So how busy can a boat broker really be?

After reading all of this, I'm looking forward to my next boat purchase. I feel like I got a really great deal on my current boat, but probably not as good as I could have gotten. My biggest problem was that I shopped for so long (and flew to Miami twice) that once I had decided, I'm not sure I was willing to walk away.

The broker did tell me on the phone that they had nearly closed at "$XX0,000" but the buyer couldn't come up with the coin. So, even if that was total BS, I knew what I could get it for. That's what I ended up paying, minus a few thousand in detailing, polishing, canvas repair, prop tuning... On account of it being the lowest price on yachtworld, and getting a few thou more off of the price, and being the boat we wanted, and getting good leads on financing, insurance, and licensing from the broker, who could say no?
 
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Greg, I'm ready to buy. I just need to find the right boat. That means I go look at boats. I've recently flown to VA, AL, and driven to AC. No boat. Keep looking.

My banker tells me this has been the busiest August on record for writing boat loans, go figure. Dont assume the boat brokers are not busy. They are, and as anyone in business knows, a qualification takes place with every phonecall. Especially when it is busy. If an ad is complete as Jim states, ask more questions other than what airport to land in and you just have been disqaulified.You will not get the time of day.

Pictures, if there are not any, beware. And sometimes pictures are old anyway. cant trust them, must see boat.

Local and internet shopping wont fit the bill in my opinion, you must venture out.

My boat came from the south and my previous boat was sold to someone in the south.

Man I like the south, time for some sweet tea!

bye now
 
Between Dancin' Dave's boat, and Frank H's boat, I'm in itis hell.
 
admin said:
I consider myself a hard working broker. Been doing it for 11 years and have been successful at it. We get emails all the time about photos, and I do reply to all of them. But honestly, if we had more photos we would have put them on the site in the first place. I can understand most brokers deleting inquiries like this. Today I had a guy send in an inquiry for a sailboat, the inquiry came from our online spec sheet on Yachtworld. Here is his question:

"I am interested in the ----- (listing ID #) on Boats.com. Please send me more information. Thank you."

I am not sure what he wants me to do, make some stuff up that is not on the specs and send it to him?

I think we are all getting spoiled by the information age. When I first started there were not online resources to list every spec of every boat model, so that info needed to be included in the spec sheet we created. Now I think brokers expect buyers will know the basics of boat models they are inquiring on. Who knows......

What I do know is if I could have $5 for every time I get an email asking for more pics I would not need to be working right now. Just for the record, any pics we have are already on the website :grin:
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This is exactly what I don't understand about brokers. I build custom homes for a living and only make about double per house what a broker will make on a 150k sale. The time I have into building the house, answering questions and coming back for a whole year afterwards is a whole lot more than any broker has to deal with with any single sale. If your looking to make 15g's or 2k for that matter on a sale, get the damn pics :huh: What does it take anyhow? A drive to the boat if its close or a call to the owner for a request? Anything less in my opinion is pure laziness. Saying you don't have them doesn't cut it for me. Tell me you can get them but it may be a few days or whatever. I can't understand why a broker wouldn't have anything less than 100 pics of a sizable boat he has listed? Do they not inspect the boat themselves before listing it? If so, BRING A CAMERA!! and spend an extra 10 minutes with it.

When I was looking for a 340 a few months ago, I dealt with many brokers who were just downright lazy. No matter what they think, you cant judge a person from their clothes or whatever. Every single call or email should be considered a potential sale, simple as that. Nearly all I dealt with didn't understand this concept. The one who finally did became a buyers broker for me and got his sale eventually. What I have learned is that it seems to be the younger, newer brokers who work harder. The guys who have been at it for years seem to think their s**t no longer stinks, maybe it didn't a few years ago but the market has changed and its time for them to also change.

Just as a note, this was not exactly directed to Jim personally, just my general take on brokers on the whole. SB
 
Greg, if your budget is 150 k and you want a turn key boat I'm thinking diesels are not in your near future. I would perhaps consider a turn key gas boat. For instance a super clean 40' sundancer with twin gas engines. tnt lift and everything. try 99k, maybe you could get it a bit lower. If your not cruising vast distances, you dont need the diesels.

Let me know, cause if you buy it, the seller will buy mine.
 
I don't understand the whole deal, and I've been there, done that. I never heard back from half the brokers I emailed back when I was shopping. I ended up finding a boat for sale privately 500 miles away. A member of another forum I'm on even volunteered to go and check it out, and took 60 detailed pics of the boat for me before I made the trip out there. I'm sure the people who are using lazy brokers sure wish they knew they were lazy...
 
This is what i don't get, the number of pics everyone feels they need. Even though your friend went and snapped 60 pics, you still had to go down and see it for yourself. I would think 3 pics would be more than enough to decide if you wanted to see it in person. outside, inside, ER. that's all I need to see to decide if I'm going to make the trip to see it in person. I don't need a pic of the toilet, each and every seat, the steering wheel.
 
Well, since I am on a quest for Red Balls today. . . .

. . .I think pictures can serve two primary purposes:

1) Confirm that the boat is not grossly neglected (i.e.; floating in the slip as opposed to sitting in mud at the bottom of a slip)

2) Confirm major options on the boat. When I shopped, I found that the descriptions could be less than informative, but if you have a PICTURE of the options. . then you know what the boat has. Examples includes a engine pic to confirm the type of engines, pic of the seating to verify which seating arrangement the boat has.

Not sure a picture could confirm details on boat condition.. . .unless it was REALLY bad.
 
