Timing does help..I just bought a 2009 boat from Venetian Marina that had been discounted by £10,000. A buyer had paid for a survey to discover that among other issues the hull had corroded along the entire length of the water line and of course the surveyor had advised extensive over plating so buyer walked away.
Seller must have been disheartened about this and to get rid reduced the price by £10,000 to cover the "repair" costs
I have had several boats over the years so have a good idea of what the real cost should be and as wife likes the layout, we made an offer to buy with out survey and bought the boat. Time will tell if I made the right decision lol
But what the broker told me afterwards which I found interesting is that in his 15 years of working as a broker he has never seen anything like this - pre-pandemic the Marina would have 30 to 40 boats for sale and now if they are lucky they will have five. They just cant keep up with the demand - there was even a 1995 NB listed for £40,000 that within a couple of days of listing was "under offer" and in my opinion pre-pandemic that would have been a £25 to £30k boat. Lets see if that will also be relisted after survey!