Jump to content

Selling our boat


tomandsophie

Featured Posts

Sadly for me (as I didn't really want to sell but had to) I managed to sell the dear old Baron within a week of placing a classified ad on ebay - and the phone never stopped ringing - so I would recommend it. Seems clear photos and a realistic price helps.

Best of luck,

Matt

Link to comment
Share on other sites

IM not having a go but for near on a 100k all you can manage is 4 pictures?

Are you still debating if you should sell or not?

 

If you looked more carefully you'll see that there are lots of photos there. 12 in fact - the most Apolloduck would allow me to put up.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

After looking around for a new boat for weeks after selling ours, we looked at Ebay in desperation. Our perfect boat just popped up that day and it was an extremely smooth sale both for us and the sellers. Obviously no money changed hands until we were completely satisfied on all aspects of the boat.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm, ebay is sounding pretty good. I might wait until the weekend though as we have a couple of people coming to have a look around in the coming week.

 

On second thoughts I guess the sooner the better really.

This all makes me feel very sad. I can't quite believe we're selling our beautiful boat. Why aren't there any canals on the South West coast (except the Exeter Ship Canal which is just too busy with tourists)?! Grrr.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for all the replies. Sorry, haven't looked on the forums for a while.

In answer to your questions:

I will put a new add on Apolloduck tonight when I have got all the new photos ready. It has nothing to do with the blacking (that was a separate comment unrelated to interior pics), but just that I had to wait for some sunshine to take the interior pictures!

With regards to ebay, I guess I might as well put a classified ad on there. The more internet coverage the better.

Still sad though, although I'm excited about being able to grow vegetables, keep chickens, and live near the sea in the South West!

 

Tom and Sophie - -

 

I envy you the opportunity to grow veg near the sea in the South West!

 

(If I could live anywhere in England it would be in that part of the world)

 

Enjoy

Link to comment
Share on other sites

If I were selling a boat with a nice interior I'd do a video tour of it with the digital camera, upload it to youtube and send the link to anyone expressing interest in the boat so that they can get a 'live' feel of the boat rather than just still pictures.

 

I think its worth using ebay as a 'shop window' as it does attract a lot of viewers.

 

The santa monica airlines site seems to be good although it suffers quite badly from the 'apalling duck plague' which is where boats are advertised for too much money by people with too much optimism :lol:

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Sadly for me (as I didn't really want to sell but had to) I managed to sell the dear old Baron within a week of placing a classified ad on ebay - and the phone never stopped ringing - so I would recommend it. Seems clear photos and a realistic price helps.

Best of luck,

Matt

I think the highlighted point is probably the most salient one.

 

Apollo Duck is stuffed full of what look like attractive boats, but advertised at far too optimistic prices.

 

My view is that whilst some may get lucky, most sellers do themselves no favours by testing the market at a price that is simply too high.

 

People do tend to notice the price things start at, how they get reduced, and how long a boat has hung around, (well we certainly did, and I'm sure a lot of people are more thorough about tracking "for sale" boats than we were).

 

Once they have gone "stale", I suspect some owners end up selling at considerably less than if they had attached a realistic price in the first place.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

it's a shame apolloduck can't collect figures for originally advertised price and final sale price :lol:

 

I suspect that discounts in the region of 30% are common

:lol:

 

Shame you can't do that with some brokers too....

 

Particularly those that try to claim the advertised price is a good market valuation, and don't expect to haggle!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We've put our boat up for sale :lol: :lol: :lol:

I've put an ad on apolloduck, but I'm not quite sure where else to advertise. Of course we'll put a sign on the boat and a couple on local noticeboards, but does anybody else know of any good places to advertise?

Free internet ads on apolloduck.com and boatsandoutboards.co.uk seem to work well for getting enquiries and private adverts are free. What we find works well is to use some nice pictures of your boat on a sunny day, with blue skies etc and if a picture looks a bit dodgy - don't use it!

