Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Boat Evaluation for Buyers and Sellers

By John Howard

From the viewpoint of the seller of a boat or yacht, but just as well for other involved people such as buyers, brokers, and marine surveyors, finding out the monetary worth of a marine vessel is one of the most crucial but also one of the most harrowing aspects of marine life.

For the seller, pricing the boat well will make the difference between walking away with the right amount of funds to but an even bigger and more performing watercraft, or finding himself undersold and unable to retrieve its investment in full.

Even if you are buying, or trading in used boat for a new one, you should not let anyone fool you into believing that you should get anything but the best from the arrangement, and for this it is crucial that you manage appraise your boat correctly as a precursor to getting the best value out of it. .

For both boat buyers and sellers, it is a hard evaluation to make, especially because boat prices fluctuate a lot due to circumstances that are hard to understand, not only due to perceived value but also due to factors such as seasonality and location. It is easy to enter what looks like a great deal, only to later discover that you have been had.

Which is why boat evaluation cannot just be an afterthought or a given, but must be considered with care. First of all, the prospective buyer or seller needs to decide whether to go solo, or whether to hire a boat evaluation pro. Marine brokers can help to sort out the issue for you.

In fact, as there is a lot of information available on the subject for those who are willing to spend some time educating themselves, you can do this yourself if you prefer not to be dependent on someone else's opinion.

To become your own appraiser for boat values, you need to look at as many resources as possible - and there are plenty of books and websites on the subject. Your aim should be to come up with realistic minimum and maximum process for the kind of boat you want or are about to sell.

Online or paper trade magazines are a very popular source to compare the min-max values of your boat with comparable objects - check out classifieds, journals, various yards and boat traders. You will find plenty of listings with prices, and if you look at various ads over time (in different issues) you will get an idea of how fast objects are selling, that is if the asking price was right.

Your next stop should me your local marina's party or some other kind of social get-together, where you can find other boat owners that can brief you on the current state of the market.

New boat exhibitions are good to gauge current fashions. Fashionable items demand a better price, and you can increase the value of your marine transaction by finding out what features and accessories are currently over- or undervalued.

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