My first sailboat buying experience was an interesting one. I wasn't even serious about buying yet and considered going to look at sailboats more of the beginning of my education process for maybe buying a sailboat in a few years. I showed up at the Hinckley Company and happened to walk in on a brokers meeting in midwinter. They were used to dealing with millionaires but the best I could claim was to be a "thousandaire." I told them I wanted to look at a couple of their least expensive, used boats because that's all I might be able to afford. They all looked at each other and one (classiest broker I ever met!)of them smiled and introduced himself and offered to show me the boats they had
for sale. I fell in love with one of their 35' Hinckley Pilots that was simply equipped but had a new paintjob so looked brand new on the exterior but needed new
varnish in the
interior.
Sails and
engine were fine. This was back in the early 90's and boat prices were depressed. This boat had been listed 3 years earlier for $105K and soon had an offer in the mid 90's that had been turned down. Since then, he'd had a couple of other offers but had also refused them, but had gradually lowered the asking price so it was now $65K. I didn't have that much to spend so I made an offer of $46K through the broker. That offer was refused with no counter. The seller accused the Hinckley broker of trying to "steal" his boat and hung up on him and wouldn't answer subsequent calls. So he told me there was nothing else he could do. A few weeks later I saw an ad in Soundings Magazine for that same boat
for sale by owner at the same asking price. So I called up and chatted with the owner, not telling him that it was my offer he had recently turned down flat. He actually told me about it without mentioning the numbers involved. I told him that I liked the sound of his boat in his ad but would of course need to see the boat before making an offer. He didn't live locally so couldn't show it to me and of course he couldn't ask the Hinckley brokers to show it to me for a private sale. He hadn't really thought things through and couldn't suggest how I could see the boat. So I told him that I would go to Hinckleys on my own and try to look at it on my own. I called up the broker who had showed me the boat and explained the whole situation to him, including that the seller seemed interested in a price quite similar to what I had previously offered and I offered to pay his commission if I ended up buying the boat in a private sale. He was very understanding and encouraged me to buy the boat if I could and to not worry about the commission, advising me to spend it on my
new boat if I bought it. So, I called back the owner and explained that I had a limited
budget (true!) and didn't want to insult him but $47.5K was the best I could do (I was willing to pay in low 50's). He took it and I ended up owning the boat for $1500 more than the offer he had hung up on a month earlier! He never did find out that I was the same person who had made that offer. Hinckley's was happy to have the boat
sold because they were owed for 3 years of indoor
storage and were about to put a lien on the boat, so part of the selling price went directly to them. I later also found a way to repay the broker who had done my such a huge favor by allowing me to buy the boat via private sale.
So I guess the moral of this story is that the way a seller looks at the amount of the offer can depend on his perception of that offer and the way it's presented to him so it's important to go about it the right way. The Hinckley broker did nothing at all wrong in his presentation of my offer, but because the owner was aware that a lien on his boat was in the offing, he became paranoid and was sure that my original offer was really just the Hinckley company itself trying to take advantage of him. When presented with virtually the same offer just a few weeks later from a private party who he (correctly) understood didn't have very deep pockets, he had an entirely different attitude. A lot of this situation doesn't apply to most boat purchases, but as a potential buyer, I think it's valuable to try to meet the seller yourself because if you develop some rapport with him, it both gives you a feel for the kind of owner he's been and will be during the transfer of
ownership, and he'll see you as a real person instead of a corporate entity and that might make it a bit harder to play hardball with you during negotiations. He will also often be able to give you much better info about the true condition of the boat than a broker can. Brokers try to avoid that kind of interaction but as a potential buyer, I think it can be very valuable and I'm not suggesting trying to cut the broker out of the deal at all.