Best way to use a broker? I''''m 0 for 2.
Has anyone had any success using a broker to find a boat. I''m 0 for 2. The first I used was in Annapolis. His website was full of glowing testamonials. I talked to him by phone, and through email, and he was very interested and helpful. My wife an I flew to meet him and look at 4 boats he had selected for us to view based upon our intended sail area and needs. The first boat we viewed was advertised at $75k. After 5 minutes he said owner would take $70k. It soon dropped to $65 and then $60k. As we climbed out of the boat, he said "so, why don''t we make an offer of $60k, I think the owner will sell for that and we won''t need to look at anything else". This was a Beneteau. We had a Pearson, Tayana and Allmand left to see (hows that for understanding my needs). I told him I wasn''t going to make on offer on the first boat I saw for 15 minutes, and we proceeded to the others but it was obvious he had lost interest. Strike one. The only other broker I tried to work with was in FLorida. Again, I responded to an internet listing for a specific boat he had listed. He was very helpful and interested in selling me that specific listing. I threw a couple other boat models at him, and asked that we look for those as well. I never heard from him again. My limited experience has been that they don''t want to spend any time helping you find the right model, they just want to move their listings. Seems to me that I should ignore working with a broker, try to weed out the obvious bad boats, and rely on the survey to keep me from buying hidden problems.
Anyone had better results.
Doug
Has anyone had any success using a broker to find a boat. I''m 0 for 2. The first I used was in Annapolis. His website was full of glowing testamonials. I talked to him by phone, and through email, and he was very interested and helpful. My wife an I flew to meet him and look at 4 boats he had selected for us to view based upon our intended sail area and needs. The first boat we viewed was advertised at $75k. After 5 minutes he said owner would take $70k. It soon dropped to $65 and then $60k. As we climbed out of the boat, he said "so, why don''t we make an offer of $60k, I think the owner will sell for that and we won''t need to look at anything else". This was a Beneteau. We had a Pearson, Tayana and Allmand left to see (hows that for understanding my needs). I told him I wasn''t going to make on offer on the first boat I saw for 15 minutes, and we proceeded to the others but it was obvious he had lost interest. Strike one. The only other broker I tried to work with was in FLorida. Again, I responded to an internet listing for a specific boat he had listed. He was very helpful and interested in selling me that specific listing. I threw a couple other boat models at him, and asked that we look for those as well. I never heard from him again. My limited experience has been that they don''t want to spend any time helping you find the right model, they just want to move their listings. Seems to me that I should ignore working with a broker, try to weed out the obvious bad boats, and rely on the survey to keep me from buying hidden problems.
Anyone had better results.
Doug