Asking verses selling / purchase price

Carpediem44DB

Carpediem44DB

Well-Known Member
Aug 18, 2015
3,230
Sanfransico Bay area
Boat Info
2000 Carver 506
2006 44 DB Sedan Bridge
Engines
Volvo TAMD 74 P
For those of you who either sold or purchased a mid range sport yacht over the past few "good years", what was the percent difference in the advertised ask price and negotiated selling price? I know in the lean years it could be considerable and that markets and regions may differ. Just wondering what you all actually see first hand.
Thanks
Carpe Diem
 
tiara in the snow 01.JPG
Don't you think most sales in the big boat category are one offs? Condition and records availability really drive the premium prices. I see so many boats in West Michigan that are not really very well maintained. And there are maybe 5% that are obviously well cared for. Then there some great boats that the owners have allowed to become run down. Lots in the middle.
 
If you can get a friendly broker to get you a list of the model you are interested in over the last year, you should get listing price, selling price, location of the boat, and time on the market. You have to apply a bit of Kentucky windage to the data by eliminating bad locations (like Croatia, South America or even parts of the US), boats th at were on the market a long time before selling (usually indicates poor condition of obvious defects. Then you the math.

Brokers almost always built in a negotiation factor into the asking price......the typical is 10%.

I've done this for a few friends over the last 18 months and in every case the selling price was 92% - 94% to of the listing price. When asked to help on the negotiation, we have always been able to get a contract with contingencies at around 85%, but in every case the buyer was in the South East and there were several similar boats to choose from.

Hope that gets you started..........
 
When I sold my 410DA in the fall of 2017 we negotiated a price that was 4% off the advertised asking price.

-Tom
 
tiara in the snow 01.JPG
Denison sends a list of selling prices for given brands. I receive a list of all the Tiaras sold by size in the US about twice year. I believe they do that for SRs and other common brands as well.
 
i bought an 89 300 Sundancer. Asking $18,000. paid $1500. yes, two zeros. so, a lot depends upon seller motivation, market, time of year, etc.
 
So many factors. Survey, condition, location, popularity etc. My 320 surveyed well but needed some updates. Made a reasonable offer based on that and it was accepted. I would say 5-10% is reasonable expectation unless there are major issues.
 
As sbw1 says, if you go on the Dennison Yacht Sales website, poke around a little, and sign up, they will send a report of most all boats in your brand that are for sale and give the asking prices and maybe how long they have been for sale. I did what Frank suggested and had a broker I hardly knew send me all 420/44s sold in the previous 2 years. You can see what the asking price was, selling price, and how long on the market. Good stuff....

You will run into an emotional seller that will get really mad at your offer....funny thing was, 6 months after I bought my boat, his broker called and said OK, we will meet your offer. I bought a 2 year newer boat much more updated and for about the same price I offered....

Bennett
 
My purchase experience in December 2018 was to buy at 15% less than the asking price. I thought the asking price was reasonable but made an offer to see how interested the seller was in negotiating. He was apparently motivated and accepted my offer. The survey determined the fair market value just below the asking price.
 
I think it also depends on the initial asking price. When I bought my 320 it was about 5K below several listed in the same market. I got about 3K below asking.
 
A broker I know was just drunk enough to tell me the following secret.

'Assuming no issues come up in the survey, we advise our sellers to price the boat ~6-10% above their bottom line'
 
Attached is a sales report that a broker ran for us about 18 months ago when we were looking at 370s. This shows list price and reported sell price in our size and age range. You can use it to see the range of ask vs sell for these boats. Obviously you won't know condition or seller motivation.

Consider that this is midwest boats in a very narrow age range, the data is 18 months old, and these are self reported sales. I know for a fact that this dealer sold a '98 370 Sundancer, surface dirt from storage but mechanically and structurally sound, listed at $79k, dropped to $59k and sold for $55k. I know the sale for a fact because our dock neighbor bought the boat (about 8 hours before I got to it). I don't know why it isn't listed, but it may be the broker didn't want to report such a low price because it might undermine the market value of the other 370's they were selling.
 

Attachments

  • sales PDF.pdf
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bbwhitejr said:
As sbw1 says, if you go on the Dennison Yacht Sales website, poke around a little, and sign up, they will send a report of most all boats in your brand that are for sale and give the asking prices and maybe how long they have been for sale. I did what Frank suggested and had a broker I hardly knew send me all 420/44s sold in the previous 2 years. You can see what the asking price was, selling price, and how long on the market. Good stuff....

You will run into an emotional seller that will get really mad at your offer....funny thing was, 6 months after I bought my boat, his broker called and said OK, we will meet your offer. I bought a 2 year newer boat much more updated and for about the same price I offered....

Bennett
Click to expand...
Agree you will run into emotional sellers and usually you will have to walk if they are too unreasonable. Same exact thing happened to me as Bennett. Made an offer on a 320, sitting in a yard for at least one whole season needed some work, new canvas etc so I made a corresponding offer, contingent on Survey. Surveyed in fair condition only so i made a revised offer and gave some options, lower price or fix xyz and we still have a deal at the original. Owner was not having any of it it so I walked and figured let him pay for another season of storage will serve him right, lol. I found a different 320 and closed the deal. 3 months later the broker on the original boat was ringing me up. Too late. I suppose the broker has a tough job managing these kinds of sellers☹
 
bobeast said:
A broker I know was just drunk enough to tell me the following secret.

'Assuming no issues come up in the survey, we advise our sellers to price the boat ~6-10% above their bottom line'
Click to expand...

And this type of comment, even if the broker was telling the truth and was not to drunk to do so, applies to just one broker, the one you heard it from.

Not a boat broker, but can tell you that people that broker anything have differing professional thoughts on successful selling...

MM
 
Bought in 2017. Boat was pristine both in survey and mechanical inspection. Paid 91% of ask
 
MonacoMike said:
And this type of comment, even if the broker was telling the truth and was not to drunk to do so, applies to just one broker, the one you heard it from.

Not a boat broker, but can tell you that people that broker anything have differing professional thoughts on successful selling...

MM
Click to expand...

That's fair. I'm sure what product you sell, the local market conditions, the strength of the hangover, all play a part.
 
The only boat I actually made money on was a Boston Whaler. All the rest We took a substantial hit for prestige condition even with a good broker. If we ever went big again I would let Frank Webster be my broker and pay him double (-:
 
We recently sold our 320 and bought our new to us 420 DB. Through out the process we looked at about 12 boats and made accepted offers on 2 of them (1 failed survey). Since closing our deal we received follow up calls from 2 brokers and 1 private seller that we dealt with. The general response from all of them was "you should have made me an offer...you would have been surprised as to how low i would have gone". If we had pulled the trigger on any of these other boats we would have made an offer 20% less than what they were listed for. My question then is why didn't you list it as such taking in the standard 5-10% for negotiations. Our rationale was if we made a 20% offer that was not a slap in the face, and we found issues on the survey how negotiable would the seller be?
 
Last 2 boats purchased Frank and Rusty were an integral part of my team advising along the way. Highly recommend their input when buying or selling.

Not a big fan of soldboat data - use with discretion - sometimes it is helpful but have seen bad data.
 
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