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Old 01-19-2015, 11:07 AM   #18
angus99
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City: Signal Mtn., TN
Vessel Name: Stella Maris
Vessel Model: Defever 44
Join Date: Feb 2012
Posts: 2,742
Purchasing Stella, our Defever 44, was the longest for us and the most intense . . . made all the more so by trying to get her under contract while we were on vacation in Italy. A forum member (Sailor of Fortune) was kind enough to visit the boat for us in Florida and gave us a strong enough assessment of her condition that we felt comfortable making an offer. I remember standing on an overlook in the ancient town of Orvieto talking to SOF and marveling that I was beginning the process of buying a boat I hadn't seen in person that was in Florida. (I live in PA.) We commenced the negotiating process with the seller's broker (we didn't use a broker on our end) and my wife has pictures of me sitting in a corner of the Vatican researching costs with other brokers and surveyors. I hit the send button on our acceptance to the "final" negotiated price literally as the wheels on our return flight were leaving the ground in Rome. Didn't know that our offer had been accepted until we were stateside. That was in February and, for various reasons, we ended up closing near the end of April. In all, we came out of the process with few regrets and a lot of respect for what brokers go through.
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