If the boat is so hot why is he pushing you to "buy now"?
I first saw our
current boat in September, the year before we put
money down, I had been looking for 3 years and it fit all our needs including my need for a decent, stable, quick
passage maker and my wife's list of
interior layout and creature comforts. She also wanted a boat she would have good visibility from the
helm with, which is important since there is a height difference and it was an issue on our last boat. It was also in our
price range.
It seems the longer you've been sailing, the harder it is to find a boat that fits your needs, if it's to be a
live aboard cruiser the search becomes even harder due to the number of boxes to be ticked off. You tend to fusier about little things.
So, where was I, oh yeah, brokers.
The broker for this boat stated that it was a rare, sought after piece that wouldn't last long on the market, right. My wife was not really hot to buy a boat at the time due to other pressing matters on our plate, I understand that there's never a convenient time to buy a boat, it's always the wrong time. So I took a ride with a friend (it was three states away) to do a cursory
inspection and found the boat to be everything we were looking for and close but not quite the shining diamond the broker portrayed it to be, he was fairly honest in his assessment of the boat but of course put a positive spin on it. That's his responsibility to his client, he works for the seller, not the buyer.
We talked a little further, my wife didn't want to deal with it at the time, I respected that, so I let it drop, fortunately I've owned enough boats that I've never felt the absolute need to own a particular boat, there'll always be another one that will come up, but this one did fill the bill to a high degree.
Some time after the first of the New Year my wife looked at the pictures again when things had calmed down and became more curious about that boat, I looked on line and low and behold, that same boat was still up
for sale at a slightly reduced price, imagine that. We got around to taking another drive in the begining of February to do a really in
depth assessment (basically I did a full
inspection to the level that a surveyer would) and we talked it over on the way home. We let it rest for a week or two, as we do with any big investment, and then decided to start talking seriously with the broker, by this time it was the beginning of March. Remember, this was a hot, highly sought over boat.
So I had it surveyed at the end of March, I did it a little backwards and had it surveyed before making an offer, I wanted to start with my price and
work from there, not the opposite. We finally made an offer at the end of April and were able to quickly agree on a price which worked for all, I wanted it for what I thought was fair to me, the owner didn't want to have to pay for another season, it worked for both, I wasn't a bonehead about it, what I offered was fair and in the end it ended up fair for all parties involved.
If an agent is pushing it, always ask why, unless it's a jewel and radically under priced for the market it's not a hot commodity, otherwise there's a fair chance it will be there in two weeks or two months, or 8 months.
Don't get emotionally attached, go look at it first hand to see if it's as good a deal as is advertized. If you don't have a lot of knowledge on how to inspect it there are a lot of articles and
books on what to look for, remember, your going to have to live with it for a long time.
Take any pushy sales guy with a grain of
salt. You don't have to have it, it would just be nice to have it.