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Buying your first boat - what would you have done differently?


golden_chapati

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I don't know. It just wasn't a place where I'd feel happy living. I'm sure it will make a good home for someone, but not me. I saw two more boats in a nearby Marina and they seemed a lot more my style. One in fact was really tidy and priced to sell but it reeked of cigarettes!! I suppose that can be gotten rid of? 

Edited by golden_chapati
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3 hours ago, golden_chapati said:

I don't know. It just wasn't a place where I'd feel happy living. I'm sure it will make a good home for someone, but not me. I saw two more boats in a nearby Marina and they seemed a lot more my style. One in fact was really tidy and priced to sell but it reeked of cigarettes!! I suppose that can be gotten rid of? 

Nothing wrong with buying a smelly boat that others cant see the potential in - I bought one a few boats back that had been inhabited by cats and I mean seriously inhabited!!! The broker admitted that it was a blockage to offers (and he wanted rid) so I offered £37k against £52k and got it and then got £3k off following the survey spent £11k and sold it 4 years later for £59k.

Smells are generally in all soft furnishings incl mattresses so the solution can be expensive, other surfaces can be sorted and this expenditure is all part of making it yours anyway so not wasted.

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3 hours ago, golden_chapati said:

I don't know. It just wasn't a place where I'd feel happy living. I'm sure it will make a good home for someone, but not me. I saw two more boats in a nearby Marina and they seemed a lot more my style. One in fact was really tidy and priced to sell but it reeked of cigarettes!! I suppose that can be gotten rid of? 

That seems as good a reason as any I can think of. When I viewed the boat I'm currently sitting on I fell in love the moment I saw it - I had viewed several others first and whilst I could have imagined myself living on a couple of them, none of them quite did it for me. Though be careful about buying a boat because it's your style - style can be changed, the fundamentals need to be right too - with this boat I spent hours poring over it and then had a survey, all of which seemed to confirm I'd chosen well.

 

The boat smelling of cigarettes might be a good buy if the price is right - I'd certainly expect that to make it more affordable (and if not walk away) - probably even worth putting in a silly offer if you feel it would otherwise work. Should be possible to get rid of, though it might take a while, and you'll likely find the smell is embedded in all the soft furnishings which you'll have to either wash or treat somehow or replace. If you're up for that and it's otherwise right then it shouldn't necessarily put you off (it would me, but then I find the smell of cigarette smoke so offputting I doubt I could bare it whilst getting rid, not in my home). Just as an aside it's probably worth mentioning that my current car was a real bargain, partly due to the very high mileage, but I'm sure also partly due to smelling of dog. It took a couple of months to get rid of that, I sprayed the upholstery several times (and I wasn't living in it) - for me that felt worth getting a bargain.

Edited by aracer
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8 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Your command is my wish !!!

 

EEJX5aTsU3r2JW-Ng5SoWYpu1n-w3TgiUegUY-b4A2U.jpg

Oops, I was incorrect.  I can see 4 boats there - the two bolted together and the rib and the liferaft strapped to it.  That's just greedy, especially as you have another one (or is that two with a tender?)

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10 hours ago, WotEver said:

If you enter the reg number into Canalplan (link below) it will show you when it was first registered with BW.

Not in the case of my boat it doesn't - I doubt that's a unique issue.

10 hours ago, golden_chapati said:

I tried it by name but can't seem to find the exact boat. Also, it the results include "last updated" but don't seem to indicate first registartion. Is that only applicable to searches done by reg? 

As mentioned you need to use the reg number - my boat name isn't on the system, and when I first searched I was all confused and double checked the number with the dealer (it didn't help that the length registered is slightly different to what it was sold as). Though I subsequently found the original name on a plate on the engine block which confirmed things, along with an older registration document. Interestingly it does occur to me that the canalplan data shows the earliest it could have changed names which isn't that long ago, which presumably also gives a maximum age of the paintwork (which is reassuring).

8 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

There is no more risk buying from a 'private seller' than there is buying from a Broker.

Generally you don't buy from a broker anyway, they just facilitate the sale (more like an estate agent combined with a conveyancer than a used car dealer - whether that's an advantage or not depends on your opinions of both!) My understanding is that there are some minor legal advantages, but certainly not in terms of any guarantee of the condition of the boat.

8 hours ago, Alan de Enfield said:

Please don't buy a boat expecting it to retain its original price - the only way to achieve this is to either 'buy-well' ( I managed to get £80,000 knocked off the asking price due to a technicality), or by getting 'given' a boat. (even then you may end up having to pay someone to take it away).

 

Boats are normally a depreciating asset, but there are always the odd exception for something rare or 'collectable'.

Hmm, I may be going to be disillusioned at some point, but from what I could work out of the market, if you buy old enough and keep it in good condition then at worst they should depreciate very slowly. It does of course depend what you mean by that - if you sell for the same amount you paid has it depreciated because of inflation? Sure a boat a few years old is going to lose value steadily, but does it really make any difference to the buyer whether a boat is 30 or 35 years old - as with buying older cars it's all about the condition rather than the age or miles. I suspect things are different for GRP boats but the NB marketplace seems to be a thing of its own, and as always the value of a boat is all about what somebody else will pay for it.

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3 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

I'd be interested in what you feel are the 'minor legal advantages'.

