Want To Buy: Owners = Headaches

[Caribbeanlife]

Problems that i have come across looking for a boat:
* Boat is way over-priced (by a long ways)
* Boat is not as advertised (pictures of not the same boat)
* Owners who dont respond to messages/calls/texts
* Owners who live in another state and cant show boat (over a month some)
* Owners that dont show up for showing (and cant access boat without)
* Owners that wont share a recent survey
* Brokers that refuse to give owner your offer
* Brokers that demand a contract in perpetuity (lasts forever)
* Brokers that are just immoral (not gonna explain)

I have been dreaming about looking for and buying a boat for many years and its been a lot of headaches. I have logged over 14k miles looking for a boat and im slowly running out of steam! Im living in a small RV with my dog in Florida.
Im looking for a -40 foot cruiser. $50k budget HELP

[Chotu]

If possible, you should take that RV and go to the mountains for a while. Well, actually it is approaching winter now. So maybe you enjoy Florida. But You have bad timing. I don’t think you can get a 40 foot cruiser for $50,000 right now.

The boat market is red hot still.

You’ll have to wait for it to crash to get what you’re looking for or expand your budget. If you have a $50,000 budget and an RV, you could probably unload that RV to get the boat. Right? The RV market is also very hot right now. Still.

[valhalla360]

When 1 person is out to get you, it might be them.
When everyone is out to get you, it's probably you.

Something is seriously wrong with your approach if it's taking you hears and 14,000miles and you still haven't found a boat.

Yeah, there are some hassles but if you are reasonable and take a descent approach to the process, it's not that bad.

[adamandannika]

My partner and I have also been looking for a sailboat for several months and quickly came to the realization that we'd either have to: 1) increase our budget, or 2) lower our expectations.

At least you can count yourself lucky that you're not Canadian and have to worry about your currency crashing against the American dollar!

[danstanford]

Originally Posted by adamandannika

My partner and I have also been looking for a sailboat for several months and quickly came to the realization that we'd either have to: 1) increase our budget, or 2) lower our expectations.

At least you can count yourself lucky that you're not Canadian and have to worry about your currency crashing against the American dollar!

Laughing with you! In my experience it is rare to not have to do one of those things and perhaps both!

Where in Ontario are you and what are you looking for? Perhaps a Canadian boat can lessen the pain of the currency swing.

Dan

[Bill O]

Originally Posted by Caribbeanlife

Problems that i have come across looking for a boat:
* Boat is way over-priced (by a long ways)
* Boat is not as advertised (pictures of not the same boat)
* Owners who dont respond to messages/calls/texts
* Owners who live in another state and cant show boat (over a month some)
* Owners that dont show up for showing (and cant access boat without)
* Owners that wont share a recent survey
* Brokers that refuse to give owner your offer
* Brokers that demand a contract in perpetuity (lasts forever)
* Brokers that are just immoral (not gonna explain)

I have been dreaming about looking for and buying a boat for many years and its been a lot of headaches. I have logged over 14k miles looking for a boat and im slowly running out of steam! Im living in a small RV with my dog in Florida.
Im looking for a -40 foot cruiser. $50k budget HELP

All those experiences are fairly common when trying to buy a boat. I can see why you might be running out of energy after driving 14K miles in search of a boat.


By now you should be able to feel out if a boat is worth the drive to look at or not. As previously mentioned, would lower your expectations (slightly smaller boat that needs some work) and probably eliminate brokered boats.

[miketo]

Reminds me of when my wife and I were looking for our house in Seattle circa 1999. We thought we'd be able to find something nice for $150,000 and didn't see why that shouldn't be available to us.

*Major* expectation reset after lots of driving around, viewing, comparing. The things we saw and the people we encountered in that price range....

[goboatingnow]

Why do people make such a mountain out of a molehill

I’ve bought 7 boats , one was new ( that caused the most hassle !!)

The rest through brokers in 4 countries.

I first did a comprehensive trawl of suitable boats to “
Size my budget “. I would review 50 boats per type. ( a pain pre internet as brokers had to mail you stuff )

I would travel to foreign countries to then visit second hand sales events

Then I’d build a reliable asking price matrix and review that against my budget.

I would then focus on ONE single type of boat and hunt down every sale opportunity of that boat.

I’d visit or correspond with owners. On top of that I’d continue to visit boat shows internationally

Then I would have built up a comprehensive knowledge of the type I wanted and the price range.


This allowed me to instantly weed out people pitched too high ( or too low )

I then phoned ( not emailed or letter) brokers and arrange to travel and see a select set of boats. Brokers appreciate if you’ve done your research.

Each process took about 3 months to complete.

What’s peoples big problem on CF you’d think this was difficult.

