Broker is privately "flipping the good deals"?

[desodave]

I agree with the interpretation of the broker remarks. You're lowballing and he probably knows that it would be completely unacceptable to the seller, or has talked to them about it. The broker we used talked to us about a lowball offer then sent back a full price counter to get the point across

[Fore and Aft]

BFS I am not sure where in the world you are but here in Australia the multihull market is fairly hot and the chances of getting a big discount are laughable.
Now if you offered 25% below the asking price on a Ferro or steel yacht the broker will probably throw in a free car wash and mow your lawn just to seal the deal.
I rarely see big discounts on production multihulls. Until the market is saturated like monohulls it's going to be a sellers market.
Cheers

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by boatpoker

me - Four of your seacocks as seized.
owner - Whats a seacock ?

This from an owner who claimed to have meticulously maintained the boat for his 16 years of ownership

Could explain why the seacocks were seized.

[Kettlewell]

In my experience you need to offer what the boat is worth to you. Sure, you're not going to be able to have a lowball price accepted on a popular boat, but OTOH look around and note how much the asking price varies on the same boat. I have seen 100% or more variation in pricing. If you offer 25% less than the asking and point out that is what others are selling for your offer might get looked at. If you are offering 25% less than what other similar boats are selling for they might just laugh it off. I once looked at a boat and had my low offer rejected, but they came back a year later and I got the boat for about half of what they were originally asking for it. My original offer was realistic, their expectations were way out of line.

[sailorboy1]

Man you made a low offer. They didn't like it and said no. Nothing really matters after that.

[George_SD]

I'm selling our boat via broker right now. I told him that my asking is my bottom line if all of the accessories and gear comes with the boat.

By contract he is required to bring all offers to my attention, regardless of how low or unusual they are (including for example trades), but he knows what I will or will not accept. He will give me a call and the conversation about the offer last all of about 2 minutes including greetings and good-byes, unless it's on the mark.

Selling boat to the broker means that the price is low and he sees a good and quick way to make money.

[Reeve21]

I have mostly good but some poor experiences with brokers. This was all as a buyer, boats I have sold were under 60k and didn’t get much attention when listed, so I did it myself.

Agree very much with JKettlewell about what to offer. The asking price is irrelevant. On my last boat I offered just under 70 per cent of asking and got it for 75 per cent. The owner, who the broker wouldn’t let me speak with until after closing, turned out to be a great guy, very helpful to this day when I have questions. The boat was very well maintained and in a remote location far from me. It might have been worth more in a big city, but it had been on the market for months and realistic offers were not coming in. He had relied on his broker to price the boat, and when he realized it was overpriced the deal came together. So I wouldn’t rule out a boat that seems overpriced—sometimes it takes sellers awhile to understand what the market really is for their boat.

[toolbar]

If your offer was near a closable price you would probably get another response.

The broker wouldn't haggle about 5%, that only matters for the seller. For the broker a quick 75% deal would be much better than selling for 100% but investing 10 times the amount of work.

Paul

[Kettlewell]

If your offer was near a closable price you would probably get another response.

The broker wouldn't haggle about 5%, that only matters for the seller. For the broker a quick 75% deal would be much better than selling for 100% but investing 10 times the amount of work.

We keep arguing about what a "broker" would do, but they are all over the lot in the real world, at least here in the U.S.A. As I stated earlier, more than once I have been able to contact the owner and negotiate with them and learn more about the boat directly while the broker was being unhelpful. If the owner doesn't want to talk, I take that as a red flag and will probably move on. The financial incentives are for brokers to maximize the price so they maximize their commission. I suspect that for many that means moving on when someone makes a low offer, even if the owner might be interested in talking.

[mako]

OP, first of all, residential realtors/brokers have always been more heavily regulated than boat brokers. You, like most of us, have probably had dealings with realtors many times in your life and so that is the yardstick that we measure against when it comes to dealing with brokers in general.


There are a lot of sleazy dealings in the marine world where it is more difficult to earn a living.. Be that as it may, don't take it personal.

Also, best advice I can give is don't get emotionally attached to any boat, until you own it. If you absolutely have to own one particular boat for sale then that may be a wonderful luxury, but it is going to cost you.

Find 10 boats which may suit your needs and make 10 lowball offers, maybe even 50%. 9 will tell you to get lost and 1 will take your offer.

I learned this the hard way myself.

[Be Free Sailor]

Good points from you all, it is interesting to hear from different parts of the world, US, down under, and of course fellow EU sailors - thank you all for your feedback.

I was interested to get wiser, and to learn from "our community", we have centuries of experience in this forum, which is awesome

Regarding this particular boat, I never got back to the broker, we had our time - I guess that relation was over faster than a "quickie in a cactus".

So I just kept searching the inter-webs, and soon found an identical boat for sale, this one much closer to home waters....and yes, I made a respectful offer.

In my opinion, this boat was priced closer to the "realistic" sales price. The broker was professional, he responded respectfully, and he did his "thing" well - juggling the communications between vendor and myself in a professional manner. Yes, we went a bit back and forth on price, but what do you know....late tonight we agreed the sale! Agreed sales price ended up 5.000 EUR more than my offer on the boat in the original post.

No BS, no waste of time, and the broker made his commission after listing this boat for just 2 days. Vendor is happy, I am happy, broker is happy.

So many boats...so little time...

Looking forward to taking over the boat, and starting the refit. I think we can/will complete the handover next week.

Love this forum, thank you for all the advice!

[desodave]

Thanks for the followup. It's good to see a story with a happy ending ... enjoy your new boat !

[Shrew]

Originally Posted by Be Free Sailor

I made an offer on a boat today, and received the following email response from the assigned broker (US based brokerage firm, and "World's Leader in Mutihull Sales");

..."owner would rather sell her to me at that price, I would definitely buy her and flip her (resell her again) within a few hours"....

FYI; My offer was around 25% below the advertised price.

"The owner says bring offers!", was the headline of the brokers advertisement, thus I expected my offer would be presented to vendor.

I am surprised the broker did not pass my offer on to vendor, and I am "chocked" he would suggest to buy the boat himself, if in such case the vendor accepted my offer.

Any thoughts?

Is it OK for a broker to buy and "flip" (resell) his clients boats, in the situation where an attractive (i.e. low) offer is accepted?

I've known both real estate and marine brokers who buy and flip.. They are at the ground floor of deals. If they are handy it's a great side-hustle.

The ad says "Bring all offers". It didn't say "Accepting All Offers".

Typically the broker knows where the seller's 'low number' is. If I were the seller, I'd personally start getting annoyed with a broker that brought be every offer under that number. That is literally the point of hiring a broker. Let them weed out the tire kickers and low-ballers. I don't have time for that.

%25 under asking price is.....aggressive. The market is showing some signs of softening, but nothing like that. Not in boats, not in real estate.

I also agree with the other commenters regarding the brokers reply. He's basically saying he could buy it at %25 below, and raise the price and still sell it one day. In other words, if he listed it for %20 under ask it would be under contract by CoB.

[Kettlewell]

No BS, no waste of time, and the broker made his commission after listing this boat for just 2 days. Vendor is happy, I am happy, broker is happy.

That's the way it should be! Good job finding the right boat at the right price.

[rabbi]

I bought a great cat for 100% asking (I was in a hurry, the market was dry, and the asking was reasonable for the boat condition).

I bought a great cat for 55% asking (seller was in a hurry to offload and did not really care about the money, I was the only one to close within a week).

And I bought great and not-so-great cats between these extremes.

Impossible is nothing. If an offer is declined just move on.