Dave--- If I was in your position again, and we were back when we first started thinking about buying a cruising boat in 1998, I would first find out by asking around or using forums like this one who some of the most reputable brokers are in this area (PNW), choose one, and then enlist them to help you find a boat.
Boats like the ones we seem to be talking about are not unlike real estate in my observation. The brokers have a "network" and they know a hell of a lot more about what's on the market and what's coming on the market than most individual buyers can ever find out on their own.
The boat we bought is a good example. It wasn't even on the market yet. The owner had just purchased a newish Grand Banks 46 up in Vancouver, BC and he didn't want to own two boats. So he called a broker in Alameda, CA and told him to sell his old Grand Banks 36.
The Alameda broker had a relationship with the Grand Banks dealer in Bellingham, WA so he called them first just to see if they knew anyone who might want to buy a very old GB36 that was in decent shape. And he faxed up the details about the boat.
A few minutes after the fax arrived at the Bellingham dealer, my wife and I walked in for a lunchtime appointment "just to talk" about the notion of buying a cruising boat. As it turned out, the GB36 in Alameda looked like it would fit our needs and what we wanted to spend on a boat at that time.
We made an offer which was transmitted to the owner who at the moment was taking his new GB46 down the coast from Vancouver to Alameda. Our offer was contingent on the boat actually being what it was described as being-- a bone-stock 1973 GB36--; that it passed our own inspection and sea trial; and that it did well in both a structures/systems survey and an engine survey conducted by surveyors selected by us.
Our offer was accepted, the three conditions were met and we had the boat trucked from Alameda to Puget Sound.
Having a broker working for us got us into the broker "network." In our case, the boat we bought never even hit the listings because of the relationship between the selling broker and our "buyer's broker."
Hiring or engaging a buyer's broker tells the "network" that your serious about buying a boat.
This is not to imply that one cannot find the right boat on their own. A lot of boaters, particularly the more experienced ones, are very successful at uncovering the ideal boat and negotiating the deal on their own.
But we had zip, zilch, zero, nada experience at this sort of thing and we also didn't want to spend or have the time required to search out a boat ourselves and jump through all the hoops on our own. Engaging a buyer's broker made the boat finding, checking out, and buying experience easy and frankly, a lot of fun.
We were also lucky. The broker we had made the appointment with "just to talk" about getting a cruising boat is a terrific broker. He knows his stuff, he's honest, and he treats his customers with total integrity and respect. Not all brokers are like this. So you have to be a good judge of character as well as a good judge of boats.
And..... as others have said in this thread, you have to know what you want. This does not have to mean what brand or what model, but what you want to do with a boat and what you want that boat to do for you.
I look at acquiring a cruising boat the same way I look at buying a computer. First, define as accurately and as thoroughly as possible what tasks you want to accomplish with a computer. Then figure out what software applications will best do those tasks and do them the way you want to do them. Once you know all that, the last step is to figure out which computer will do the best job of running that software, and buy it.
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