To sell a boat, price it right. To buy a boat, act fast and pay the asking price (if you find the right one).
pete
This - 100%
When we were selling our sailboat, we were all over the East Coast trawler/cruiser market looking and there were boats everywhere in the condition we wanted for good prices. But it was January/February.
We closed near the end of March, and took a week to get everything off the boat, into vehicles, and transported to our temporary land home 100 miles away. When we got settled and started looking again, it was like a desert. All the boats that were there before were gone.
It remained a veritable desert right up to the point where we found our boat - but it was just blind luck. I woke up one morning and decided to check Craigslist - something I swore I wouldn't do - and found her. She was listed about 15 minutes prior to me opening the ad. I texted the guy, he called me, told me the backstory, and I said that if everything was copasetic and as described, we would pay what he was asking. Without meeting me, he guaranteed he would hold the boat without a deposit until we got down there to see it two weeks later.
He and I talked almost every day after that - and I had a surveyor I met while looking at other junk boats who happened to be in the area where the boat was docked - 400 miles from us. He went by, met the owner, took a look, and texted me one sentence "Send a deposit." He didn't do a full survey, but he sent a report later detailing where all the issues were above the waterline and said, "For the money, you're getting exactly what you wanted." So I sent the owner $1000 and a week later, we went down, confirmed everything looked good, and sealed the deal.
We knew what it would take to get her where we wanted her - but the asking price was *more* than right and we bought her without a sea trial or haul-out inspection.
Right place, right time.