TurtleTone said:
This is what i don't get, the number of pics everyone feels they need. Even though your friend went and snapped 60 pics, you still had to go down and see it for yourself. I would think 3 pics would be more than enough to decide if you wanted to see it in person. outside, inside, ER. that's all I need to see to decide if I'm going to make the trip to see it in person. I don't need a pic of the toilet, each and every seat, the steering wheel.
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If you were selling your boat and firecadet(a buyer from 500mi away) asked for more pics what you going to say "I sent ya 3, if you want more take em yourself". What is unreasonable about asking for pics? Granted 60 is overkill but you know what I mean.
 
TurtleTone said:
This is what i don't get, the number of pics everyone feels they need. Even though your friend went and snapped 60 pics, you still had to go down and see it for yourself. I would think 3 pics would be more than enough to decide if you wanted to see it in person. outside, inside, ER. that's all I need to see to decide if I'm going to make the trip to see it in person. I don't need a pic of the toilet, each and every seat, the steering wheel.
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I sold my 260 myself in less than one week. When I delivered the boat to him I told him I was surprised it sold so quick. His reply was that my 70+ pics I linked to in my ad was what made him more interested in it than the yachtworld listings with three. Why make a call to ask what airport to fly into if the broke/seller won't give you the time of day? I can understand your logic if the boat is across town but not when 100's of miles away. Work ethics sure have gone to h*ll in our country :huh: SB
 
A broker will make about $3,750 on a $150K sale. Thats assuming there are no survey adjustments the brokers have to kick in for.

If that boat is 500 miles away, and the listing broker is 100 miles away from that boat, do you expect him to go take a few more pics for you? Sometimes sellers sign up for your services and they are in far away places. We get listings from places like Smith Mountain Lake where there are no brokers, we never even see some of those boats. The sellers just use us because of our market knowledge and marketing.

Also, I have a hard time believing that inquiries on boats from sites like Yachtworld are not getting responses. Brokers pat a crapload of money to be on those sites and take those leads seriously. There are hundreds of other sites out there that take listings from Yachtworld, or offer free ads or whatever. If you inquire on boats from these sites you will likeley not get a response as the ad is no longer valid. For example, a bucnh of boats we once had are on seeboat.com. There is nothing I can do about it. They copied the listings and alll of those boats have since sold but are still listed as active on seeboat.
 
admin said:
A broker will make about $3,750 on a $150K sale. Thats assuming there are no survey adjustments the brokers have to kick in for.

If that boat is 500 miles away, and the listing broker is 100 miles away from that boat, do you expect him to go take a few more pics for you? Sometimes sellers sign up for your services and they are in far away places. We get listings from places like Smith Mountain Lake where there are no brokers, we never even see some of those boats. The sellers just use us because of our market knowledge and marketing.

quote]

No I don't, I expect him to get the pics from the seller who is assumed to be near the boat and keeping it in good shape to be shown. If the seller wants to sell, he'll send the pics. At the same time do you expect the buyer to go 500 miles on 3 pics? I'm sure you know how misrepresented alot of listings are or just how completely ignorant many brokers are as to what they have listed. If you can't show me pics of whats claimed to be, why should I bother to make the trip? SB
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Newbie said:
This is exactly what I don't understand about brokers. I build custom homes for a living and only make about double per house what a broker will make on a 150k sale.
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What kind of custom homes are you building for $150K.
 
BTW, the whole asking for pics and not recieving was my first mistake on buying my 340. I asked for them on an 05 but never recieved them. I really liked the boat though and was told he couldn't make it to get the pics so I took the brokers word for its condition. When I flew in for the survey/sea trial, it was nothing like advertised. Come to find out the brokers office was 15 minutes away, he was lazy. I wasted about 2500 between airfare, lodging, rental car, survey and haulout. And on top of it the broker was pissed that the survey took a full 8 hours and not 3. I was happy he didn't get a cut of my money and he lost the listing from the seller, all from the lack of pics :grin: SB
 
A pictures worth a thousand words. There was a major difference between the few general pictures the seller took, compared to the 60+ detailed pics my friend took. Those up close pics made me sure I wanted to make the drive, and ended up selling the boat.
 
it has nothing to do with work ethics. It has to do with time and available resources. Most of these brokers are one man shows. They don't have a staff of people running around answering the phones and snapping pics for every inquiry. Nor do their clients want to pay for those resources. They want their boat sold for a little out of pocket expense as they can get away with. Sure there are crappy brokers and good brokers, but I can guarantee that if you take Franks approach, there will be no mistaking you for a blow off buyer.

See the difference? one approach you rely on the broker to sell you a boat. The other approach is you buy the boat. There is a difference.
 
I've found this to be a lot like the rest of life - a compromise. I've bought three Sea Rays from the same dealer and same salesman.

I think many of us who like boats, sportscars, or other hobby items, want to buy them from someone who:
Loves the product
Owns one themselves
Knows a ton about it etc
Cares about the buyer and understands our situation - kids, wives etc.

Unfortunately, the people selling these items, and those buying, almost by definition, are not the same. So this feel good dream is impossible.

My dealer is certainly imperfect. Knows nothing about diesels. Doesn't know details. DID own a 340 for a while and is a boater himself. HATES my kids (all kids) (I can tell, but he hides it). Does try to connect with us - birthday cards, periodic check ins - and now with the 420DB - is tracking all issues and checking in frequently - very good. He's not perfect, but I know his program, and he is better than many.

CSR has helped tremendously in getting the critical details. But - to someone's earlier point - he asked for some seriousness - and took a 5K deposit (that is like 1-2%) to take the boat off the market. After that- I had his attention even though it was fully refundable.

So, I think if it feels horrible - don't bother. If it feels great, rejoice. If it's ok - get a good deal.
 
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