Mainly that they provide an escrow service. I agree it's perfectly possible to manage without, but it makes is a lot simpler to get that level of security (I'm guessing that most private transactions involve a bit more trust).

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6 minutes ago, aracer said:

Mainly that they provide an escrow service. I agree it's perfectly possible to manage without, but it makes is a lot simpler to get that level of security (I'm guessing that most private transactions involve a bit more trust).

I did a bit of Googling and found much more than I expected, here is just one https://www.ibinews.com/home/uk-broker-gets-prison-time-for-defrauding-clients/28393.article

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11 minutes ago, aracer said:

Mainly that they provide an escrow service. I agree it's perfectly possible to manage without, but it makes is a lot simpler to get that level of security (I'm guessing that most private transactions involve a bit more trust).

With a private sale you either hand over cash and take the keys and motor off, or,

Do a bank transfer when money hit the sellers account (1  hour) you take the keys and drive off.

 

No risk of the broker going bust or selling boats that dont' exist etc etc (and yes it happens more frequently that we would like.

A couple of years ago a broker in Nottingham had several boats in his yard on brokerage, long story short there was a variety of sharp-practices :

     1) Took deposits from several buyers.

     2) Took full payment and the buyer took the boat - seller never got their money

     3) Buyer paid in full, seller finding out what the broker was doing removed his boat - buyer lost his money and got no boat.

 

I can see no advantages in using a broker and in fact when I sell (privately) I explain to the potential buyer that I will sell at X% less than the market rate ( X = broker commission) so the buyer gets a 'bargain' and I get as much as I would if I had sold it thru a broker. No hassles and cash-on collection.

 

I have bought 18 boats over the last 30 years (and sold 16 of them)

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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22 minutes ago, ditchcrawler said:

 

Interesting they say :

 

Make sure that correct title documents are available. Even if you have seen the boat, having the correct title documents and knowing the person is the legal owner is very important. If you have a professional broker that you trust they will be able to help you with this for a fixed fee.

 

 

Easy for them. as a mainly  'lumpy water type of boat broker', (GRP Cruisers) where such checks and paperwork is the norm - on the Inland Waterways there is, shall we say, a slightly less 'formal' view to the provision of paperwork with secondhand boats.

 

A marine broker can (for a fee) access the SSR records - as can any individual, so that not a great benefit.

 

 

Edited by Alan de Enfield
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1 hour ago, Alan de Enfield said:

With a private sale you either hand over cash and take the keys and motor off, or,

Do a bank transfer when money hit the sellers account (1  hour) you take the keys and drive off.

 

No risk of the broker going bust or selling boats that dont' exist etc etc (and yes it happens more frequently that we would like.

As I mentioned, it is possible to get the same level of security with a private sale, but it's more hassle. Meanwhile if you're dealing with a fraudulent seller then at least in the second case I can certainly see potential issues, which are avoided when using a broker - the dealer acts as escrow for the boat as well as the money.

 

There's no more risk of buying a non existent boat with a broker than with a private seller that I can see - the risk is much the same in either case. Of course it all depends - the account I paid into was clearly a separate client account, which is how things should be done properly (I know some brokers don't do it properly, I'm referring to those who do - proper legal documents for my sale which I read very carefully several times, separate client account just as with a house sale or will settlement, both of which I've dealt with complicated versions of involving lots of discussion with solicitors, where the marginal amounts involved we were arguing over were more than my boat cost - even more than yours in one case!)

 

I understand your perspective and it's a perfectly valid one - no brokers don't add much value to the sale process, in that respect they're like estate agent and conveyancer as I suggested (and I have sold houses privately without involving either of those, including one which there is still an overage for more than my boat cost, which is currently being renegotiated!) But most boat purchases will be through a broker simply because that's where they're for sale.

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aracer,

 

Thanks- the boat in question is 1980, a nice fit inside and OK outside. They want 26,000k for it. It has a 2007 engine with circa 1000 hours. Two years ago it was over-plated - presumably its been afloat for two years then the work was done well? They owned it for 9 nears. I suppose I'd offer 21/22k. I think I would remove most of the curtains and cushions, etc, so that would hopefully remove the smell.

 

There was a very similar sort of boat but with a slightly less attractive fit out, no shower but built by R&D in 1989. Similar engine age, but no idea about the hull. I actually have 30k, but definitely want to save some for rejig inside, and any issues which arise. 9 years seems quite a lot to me, but this isn't reflected in the asking price (both boats probably going to go for 22k appro according to broker).  

 

For me, the vast majority of boats I've seen (online) for my price range all seem rather similar and in need of some cosmetics. I suppose the critical thing is not buying a rust bucket and then having to spend big sums on it, thus almost certainly losing a significant sum when I sell the boat. 

 

 

 

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  • 2 months later...
On 07/01/2019 at 23:48, Boater Sam said:

One of my names is Ross, I used to be the only one, long ago.

Or rather you just thought you were ?

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ross-shire

 

https://www.undiscoveredscotland.co.uk/usfeatures/areas/rossshire.html

 

https://www.ross-shirejournal.co.uk

 

There's more Rosses up here than you could shake a short stick at - though why you would want to be shaking sticks at people I have no idea, but there you go. You are no longer alone you have people. 

 

:giggles:

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