Discover Boats

Determining how much your vessel is worth a fundamental, but also one of the hardest elements of owning a hobby watercraft, especially when the boat is up for sale, but also for the buying counterpart, as well as for professional such as surveyors and insurance representatives.

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.

As a buyer, similarly your ability to appraise your new toy with the right foreknowledge is essential, and you should not walk lightheartedly into a transaction, or you risk being on the losing side of it. You need to learn about boat appraisal to strike a fair deal.

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.

To do the evaluation right, there are two principal routes: One is to employ a professional appraiser, the other one is to do it yourself. Hiring a broker is the easier and quicker solution, but it is not automatically the best option.

On the other hand, why should you hire a broker and spend money and time waiting for other peoples judgments to affect you? There is plenty of information available on industry publications and on websites, so if you have the option of doing the boat evaluation yourself, then why not do it?

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.

Also good are boating festivals, which are usually organized by boating clubs and yachting marinas. These shows are excellent to pick up more info on boat values, plus people who come to the shows are experts in this industry and know what they are talking about. Don’t underestimate the value of a chat with the right person to accurately pinpoint the possible value of a boat – and you may even find a buyer!

Another good place to spend some time at are boat and yacht shows, even if you are ultimately buying or selling second hand. Finding out by yourself what kind of features and accessories are in fashion helps in determining what is currently in demand and what isn’t and this applies to used boats too.