Boats For Sale

Have you found yourself online looking for a boat for sale? There are a number of things to consider prior to ever looking at a single boat. Prior to making your first search you need to make a solid estimate on how much you are looking to spend. If you don’t approach the situation with a budget in mind otherwise you are most likely going to spend more than you really should or than you can afford. The general formula is shows that you will spend as much as ¼ of the purchase price per year on maintenance and running costs, or approx $100 per foot.

Secondly before searching for boats for sale you will need to define how you intend on using your boat. Not every boat can do everything and you need to decide exactly what you’re looking for in your boat. Some of the activities that you may be interested in undertaking include, skiing and wakeboarding, fishing, island hopping, day tripping and many more. The most versatile craft you can buy is a centre console; this will allow you to go fishing, skiing or wakeboarding, take a day trip or just relax in the sun.

Now we have identified what we are looking for its time for the fun bit. While in the old days our parents would have gone done to the local marina or leafed through the paper to find something suitable, the internet has made this much easier. Find a localboats for sale directory and enter your search parameters. Usually they will return several hundred, or maybe several thousand results. Now you need to filter the results more closely, ie. Remove anything older than 10 year, and more expensive than you are looking to pay. Then decide if you are happy buying from a private seller or a dealer only. Remove the boats that are too far away for you to sensibly go and look at and you should now have a decent short list of craft.

SAVE THIS SEARCH and walk away.

Come back the next day and review the shortlist you created, see if the craft still fits your specifications and if you are happy to pay the listed price, although you will often end up paying less than advertised.  Now it’s time to start contacting the sellers.  At no point during this process do you want to seem too desperate or inclined towards one boat, even if it’s your dream boat. Email or call the seller using a very general enquiry. 

Something along the lines of: Hey, I saw your boat on ........... and think it may be something like what I’m looking for.  Is there any chance of having a look at it sometime during the week?

Once you have arranged to go and have a look make sure you take a checklist of things that may concern you and questions that you intend to ask the seller.  Otherwise you are likely to get caught up in the moment and potentially forgetting to ask or check something critical, leading to disappointment down the track.

Never make any commitment to buy on the spot, don’t even start negotiating price, you always want to do this on your terms, not theirs.  If you are interested in perusing the craft further the next step is to have it checked over by a professional and take it for a test drive, you would never buy a car without having it checked and taking it for a drive, would you?