Boat shopping and survey woes

Pirate Lady said:
I agree but as Doug said, I have all the maintenance records for all I have done, no records from previous owners. Now as a buyer what you going to do?
Not even talking a boat mine age. an 8 yo boat been thru 3 owners who got 2 footitis. No records, what do you do?
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Totally fair question. I don’t know but I guess taking a stand as a seller of telling every potential buyer to fuck off for asking for some concessions doesn’t seem right either.
 
Pirate Lady said:
And we agree. Compromise always works. Read some of these threads and not just on CSR, some folks are looking for a new boat at used prices.
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It’s a market with which I am unfamiliar; to be sure. So I am watching with interest.
 
Reason I coming from this angle, last summer my buddy was selling a 330, buyer surveyor put a cup of water in microwave and said it didn’t heat fast enough. Buyer demanded the microwave be replaced before he would purchase. Ya, really. Seen buyers require the mattress foam be replaced before purchase. Ya, really.
Got go.
 
Pirate Lady said:
Reason I coming from this angle, last summer my buddy was selling a 330, buyer surveyor put a cup of water in microwave and said it didn’t heat fast enough. Buyer demanded the microwave be replaced before he would purchase. Ya, really. Seen buyers require the mattress foam be replaced before purchase. Ya, really.
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Totally agree that’s over the line with regard to expectations.
 
SeaNile said:
FYI- The CT 52 DA with MANS can be had for 380. Too much for me, especially with no maintenance records.
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douglee25 said:
If you know you're going to spend 25-30k for maintenance initially and that's part of your budget, you're looking at boats out of your price range.
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I think that's SeaNile's point: with maintenance records, and if the MAN services are up to date, the boat might be in his price range. (Maybe that $380K number.) Without service records, therefore having to assume the MAN services are not up to date, means the $380K boat costs $405K minimum, over his limit.

Suggests it's not really all of the maintenance records that's most important; it's knowing the status of (MAN, in this case) service. Records being one way to get there from here.

(I once called a local MAN guy about a boat in his area, he had serviced it, so I was able to make a better guess at boat value (or at least initial cost to me) that way. But that was just a luck, and I didn't pursue that boat too much further after all.)

-Chris
 
I would just assume at that level boat, you're dropping 25-30k immediately. No matter what.
 
douglee25 said:
I would just assume at that level boat, you're dropping 25-30k immediately. No matter what.
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My experience on the last two boats agrees. This boat I have now that was listed for $465K, I paid $425K four years ago which was fair market value; at that time I thought based upon my three trips to look at it then the surveys and what the broker said that I'd need to invest another $50K into it right after purchase. That ended up being close to $60K. The survey reported the cooling system maintenance was done on the QSM 11's but I found that in fact that was done on only one engine several years later, when it was done again along with the work on the exhaust manifolds and a deeper review of the documentation that came with the boat. Between then and now I've probably spent another $170K on electronics, HVAC, floor coverings, canvas, lighting, refrigeration, davits, rebuilding the running gear, exhaust risers, and on and on..... Some of that investment was due to a lightning strike however, that replaced mostly things that were past their lifecycle anyway.
The point is, especially for a boat over ten years old, that whatever the boat is acquired for there is another level of investment to get the machine up to spec.... To me it appears that the OP's expectations and reality are two different things especially in today's messed up market. You cannot expect to get obsolescence including maintenance done on cost negotiations for a purchase. But trying isn't out of the question. This doesn't excuse the lack of communications between the three parties to get a deal done or not.
You know - buying a toy is supposed to be fun and I make darn sure it is for me.
 
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There is maintenance and there are upgrades. If the previous owner skips the major maintenance items (ie this $10,000 cooling system maintenance on diesels) and expects to offload his problem on me, I’ll pass. If the boat still has the original electronics I’ll budget for that and upgrade myself.
 
Golfman25 said:
There is maintenance and there are upgrades. If the previous owner skips the major maintenance items (ie this $10,000 cooling system maintenance on diesels) and expects to offload his problem on me, I’ll pass. If the boat still has the original electronics I’ll budget for that and upgrade myself.
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I agree with this! But in reality the buyer will probably only be able to negotiate a part of that deferred maintenance value.
 
douglee25 said:
I would just assume at that level boat, you're dropping 25-30k immediately. No matter what.
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Fair assumption BUT I'd expect that kind of cost over and above "known" (predicted) catch-up engine maintenance costs in a case like this. IOW, that'd be for the rest of the boat, with engine rehab additional.

My recent experience is much like @ttmott has described. Boatloads of money rehabbing engines. Plus boatloads of money rehabbing the rest of the boat. So far, only a few actual upgrades.

-Chris
 
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The '52 that I just passed on after partial survey (all out of water stuff) was suspect from the start when service/maintance records couldn't be found (owner had passed, broker said they couldn't be found) yet all other records were on boat in binders (owner was an engineering exec). Survey showed recent repairs from grounding, which that itself could of been overlooked with records of repair. Neither shaft would spin so alighment necessary, one of the cutless berings wasn't in all the way and the excess cut off with hacksaw. All of this plus a list of things that I would call overdue maintance meant that even if they owner would of been willing to negotiate on the price, there would of been weeks if not months to get it sorted out after launch in late May. Oh, and once more info came out on the boat, it spent a decent amount of it's life in the saltwater yet broker was (and still is) describing it as a freshwater boat.
 
It's the BROKERS JOB to take the EMOTION out of the deal for both the seller and the buyer.

A GOOD broker can do that and bring the parties together.

This truly is an ART !

I was fortunate 21 years ago and again this year on my big boat purchases to have lucked out with two great brokers, and in both cases I had a BRILLIANT CONSLIGERI in my corner, whispering advice in my ear with the terms of the offer, time constraints in the offer, escape clauses in the offer and post survey negotiations for the "surprises.

It was their skillsets that made both of these deals reality.

John didn't have either in this case, and cannot negotiate from a position of strength.

This will just have to play itself out.

BEST !

RWS
 
Sea Nile- out of curiosity, to close this out did your offer get rejected? I see you bought another boat (I think). Did you just pull the offer and accept you were out the survey money?
 
boatrboy said:
Sea Nile- out of curiosity, to close this out did your offer get rejected? I see you bought another boat (I think). Did you just pull the offer and accept you were out the survey money?
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We were able to come to a deal given the items noted during the survey. As the buyer I am painting the absolute worst possible scenario and shooting for the moon with a reduced price. In reality, none of the items on the survey are critical, sans having a little pitch removed from the props. We managed to meet in the middle and I will address the items but not all at once.
 
SeaNile said:
We were able to come to a deal given the items noted during the survey. As the buyer I am painting the absolute worst possible scenario and shooting for the moon with a reduced price. In reality, none of the items on the survey are critical, sans having a little pitch removed from the props. We managed to meet in the middle and I will address the items but not all at once.
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Is this the same boat in this post or a different one?
 
SeaNile said:
We were able to come to a deal given the items noted during the survey. As the buyer I am painting the absolute worst possible scenario and shooting for the moon with a reduced price. In reality, none of the items on the survey are critical, sans having a little pitch removed from the props. We managed to meet in the middle and I will address the items but not all at once.
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I'm happy for you the buyers finally communicated and you were able to gain some compromise in this crazy market. Congratulations on a great boat!
Tom
 
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