Price is the single biggest reason a boat sells in weeks rather than months. Here is how to set one you can defend.
Almost every boat that sits unsold for a season is priced wrong, not marketed wrong. Buyers browsing a classifieds site compare like for like within minutes, so a boat priced ten per cent above the market is usually filtered out before anyone reads the description.
Start with what comparable boats are actually listed at
Search this site for your make, model and a year either side of yours. Note the asking prices, but note the age of those listings too: a boat that has been advertised for six months at a given price is evidence of what does not sell, not of what does. The listings that disappear quickly are the ones telling you the market rate.
Adjust honestly for condition and equipment
Work through the differences between your boat and the ones you found, and put a number on each:
- Engine hours and service history. A fully documented service record is worth real money. Low hours with no paperwork is worth much less than buyers expect.
- Standing and running rigging on a sailing boat, and its age. A rig due for replacement is a five-figure conversation on anything sizeable.
- Sails, canopies and upholstery. These are the items a buyer can see are tired from the photographs alone.
- Electronics. Recent, well-installed navigation kit adds value. A decade-old plotter adds nothing.
- Berth or mooring. A transferable mooring in a sought-after harbour can be worth more than any single piece of equipment aboard.
Do not price in your own costs
What you paid, what you spent on the refit, and what you still owe are all irrelevant to a buyer. The only question the market answers is what someone will pay for this boat, in this condition, this season. Antifouling, a service and a new set of batteries are the cost of selling a boat in presentable condition — they rarely come back as a premium.
Leave a little room, but not a lot
Most buyers expect to negotiate, and pricing with no margin at all makes it hard to close. But a large cushion is counter-productive: it pushes you out of the search filters buyers actually use, so the people who would have paid your real price never see the boat at all. Five per cent is usually enough.
Review it after three weeks
Enquiries in the first fortnight are the clearest signal you will get. Plenty of enquiries and no offers usually means the boat is not presenting as well as it is priced — better photographs and a fuller description will fix that. Very few enquiries at all almost always means the price is wrong, and the fix is a single decisive reduction rather than a series of small ones, which only signals that another is coming.
