Buying a boat - best and worst brokers

[Saul Bee]

Hi all, this is my first post so please be gentle.

 

Me and my girlfriend are about to buy a narrowboat. we know wat we are after but don't know which brokers to trust. Over the past year we have visited many of the well known ones and we sort of understand how it all works. But we have heard about horror stories!

 

Can anybody give us advice on who is the least likely to take us for a ride and who we need to avoid. We know we want to go with a broker as we don't want all the admin and potential risk, but we don't know who to trust.

 

 

I might be being a little paranoid, if so then tell me that! Haha.

 

Any other advice about brokers would be extremely helpful.

 

 

Thanks everyone.

Jamie

 

Chris B who is a member here is an absolute diamond. I saw him at Pyrford Marina just before Christmas and he was straight down the line honest and incredibly helpful.

[Joe the plumber]

I can recommend Braunston Marina, who sold our boat in less than two weeks and were thoroughly professional throughout the entire process, keeping us fully informed at all stages of the sale. The (often highly recommended on this forum) broker we previously used was hopeless.

 

When we were looking to buy a boat back in August - September 2015, we found the same broker who originally had yours remarkably unimpressive, which is partly how we ended up (and very happliy so) buying one at Whilton instead.

[David Schweizer]

 

When we were looking to buy a boat back in August - September 2015, we found the same broker who originally had yours remarkably unimpressive, which is partly how we ended up (and very happliy so) buying one at Whilton instead.

 

I assume you are referring to the broker not our boat!

Edited January 6, 2017 by David Schweizer

[Joe the plumber]

Indeed!

[Geoff Taylor]

I too can recommend Braunston Marina , we have had experience of buying and selling through them and in both instances received exceptional service.

 

It is very important to also have an experienced surveyor, for both of our dealings we used Craig Allan (he has built narrowboats) and his superb knowledge of his job saved us quite a few thousands in purchasing power.

[Traveller]

+1 for Craig Allen.

[blackrose]

Someone may have mentioned this already, but a favourite brokers "trick" is to give you a survey to look at on one of their boats which they had conducted a few weeks previously but then they tell you that of course you're free to commission your own survey. They know full well that a proportion of their customers will opt to save the survey fee and just take the broker's survey as bona fide, but that can be a big mistake. If you do buy the boat but later find serious problems you then have no come back with the surveyor because you didn't commission the survey, and the broker will have some provisos and caveats in their sales contract to say the boat was sold as seen. You might have some joy in court if you chose to take it that far but it's best not to get into that situation.

 

I know a couple of people who this has happened to. The last one found that shortly after buying his boat it had a chipboard floor and it was rotten with a load of water in the bilges. Any decent surveyor should have spotted that. He's had to completely gut the boat and refit it at a cost of about £10K - and he's doing it himself and getting a lot of his materials at trade prices.

[David Schweizer]

Someone may have mentioned this already, but a favourite brokers "trick" is to give you a survey to look at on one of their boats which they had conducted a few weeks previously but then they tell you that of course you're free to commission your own survey. They know full well that a proportion of their customers will opt to save the survey fee and just take the broker's survey as bona fide, but that can be a big mistake. If you do buy the boat but later find serious problems you then have no come back with the surveyor because you didn't commission the survey, and the broker will have some provisos and caveats in their sales contract to say the boat was sold as seen. You might have some joy in court if you chose to take it that far but it's best not to get into that situation.

 

I know a couple of people who this has happened to. The last one found that shortly after buying his boat it had a chipboard floor and it was rotten with a load of water in the bilges. Any decent surveyor should have spotted that. He's had to completely gut the boat and refit it at a cost of about £10K - and he's doing it himself and getting a lot of his materials at trade prices.

 

You may well be correct, but not all brokers play that game. I can assure readers that whilst a recent survey of our boat was available, Braunston Marina advised the prospective buyers to commission his own survey, which they did.

[Laurie Booth]

I thought surveyors always had a get out clause if they got the survey wrong.

[Alan de Enfield]

I thought surveyors always had a get out clause if they got the survey wrong.

 

They do :

 

Normally something to the effect of - "this survey is only valid for the instant that I do it, if anything breaks or is found to be not working after 'this instant in time' then I have no responsibility", and " I am unable to comment on anything that I cannot see, and will not lift carpets, open cupboard doors or do any checks that require the use of any tools".

[Nightwatch]

And another (sold our last boat quickly through them).

Really? I didn't know that. When did this happen.

i hadn't realised either. I have noticed the sales videos were 'different'.

 

Nothing like slipping away quietly.

[zenataomm]

There are good brokers and bad ones.

There are good brokers with unscrupulous sales staff and bad brokers with lovely, lovely, lovely sales people.

By next week all of that could change.

