I’m curious as to
weather or not I am alone in my thinking. We are currently in the process of
buying another
boat. During our first experience
buying our first
boat I came away with a not so great impression of how boat brokers
work. For example situations where brokers either acted as if they were to busy to show a boat or wouldn’t return calls at all. Sometimes a
broker would even resist showing a boat I was interested in looking at. This latter case not so bad if he is looking out for me as the buyer but not so much the seller. And since the seller is who is in essence paying him to sell the boat I remember asking myself how I would feel if a potential buyer wanted to look at my boat which I had listed and my selling agent was deterring buyers from even looking then why did the accept the listing in the first place?
Fast forward to today. We have found a boat we are wanting to
purchase from a listing on YachtWorld. We contacted the listing
broker and had to conform to his convenience to arrange a time to look at the boat. Letting that slide do the the fact we wanted to look the next day after calling and he claimed he had prior commitments, not a major deal as we were able to make arrangements for one of the other brokerage brokers to show us the boat. Only downside to this was this broker new nothing as to the
history of the boat. Boat has been
on the hard since last October when listed
for sale. After going though the boat we decide to put an offer in, conditioned upon
survey and sea trial of course. Now this part goes smooth and quickly by the listing broker and our offer is accepted and we are under
contract.
Now the fun begins. I contact my boat
surveyor and he has a available date to do the sea trial about a week out. So I contacted the broker to set it up and I am told they will not be able to get the boat put back in the
water for almost two weeks. I protested and put up a argument and explained this was unacceptable for my timeline as his response was simply too bad and walk away if you don’t like it. Not even so much as a “let me see what I can do for you” So once again we concede and schedule sea trial a a later date when both the marina and the
surveyor available. So I then ask the broker to give me a list of anything they may be a known issue with the boat before we put it in the
water in case there is something that needs to be negotiated prior to the boat being put in the water as it is my responsibility to pay to have the boat put back
on the hard if I do not accept it after the sea trial. The
batteries were dead so there was no way to test any of the
electrical systems while on the hard, not to mention the
batteries are probably crap now.
I don’t hear anything back from the broker until the day before the scheduled sea trial and now he says that the two main
raw water seacocks need to be replaced. You guessed it, another 2 week delay! Now here it is again the day before the scheduled sea trial. And as of the two days ago the seacocks are not installed.
Now I know the responsibility falls upon the owner to have the boat
seaworthy for trial, but the broker has done nothing to help in this process. By even advising the owner what he needs to do to sell his boat.
My question is if your going to list your boat with a broker and ask $200,000 that means this broker is going to get paid $20,000 for what? 10 minutes
work to post a listing on YachtWorld? To me this is absolutely ridiculous.