To play devil’s advocate and take a counter-point… Not every seemingly “low ball” offer a seller gets by e-mail is necessarily a bottom-feeder. Some may be legitimate feelers from genuine potential buyers trying to determine if a seller is realistic or not, and if it’s worth their time to pursue a boat.
I’ve bought and sold 13 boats over 46 years, and am now in the market for #14 (I’ve also bought and sold many things on craigslist, though never a boat). As I’ve gotten older, and my remaining time here becoming depressingly short, I’ve become much more careful with how I spend the time I have left. I’m less patient and less inclined to waste precious time on propositions that have little chance of coming to fruition – such as, with unrealistic sellers.
We all know it: there is often a significant difference between what a seller thinks their boat is worth, and what the market of buyers is willing to pay for it. I’ve been there myself, on pretty much every boat I’ve ever sold. We get emotional about our boats. Most of us suffer from the thoughts of “but I have $ xxx in the boat, it’s GOT to be worth AT LEAST that much!”. It’s human nature. But, what someone puts *into* a boat does not usually equate to what one can realistically expect to get *out* of it.
As sellers, we often think that our particular boat is ‘unique’, or the ‘best one on the market’. I’ve had those thoughts myself, and many other equally unrealistic ones. As sellers, we also like to think that a potential buyer is interested only in our boat, and is lucky to have the opportunity to bid on it. The reality is, as buyers, we all know we cross-shop and look at many boats. It’s rare that a particular boat is so unique that it’s really a once-in-a-lifetime deal. The market is the market: something is worth only what someone else is willing to pay for it.
When we’re on the buying side, how often have we heard sellers say something along the lines of “I’m waiting for the right buyer to come along” – which really means, ‘I’m hoping someone will either be naïve enough, or sufficiently blinded by love, that they will pay way more than the boat is worth, and bail me out of how much I’ve got in it’? Of course, it MIGHT happen – and a blue unicorn covered with pink stars that grants all wishes might come along too.
When I was younger, and thought I had all the time in the world, I wouldn’t mind spending a lot of time with a boat and ‘negotiating’ with a seller. After a business career spent ‘negotiating’, and being at the age where I have far less time left that I have already lived, I just don’t have patience for that anymore.
I’m a dead serious buyer. I’ve always paid cash for any boat I’ve bought. If I wasn’t ‘serious’ about a boat, I wouldn’t be wasting my time and asking about it in the first place. When I see a boat I’m interested in, but the price seems high for the market, these days one of the first things I’ll do is ask the broker or owner either how much they’re really looking to get, or ask if they would consider an offer somewhere in the range of around $ xxx, plus or minus, pending inspection and survey. Given that we live in a ‘digital’ age, I often communicate by e-mail.
I do this to weed out the unrealistic sellers. If someone is really waiting for the mythical ‘right buyer’, and won’t consider an offer unless it is ridiculously over market, then I don’t want to waste several of the diminishing number of days I have left on a deal that will never happen. Despite my shrinking days left, I’m not in a financial position to over-pay just to buy something quickly. I never look to ‘low-ball’ sellers with ridiculous offers that are unfairly below market, but intimate what my research (often with input from brokers) suggests is what I believe to be a fair market range for a boat and what I’m able to pay. If a seller is open to talking in that ballpark, great, then I’m willing to invest the several days of time it usually takes to travel to and inspect a boat, and the thousands of dollars it will cost for travel and survey.
This has saved me a lot of time. Maybe I might have also lost out on the chance to buy some boats, but, the most precious thing any of us have is time. It’s the one thing no one can *ever* get more of, no matter how much money someone might have. I’ve spent (wasted…) so much time in my life looking at boats that the owner was just not going to sell at anything approaching a realistic price. At this point in my advancing age, my remaining time is more important to me than any individual boat.
One example… 6 years ago, I looked at a boat that was priced at $399k. I traveled a long distance, went to see it twice, spent money on the travels, and had a number of conversations with the broker. I liked the boat, but my research (based on what other models sold for, high $200’s to low $300’s) suggested that a fair market price was something in the low $300’s. The absolute most I was willing to pay was $325k, and I offered that. The broker indignantly huffed and said the seller was insulted by my offer, and he didn’t know if even $375k would buy the boat. After more conversations, I walked away, and bought something else.
Fast forward 6 years. That exact same boat is STILL on the market, same seller, and has been the whole time. It’s now listed in the mid-$200’s, with ‘offers welcome’. If it sells for $250k, that’s not only $75k less than I offered 6 years ago, but the owner also probably spent another $75k over the past 6 years in maintenance, insurance, dockage, repairs, etc.
If I had inquired about pricing up front, I would have seen that a deal was not going to happen, and I could have saved a lot of time (and money) that was wasted.
Having been a seller of a boat 13 times, I know how painful it is to be faced with the realities of the ‘market’, and to hear a buyer tell me that my boat is worth less than I’m *convinced* it is. No one likes to hear that. It’s like being told your baby is ugly. But, if you’re selling a boat, the next time you get an inquiry suggesting less than you think it’s worth, you might not want to dismiss it out of hand. It shouldn’t be hard to tell if it’s a low-baller offering 1/3 *of* your asking price, or a legitimate buyer suggesting that maybe the boat is worth 1/3 *less* than the asking price.
As a seller, I’ve learned the hard way that sometimes, the first offer you get is the best offer. Sometimes, it’s the only offer.
Just my 2 cents worth (and probably worth less than that).
