Thanks Dave,
Having been a residential real estate appraiser and investigator of real estate fraud for the state....I know better than most what "value" means.
I told a broker once, if I were offered the Queen Mary for $5 I wouldn't want her. First, I could not afford Berthing, secondly, I could not afford fuel, etc. The Queen Mary might be worth millions to the right person, but not me. Same with our boats.
Thankfully ours is paid for, so we can wait if necessary.
Here are some thoughts about yacht brokers..real people I met in 2001-2002.
1. We looked at a 4588 Bayliner that we really liked in Alameda. Offered 200k cash for it. BUT we had another broker representing us. The listing agent turned us down. Now you need to listen up here. We said adios and went on looking. THAT 4588 was sold a month or so later for $180k...maybe 179,995 or something like that. THE BROKER GOT ROUGHLY 18K.
THE SELLER GOT SCREWED. The seller had moved out of town and trusted this broker. I may still have his name. Small Brokerage. As a seller, you MUST insist on being presented every single offer. Get that in writing. If the seller had been told of a $200k cash offer he made have taken it. Instead, the seller got around $162k. Cheated out of $18k by a broker looking out for himself.
2. Some brokers want to represent you. GOOD LUCK!! I don't care what the Bylaws of the Calif. Yacht Brokers says, few brokers will split a commission. VERY FEW.
3. If you buy a boat for say...$200k and it needs $10k of work done on it. BUY IT FOR 190K AND ONLY PAY COMMISSIONS ON 190K, PAY FOR THE REPAIRS YOURSELF. First you have more control over the quality of the work done and secondly, you will not be taxed on $200k.
The Broker's don't like this because they lose a sales commission. I find it hard to feel sorry for a person making $18k instead of $20k. Yes, they have some overhead, but the seller even pays slip rent to them. WHAT DO THEY RISK????????????????? ZERO!! Maybe a foregone profit by not have a $60k boat in your slip. I know a broker who had lots of 25k to 80k sales. He left town.
4. You trust your broker to be fair to both parties...why else buy a boat from them? I at least expect honesty. Richard Boland sent our Tolly to a Boatyard in Alameda for the haulout. I was told you check the zincs and replace them if they need it. We paid to have our zincs replaced. A month later and maybe one hour on the engines later we headed to Sacramento. We hired a "Captain" that was recommended to us. We were told the Sacramento River has sand shoals that change with the seasons, it is smart to hire a pro to take it up. When this captain got on board, he says something like "Ah Diesels, I have never driven diesels before." Holy Batfat, I was worried. This "Captain" put us in 3 ft
waters on the east side of the Bay...WAY OUT of the deep channels. I yelled and he stopped the boat. I had a real poor GPS on it, hard to follow. I took the charts, used
the radar and triangulated for a fix. I got us back into the deep water. Another hour and the starboard engine starts banging...at least something banged when only the Stbd engine was ran and the port engine was at idle. We found out $100 later that a zinc had come loose. "Hey Richard Boland and Ed McGrath, your $^&*#$%rb2@gr5t boat yard didn't fasten the zinc down tight." The boatyard said ...well, you can imagine. In fairness to Ed McGRath,
he was only a salesman then. Boland did nothing. He could have got our money back, but Richard Boland did nothing (Please feel free to print this and hand it to him...I still have all the records, maybe his guilty conscience might pay his share for a change, but I doubt it.) You absolutely can not believe a salesman. That might sound funny coming from a person who was in his 50s when he bought this boat, but Ed McGrath seemed different. I would not pay for the boat until the approx. 5k in repairs were done. Ed PROMISED us they would be done. We could trust him. WRONG!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Boland would not back Ed up. If you want to trust a broker, ask them to put it in writing and sign it. I was not that smart. My wife said she believed Ed and I should pay them.
A huge error.
Richard Boland's saga get's better. We asked where the ice maker was before we bought the boat. Ed blew us off, saying we would find it later, it has to be here, after all, it is in the written ad. It was missing. I called Richard on it and he basically blew me off.
I was nice enough to pay 1/3, broker pay 1/3 and the seller pay 1/3. I paid 100% of the
approx. $1000. IF YOU BUY A BOAT FROM A BROKER, MAKE THEM SHOW YOU EVERY SINGLE ITEM. RICHARD BOLAND SAID HE WAS NOT REPONSIBLE FOR THE ITEMS, SINCE THE OWNER SUBMITTED THE LIST.
While all this was being protested I had a heart attack on the docks at Sac City. I did not believe it and did not go to the hospital...but I knew everyone in my family seemed to die of heart attacks. So I backed off the stressful confrontation with Richard Boland Yacht sales. More health problems have followed. I take morphine like you take aspirins.
That was an experience from 2002. It was featured in a thread that ran over a year in
Boatered, had over 400 people posting to it and I learned a lot. Most of you would not make my mistakes, but I paid for them and moved on. Contrary to my posts herein, I have moved on...I only get upset when I remember them and write them down, I don't want YOU to learn the hard way like I did.
Whoever buys my boat will be told what is right about it, and what is wrong. Life is too short to lie to people.