 

What you can control and also change is your own knowledge of: -

The questions you should always ask whoever the broker whatever the boat

Which type of layout/engine/back end/style etc. is acceptable or unacceptable to your needs

How much you want to spend/don't want to spend ..... finance etc, and your budget to make changes.

 

And above all HOW TO NEGOTIATE, regardless of whether it is a broker or a private vendor successful negotiation is a win for both sides.

Aggressive negotiating often leads to failure on one side and no deal.

Meek negotiating is likely to lead to you paying too much.

 

Getting your buying skills up to scratch is more important than who the broker is.

[David Schweizer]

There are good brokers and bad ones.

There are good brokers with unscrupulous sales staff and bad brokers with lovely, lovely, lovely sales people.

By next week all of that could change.

 

What you can control and also change is your own knowledge of: -

The questions you should always ask whoever the broker whatever the boat

Which type of layout/engine/back end/style etc. is acceptable or unacceptable to your needs

How much you want to spend/don't want to spend ..... finance etc, and your budget to make changes.

 

And above all HOW TO NEGOTIATE, regardless of whether it is a broker or a private vendor successful negotiation is a win for both sides.

Aggressive negotiating often leads to failure on one side and no deal.

Meek negotiating is likely to lead to you paying too much.

 

Getting your buying skills up to scratch is more important than who the broker is.

 

You omitted good brokers with good staff, and perhaps more importantly, poor brokers with disinterested staff.

Edited January 9, 2017 by David Schweizer

[David Mack]

 

You omitted good brokers with good staff, and perhaps more importantly, poor brokers with disinterested staff.

 

Or perhaps you mean uninterested staff.

 

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/disinterested-or-uninterested

[Laurie Booth]

 

Or perhaps you mean uninterested staff.

 

https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/usage/disinterested-or-uninterested

Or staff that could't give a sh1t.

[zenataomm]

 

You omitted good brokers with good staff, and perhaps more importantly, poor brokers with disinterested staff.

 

Yes, yes I did.

I thought the direction I was going in would be self explanatory, so didn't want to labour the point or insult anyone's intelligence by laboriously pointing out every single permutation.

However, thank you.

 

On reflection I prefer Laurie's suggestion, although I noticed his auto-spelling failed and allowed a "1" to interject.

[MtB]

I'd say that giving the staff large, sales-related incentives to sell are the root cause of brokers getting a bad reputation. Rather than being disinterested (in the correct sense of the word), they have an unhealthily large interest in closing the deal and will pull any tricks they can to achieve it.

[lulu fish]

I'd say that giving the staff large, sales-related incentives to sell are the root cause of brokers getting a bad reputation. Rather than being disinterested (in the correct sense of the word), they have an unhealthily large interest in closing the deal and will pull any tricks they can to achieve it.

 

Any idea how much a salesman gets paid for selling a boat? just out of interest.

[matty40s]

That would depend on brokerage, value of boat, what is in their contract and the price of fish.

[MtB]

 

Any idea how much a salesman gets paid for selling a boat? just out of interest.

 

 

Nope, but an estate agent once told me he got 10% of the commission the company was due on a house sale. I'd imagine those chaps at Wilton are on a similar sort of deal.

 

Intriguing as this means if you negotiate down the sales commission when flogging your house, this means the individual sales negotiators won't concentrate on flogging yours, they are more likely to push the higher commission houses at the punters first.

[Athy]

That would depend on brokerage, value of boat, what is in their contract and the price of fish.

No need to be personal.

But yes, your point is taken, there must be almost as many different rates as there are salesmen. I assume that some are on commission and others are on a fixed salary.

[zenataomm]

All of which are reasons for why I said it's more important to brush up on your buying and negotiation skills than naming and shaming brokers.

[David Schweizer]

All of which are reasons for why I said it's more important to brush up on your buying and negotiation skills than naming and shaming brokers.

 

Maybe if you are seeking to buy a boat, I am not sure it would make any impression when you are seeking to appoint a broker to sell on your behalf.

Edited January 9, 2017 by David Schweizer

[zenataomm]

 

Maybe if you are seeking to buy a boat, I am not sure it would make any impression when you are seeking to appoint a broker to sell on your behalf.

 

The title of this thread being ~ Buying a boat - best and worst brokers~ I think was what motivated me to answer the way I did.

 

Should anyone post a thread entitled ~Selling a boat - best and worst brokers ~ I shan't be contributing with anything I've said in this one.

[David Schweizer]

 

The title of this thread being ~ Buying a boat - best and worst brokers~ I think was what motivated me to answer the way I did.

 

Should anyone post a thread entitled ~Selling a boat - best and worst brokers ~ I shan't be contributing with anything I've said in this one.

 

Yes, fair enough. It is just rare for threads to stay true to the title for more than a few posts, in fact this one morphed from buying to selling in the second post, and then oscilated back and forth.

Edited January 10, 2017 by David Schweizer