 

There are some great deals from boat brokers now - some are selling for as low as 2% - and it is worth the money to let them deal with all the hassles of endless viewings and whittle down to an actual fuirm buyer - unless you do have lots of time on your hands and can do it all yourself.

 

I would say that 60% of people who have bought a boat with us, make their mind up there and then - so if you aren't available to be at your boat during the weekdays and all weekends, again - use a broker (you'll usually get free moorings whilst on brokerage too!)

 

Paul

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I have noticed that syndrome on Apollo Duck: a boat is optimistically advertised for daft money, it lingers in the listings unnoticed, then a few weeks later it pops up brightly at the top of the list again for six grand less. There's someone been trying to sell a pair of liveaboard boats moored in the London suburbs for donkey's ages, every so often the price is further reduced, and I'm not sure if they have sold them even now.

 

preloved'co.uk is, I believe, also free to advertise on.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I think the highlighted point is probably the most salient one.

 

Apollo Duck is stuffed full of what look like attractive boats, but advertised at far too optimistic prices.

 

My view is that whilst some may get lucky, most sellers do themselves no favours by testing the market at a price that is simply too high.

 

People do tend to notice the price things start at, how they get reduced, and how long a boat has hung around, (well we certainly did, and I'm sure a lot of people are more thorough about tracking "for sale" boats than we were).

 

Once they have gone "stale", I suspect some owners end up selling at considerably less than if they had attached a realistic price in the first place.

 

Yep agree with all of this. Ours was on Appaling duck at a whopping £75k (ok, it was with a transferrable London mooring). We bought for £43k, via Boatshop, where the boat ended up advertised. The vendor couldn't find anyone loaded enough to stump up £75k in order to buy a boat (and a mooring that they could never own).

 

Think you'll find that that's the case with most London moored boats, they come down to a reasonable price eventually. People who want to live on boats aren't generally rich, if they were, they'd be buying bricks and mortar.

 

If you're looking on Apollo Duck to buy a boat, you must make sure you know your onions. I am constantly amazed at what people will pay for 30 year old buckets in dire need of overplating. I think they are comparing the price to buying a flat, it seems a good deal, but it's not when you compare it to other boats.

 

If I were selling a boat with a nice interior I'd do a video tour of it with the digital camera, upload it to youtube and send the link to anyone expressing interest in the boat so that they can get a 'live' feel of the boat rather than just still pictures.

 

This is a really good idea, it might also weed out any 'tyre kickers' before they request an IRL viewing.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Right then, she's on ebay, apolloduck, boatshop, gumtree, and a couple of other sites I found via Google.

Any other ideas?

What do you think of brokers? Are they worth the money? Bearing in mind that one of us is as at home most of the time, we don't need a mooring or somebody to take charge of the viewings. It seems that paying a broker 6% of the selling price (which could end up being a fee of around £5000!!!) would be a bit ridiculous. That is, unless they could actually sell our boat significantly quicker than we can. Hmmm. Would it be worth going to one of them?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Right then, she's on ebay, apolloduck, boatshop, gumtree, and a couple of other sites I found via Google.

Any other ideas?

What do you think of brokers? Are they worth the money? Bearing in mind that one of us is as at home most of the time, we don't need a mooring or somebody to take charge of the viewings. It seems that paying a broker 6% of the selling price (which could end up being a fee of around £5000!!!) would be a bit ridiculous. That is, unless they could actually sell our boat significantly quicker than we can. Hmmm. Would it be worth going to one of them?

 

I suspect a good broker may, possibly, be worth securing - -

 

But I would negotiate very hard to reduce the % fee

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tom,

 

You'll not thank me for saying this, I feel, but several people tries to give you a strong steer that "The Duck" and similar could be a very effective marketplace, but getting the selling price right was everything.

 

Whilst I can't really comment on value of a boat I've never seen, a quick check showed your initial price to be higher than many wide-beams of similar spec and price, (or that ones priced as high were often newer).

 

Very much a personal view, but I consider "reduced for a quick sale" to be a bad idea to put in your advertising.

 

If a broker was to bring anything to the equation, setting the price realistically is very important, IMO.