Here’s my tips

1. Buy through a broker , call them on the phone. No email initially.

2. Do your research
3 know your asking prices. And have a suitsble budget don’t be a “dreamer “ , brokers hate “ dreamers “ ( tyre kickers )
4. Rely on the selling broker to help you. They will.
5. Don’t dick around , make realistic offers , don’t lowball.
6. Do your due diligence, survey , sea trial , and document review.
7. Buy the damm thing

Really what’s the issue here folks, it’s a boat , not a moon landing.

Ps: there are no “unicorns “ don’t look for them. You either have the budget or your wasting everyone time and your own.


Jeepers

[Shrew]

The buyer is responsible for the survey, not the seller. The buyer contracts the surveyor and pays for the surveyor. The buyer is not compelled to share the survey with anyone, including the seller. The seller is not entitled to the survey. You are responsible for your own survey.

[George_SD]

Looked at two boats, bought one of them.

Given your experience and requirements, you are probably asking for too much, while offering too little.

[valhalla360]

Originally Posted by Shrew

The buyer is responsible for the survey, not the seller. The buyer contracts the surveyor and pays for the surveyor. The buyer is not compelled to share the survey with anyone, including the seller. The seller is not entitled to the survey. You are responsible for your own survey.

Technically true but with exceptions in practical application:
- Assuming you aren't trying to sneak something past the buyer, providing an old survey with notes on updates, heads off wasting a lot of time and renegotiations after you have told other potential buyers there is a deal in the works. If the old survey shows a bit of core rot in a section of deck and you made them aware of it at the time of offer, they can't use it as a negotiating point after they do their own survey unless something has significantly changed.
- Kind of hard to negotiate over issues found without sharing the new survey results. Also, leaves a bad taste with the seller of you are evasive. If you are walking away from the deal, might not be an issue but if it's not a deal breaker issue and you want to negotiate, if you give them the run around claiming they aren't entitled to see it...don't be surprised if the seller is less willing to deal. You don't have to give them a copy but sitting down with them and showing it to them seems pretty reasonable if everyone is being honest.

Yes, ultimately, you should get your own survey and you are responsible for the cost.

We've bought every boat that we've reached the point of survey but if I was walking away with no bad feelings toward the seller, I might offer it to them for $100 to recoup some of my costs. That might have value to a buyer who doesn't want to pay for a survey and probably satisfies bank/insurance requirements.

[double u]

Originally Posted by Caribbeanlife

Problems that i have come across looking for a boat:
* Boat is way over-priced (by a long ways)
* Boat is not as advertised (pictures of not the same boat)
* Owners who dont respond to messages/calls/texts
* Owners who live in another state and cant show boat (over a month some)
* Owners that dont show up for showing (and cant access boat without)
* Owners that wont share a recent survey
* Brokers that refuse to give owner your offer
* Brokers that demand a contract in perpetuity (lasts forever)
* Brokers that are just immoral (not gonna explain)

I have been dreaming about looking for and buying a boat for many years and its been a lot of headaches. I have logged over 14k miles looking for a boat and im slowly running out of steam! Im living in a small RV with my dog in Florida.
Im looking for a -40 foot cruiser. $50k budget HELP

in view of our own experiences* buying our last boat I have to conclude:
the problem is YOU!

*jumping into the car to go looking at boats on May 31st 2018 - Trans-Atlantic in Nov. 2018

[adamandannika]

Originally Posted by double u

in view of our own experiences* buying our last boat I have to conclude:
the problem is YOU!

*jumping into the car to go looking at boats on May 31st 2018 - Trans-Atlantic in Nov. 2018

In Dave's defense, the sailboat market was drastically different in 2018.

This was especially evident to us when our boat consultant, who previously recommended clients make an initial offer of 10-15% less than asking, started to advise immediately making a full-price or higher offer, just in order to be able to try and secure the vessel. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of boats that were sold way above market value in less than 24 hours this summer.

[RedneckRedcoat]

Couple of things, an owner doesn’t have to share a survey with you for a couple of reasons, 1. they never get a copy from any potential buyer that’s had the boat surveyed. 2. an owner will only give you a survey if he has had it for insurance or it’s under 5 years old most owners insurance have a slight different kind of survey. Lastly I wouldn’t want a survey from an owner , you don’t know the surveyor or what the survey was for. Personally I dont think they are worth the paper they are written on because they will only confirm what the boats worth and what to the surveyors knowledge works and doesn’t . Plus if there is any major problems you find after the survey that’s down to you as you normally sign a waver discharging them from any liability.

[double u]

Originally Posted by adamandannika

In Dave's defense, the sailboat market was drastically different in 2018.

This was especially evident to us when our boat consultant, who previously recommended clients make an initial offer of 10-15% less than asking, started to advise immediately making a full-price or higher offer, just in order to be able to try and secure the vessel. I don't have enough fingers to count the number of boats that were sold way above market value in less than 24 hours this summer.

we had VERY specific ideas about what sort of boat we wanted (based on previous extensive cruising), so this narrowed the marked down considerably, even in 2018.
& btw: USD 50k for 40' - now THAT would narrow it down! (never mind the year!)