place, and was working at a Ford dealership selling cars, although he told me "consulting with them on the internet". Then I received a call from his daughter that he passed away, in his motorhome, where he was living-in his 50's. Wow. In hindsight He should had stayed in the computer business back in Largo Florida. In this world, there's many illusions, especially when one is putting on airs (as my folks call it).
Old cliche's like "the bigger they are, the harder they fall" come to mind. Sometimes it just comes down to luck. Like Cynthia Kelly (also Ardell) giving that business card to a guy, and then registering him at FLIBS. THAT turned out to be a super payday for her (one million dollars!!! A business card!), when owner of Ardell discovered he had bought a Feadship direct from Feadship, while Ardell was the registered agent in the USA. I WISH something like that would happen to me, but I've never even put myself into the possibility of it happening. Especially after Bills excursion into the fancy Yacht Brokerage world. I'll just keep fishing for Brim, and leave the Sailfish's for others.

BTW- Tucker Fallon is a great Yacht Broker. He's personally given me tours of his listing as IF I was a buyer. Don't often see brokers giving other brokers the 'royal tours'. He's gives it the real old college try for sure! Bradford also has free dockage under cover in fresh water. WHY anybody would list with anybody else down here I haven't a clue. I would fire myself if I could! lol

yachtbrokerguy said:

Once a year or so I have an easy sale, the earnings per hour spent on that deal are high. However it has taken me 17 years of sales to get to those easy ones and 40 years in the boat industry to get into the large boat market. Then there are all the other sales that are hard to complete and the ones that do not get to a closing and I make nothing.
It comes down to an total for the year or for five years, there will be big sales and small sales, co-brokerage and selling of my own listings. A ten percent commission just makes up for the months with no sales at all which is common for me.

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How dare you make a profit!

I had a cat named Fizbo spelled FSBO (for sale by owner). He lived 18 years and never sold. I guess I should have listed him with a broker.

I was a broker for about a year in considerably less grand circumstances. I sold a boat almost every month but they were Bayliners, Sea Rays and such. I never even saw a trawler. I worked 24X7 , on the phone all the time, drove everywhere, photographed everything. Yachtworld was just coming into it's own, print was still king.
I would have made more money flipping hamburgers. After a year I called it enough and returned to IT for a decent living and enjoying my boat. Boat brokerage is not about boats - it is about selling. It is just like selling real estate with the possibility of drowning.

alormaria said:

Boat brokerage is not about boats - it is about selling. It is just like selling real estate with the possibility of drowning.

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Love it! That's FUNNY!!! Never even thought about that benefit!

I was approached a couple of weeks ago by TV producers who do Million Dollar Listing, Shark Tank, etc., as they're going to do a reality show about Yacht Brokers in South Florida. They tried to recruit me. I told them that unlike their Real Estate shows, the reality of watching me work all day is just like in my avatar photo. I take photos, edit, write copy and upload all day at a desk. Not exactly thrill TV. Now that the Internet has taken over, most of my buyers don't even show up to see what they've purchased. Now IF they had this idea for a show back in the 80's, that would had been good TV, but they had a show-it was called Miami Vice.

Brokers might save themselves some extra work if they would accurately describe the boat you were interested in. While I was at the Tampa Boat Show earlier this month I scheduled a meeting in St Pete on a boat, when I got there I found a boat that appeared to have been neglected for the 12 yrs of it's life and not worth anywhere close to what the brokerage was asking for it (IMHO), would have required a good deal of TLC to bring it back. Fortunately for me it only cost me some time and a rental car trip across the bridge but if I had flown down to see that boat I would have been pissed. As it was I got a better idea of the layout of that model and will continue to look for one, just not that boat.

Gotcha to look though, didn't it?

The primary purpose of brokerage is to sell client's boats. Everything else is up to interpretation.

alormaria said:

Gotcha to look though, didn't it?

The primary purpose of brokerage is to sell client's boats. Everything else is up to interpretation.

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You are right but it also established that I will not be dealing with that broker when I do buy a boat. Fool me once......

>You are right but it also established that I will not be dealing with that broker when I do buy a boat. Fool me once......<

The slime ball broker wasted Your time , your effort, your money , with 300,000,000 million Americans , why would he care if you dont come back?

Best you could do is go in line and IDENTIFY the clown.

Has anyone found any services/brokers that will charge a small/nominal fee to post up your boat on Yachtworld? Kind of like certain real estate firms charge a couple hundred bucks to get your house on MLS but they are not involved in anything beyond that. Thanks!

Good question mystery,
Would probably depend on whether or not brokers get a kickback from yachtworld for each listing. Or if YW severely limits the number of listings to specific brokers.

I assume brokers have an office and "sales agents" to do the footwork and paperwork. Most all will probably push you to list your boat w them. You may regret giving your phone number.
Easy enough to find out. Just ask around.

I'm interested in finding out. It may be obvious from the above that I know little about yacht brokerages. After trying to sell Willy for a couple of months on Craigs List it was obvious I was'nt much of a salesman. Talked too much. Imagine that.

Forkliftt said:

Great approach.
If a pre qualified buyer wants to go for a ride on your boat while first looking... say sure, I'd be happy to take you on a ride... for $100 cash I will take you out for an hour cruise. That can be deducted off our agreed to price if you decide to purchase.

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Is that legal? Does it invalidate your coverage?

My wife and I have been looking for a boat to live aboard in the PNW for the last four years. At first it was just to see what there was out there, and to try and find out what we liked and what we didn't, what we could live without and what we think we really needed to start with up front. Since we are not in the PNW yet, we found that about half of the brokers could care less if we were impressed with there vessel or not, the other half would try and help. We did find three that we stay in touch with monthly, they let us know what is new in the area. These are brokers that we will be using to get our new to us Boat.
There are good brokers out there, and there are ones that are not so good.

Nice trip down memory lane

pilothouse king said:

Granted my view is better, and people are happier to see what a Yacht Broker has to offer than the aforementioned professions, but regardless, the reason we all charge so much is for our time, and the fact that we're there when you need us, but unlike the above, most brokers can be reached 7 days a week, 24 hours a day.
I'm in my 39th year. I have 20 'something' pages of old print ads going back to 1988 posted. If you happen to like looking at old boats, prices, and comparing them to now. OLD print ads of mine- Long live the Internet!!

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Thanks gor the adverts. Lotsa fun

Gordon

Nomad Willy said:

Good question mystery,
Would probably depend on whether or not brokers get a kickback from yachtworld for each listing. Or if YW severely limits the number of listings to specific brokers.

I assume brokers have an office and "sales agents" to do the footwork and paperwork. Most all will probably push you to list your boat w them. You may regret giving your phone number.
Easy enough to find out. Just ask around.

I'm interested in finding out. It may be obvious from the above that I know little about yacht brokerages. After trying to sell Willy for a couple of months on Craigs List it was obvious I was'nt much of a salesman. Talked too much. Imagine that.

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None of this is the case. We pay a fortune for our listings based on the number of listings (prices going up next month by 12% after a 10% increase last year)!