Actual Selling Price

We are in a strange market these days. It seems mostly older men are still in the market for the older boats, and we are dying out slowly. This is depressing the market for older boats, not to mention depressing us older guys!
However, it seems sellers and brokers are listing very high prices and living in hope that someone will come along who has not done their homework.
It would be very interesting if you know the actual selling price of a boat, and can provide a comparison with the asking price. It would also give us an indication of the real current market value of various designs.

I'm in the process of buying an older boat (with a few bits missing) - I think I've made an offer for what it is worth - probably a little more than I should (but the owner probably thinks a little less than I should), but getting the right boat is sometimes worth a small premium - certainly it is better to get the boat that meets your requirements, rather than one that almost meets your requirements, because the latter will likely never be as good as the former without a lot of money being spent, and even then, sometimes never, and living with regret is just miserable.

I think that if someone is selling a solid, well made Australian boat, with a solid glass hull, with a low hour engine, good sails, the rigging is in good shape, it is seaworthy, clean, tidy, and fitted out well, then it will get the money it deserves. If you have a boat that smells of stale bilge water and diesel, has dodgy wiring done to 'make do', has stains around the base of the head, has mold growing on the sides and lining of the cabin, has a rusty old engine that looks every hour of its 5000 hour life, has rust stains on the chain-plates, has tools and repair stuff lying around the cabin, has 8 years of growth on its bottom, has half empty bottles of pickles on the shelf with mold growing in them (yep - I looked a boat with this stuff going on), then it won't matter that the rigging is near new, and the sails are crisp, and it sails well, because people will be put off by the presentation.

My thoughts are that if someone wants to sell their boat, then they should look at the process in a similar way as to selling a house - presentation is just as (perhaps more) important than the engineering state of a boat - after all, boats are discretionary items (for most of us), most folks buy boats because they like them or they appeal to them, make them feel good, or they look good, rather than on the engineering merits of one particular design over another. It is surprising to me that brokers and or sellers of many of the boats I looked at didn't realise just how important these softer things are to a potential buyer. I think the best brokers to do this in Australia are the folks from Nautilus Yacht Management (and no, before you go to print with accusations that I am paid to say that sort of thing, I don't work for them, or have any financial or non-financial arrangements with them). The presentation should act as the bait to get a buyer hooked - then the buyer can spend the time and money to check out the other things needed to convince someone to part with their hard earned dollars.

All that said, Australia made and still makes some pretty good boats (I've been buying (and selling) Australian boats for 38 years now), but my observation is that the market is flooded with good boats - so selling them requires an ability to convince a buyer that the boat you're selling is the one they want, and that takes time and effort I'm afraid.

The biggest fear that many have is that when they die, their partner will sell the vessel(s) for what they said they paid for them....

Seems more likely economic factors will decide price along with supply demand. If there's no money being made / spent prices fall.
Buying smart helps.

There's a good reason why there are a lot of cheap boats. They are now old boats. Boats built between 1960 and 1980 are between 40 and 60 years old. Most will require a lot of money to bring them back to be reliable and something to be proud off, a bit like buying an old unrestored car.
Lets take A 50 year old Cav 32 in original condition and you think you have found a bargain at $8,000. and then you start to make it a reliable cruiser you can head up to the reef in or just go out for a sail and know you have a reliable boat.
The below figures are very conservative.
New motor $10,000
New rigging and halyards $5,000
Replace skin fittings, rudder bearing and cutlass bearing. $1,500
Strip, repair, epoxy and anti foul below water line. $12,000.
Refurbish and repair deck hardware. $ 2,000.
Replace electronics, radios, batteries and refurbish electrical system. $8,000.
Tidy up interior including replacing bunk cushions, service/ replace toilet, stove and refrigerator. $3,000.
Replace ground tackle. $1,000.
Replace canvas dodger. $1,500.
Replace Main sail $3,500
Replace Furling head sail. $2,000.
Fit a new job furler. $2,000.
insurance $2,500.
Out of water insurance survey $1,000.
Sundrie experiences $5,000
A total of $60,000 plus a lot of your own time and don't include repainting of the boat.
So this makes your $8,000 boat close to $70,000 just to get a reliable 50 year old boat.
You can spend a lot more as some people have spent over $250,000 refurbishing S&S 34s.
I am sure Lydia will testify this from when he refurbished the Defiance 30.
The way I see it there would want to be some good reasons to pay over $10,000 for a 50 year old boat.

So with previous 40k sunk into her it'll be 70k.

You never make money on boats.

Just enjoy it while you have it.

Yes that bloke with the S&S34 in the yacht racing news all the time obviously spent a very small fraction of the national debt on it - so that's all fine if it is a planned effort but if it is not then....................