 

I hope you'l ltake this in the spirit I intend - I'm trying to offer realistic helpful comment. You obviously have loved your boat to bits, but whilst experience shows that some will eventually sell at surprisingly high prices, many do not, as people are suspicious when a boat is suddenly dropped by £10-20K on prices they were looking at a few weeks ago.

 

Of course I hope I'm wrong, and you can realise as much as you would hope for, but I'm not convinced that trying to sell the boat in half a dozen different ways is any better than people using a similar number of estate agents in an attempted house sale. To anybody studying all th ways a boat can be sold, it unfortunately rather smacks of desperation, (to me, at least).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Tom,

 

You'll not thank me for saying this, I feel, but several people tries to give you a strong steer that "The Duck" and similar could be a very effective marketplace, but getting the selling price right was everything.

 

Whilst I can't really comment on value of a boat I've never seen, a quick check showed your initial price to be higher than many wide-beams of similar spec and price, (or that ones priced as high were often newer).

 

Very much a personal view, but I consider "reduced for a quick sale" to be a bad idea to put in your advertising.

 

If a broker was to bring anything to the equation, setting the price realistically is very important, IMO.

 

I hope you'l ltake this in the spirit I intend - I'm trying to offer realistic helpful comment. You obviously have loved your boat to bits, but whilst experience shows that some will eventually sell at surprisingly high prices, many do not, as people are suspicious when a boat is suddenly dropped by £10-20K on prices they were looking at a few weeks ago.

 

Of course I hope I'm wrong, and you can realise as much as you would hope for, but I'm not convinced that trying to sell the boat in half a dozen different ways is any better than people using a similar number of estate agents in an attempted house sale. To anybody studying all th ways a boat can be sold, it unfortunately rather smacks of desperation, (to me, at least).

 

But surely Alan, many people love to get a bargain (or to think that they are getting one), so the sight of a substantial price reduction will interest them keenly?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Brokers have the advantage of walk in sales. People turn up at brokerrages and look at a lot of the boats, not just the one's they thought they were interested in. Also, many first time buyers will feel more comfortable going through a broker, not that it give them any more security or whatever.

 

The problem is of course, you need to live on the boat while selling and understandably don't want to fork out brokerage fees.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

But surely Alan, many people love to get a bargain (or to think that they are getting one), so the sight of a substantial price reduction will interest them keenly?

Yep, there are two sides to every coin, and obviously a spread of potential buyers would react differently.

 

I recall a potentially very nice boat at a major brokerage, (good looking Wilson shell, but needing a repaint, and boat not cared for inside), but I considered it seriously overpriced. Broker showed little interest in even passing a significantly lower offer to the vendors, so we looked elsewhere.

 

By the time we owned Chalice the advertised price of the Wilson boat was down to levels I would have been prepared to offer months earlier.

 

An lose situation for the vendor, and us, and as I suspect the final buyer paid a lot less than the advertised discounted price, they were the only winners.

 

The fully repainted boat now looks magnificent externally, and the new owner has done very well because the boat went completely "stale" in the market, but could have sold months earlier with a more realistic initial view of true value.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Hmm, interesting. Thanks for the delicately-put advice about price Alan, but we have set the price at a level that we consider to be right for our boat. She is built on a Colecraft shell of exceptionally high quality, and the fitout is superb. I know I'm biased, but I have had many many people approach me on the towpath and comment on how nice our boat is, and many of those people have recommended a much higher selling price. After careful scanning of the current prices, we have set ours at about the same or slightly lower than other comparable boats. Plus of course we're open to offers!

It's a very difficult thing to get right, and in the end I think it's down to being patient and waiting for the right buyer to come along at the right time.

In the meantime though, I'm just trying to figure out if it's worth going through a broker or not. I'm not sure I can justify the £5000+ that they're going to charge.

 

Does anybody have any really positive (or negative of course) experiences of brokerages? Any recommendations or otherwise would be much appreciated.

Edited by tomandsophie
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.