GW
From a sellers standpoint it is pretty easy to assess the serious buyers. From your post above it doesn't seem you were 100% ready to go. If that was sensed by the seller then feedback from them would likely be tepid at best. For your next foray suggest you have a check ready to written, boots on the ground, a place to move the boat to and an easily sensed 100% outward commitment.
Of course no one wants to waste time on those who are not serious, whether you're on the selling or buying side. Many of us have had enough headaches, on both sides, dealing with things like craigslist to swear it off for life. But it can be a matter of judgement and personal opinion as to what one considers 'serious.'
During the peak of the pandemic insanity fueled seller's market, I was advised that what a 'serious' buyer needed to do in order to earn a broker's attention was -
1. Ask no questions. Period. Questions about a boat were just not allowed.
2. Make an offer sight unseen. For no less than full asking price, and usually more.
3. Offer must have an escalation clause to automatically outbid other offers.
4. Offer to be cash and not have any financial contingencies.
5. Ask questions only of the surveyor (or, contradictorily, to make an offer without a survey contingency).
6. Close within 14 days.
7. Ask no questions, because I was told a buyer who asked 'questions' was automatically labelled as 'not serious.'
In other words, a 'serious' buyer had to bend down, grab their ankles, say 'thank you sir, may I please have more?', and hand over their wallet and say 'help yourself.'
It was this kind of attitude and reception from the majority of (though not all) brokers I dealt with that resulted in my buying a new boat. For about twice the money I was originally planning to spend on a used boat (but it seemed that wasn't enough for me to be assessed as 'serious' because I committed the unforgivable transgression of trying to ask questions before committing to buy a boat for a six-figure price).
During the past couple of years of market craziness, I don't know if it was so much sellers trying to assess who was 'serious' as it was who was a naive or desperate sucker, and thus easy and quick money.
Of course market conditions of demand exceeding supply drive up prices. That's understandable and expected. But hot markets don't also require rudeness and discourtesy.
It's anyone's guess what the boat market will do in the future, except most bets are for a cooling off, to some degree. It will be interesting to see if basic civility returns. But for me, there's now a long list of people I will never do business with, and a shorter list of people I admire, appreciate, and would always welcome the privilege of working with. Short term greed might have made a few extra bucks, but I hope the long term favors those who maintained a sense of decency and ethics despite the craziness.
Even if someone was just in the early looking stage, as Malcom Forbes said, “You can easily judge the character of a man by how he treats those who can do nothing for him.”
