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2014 2275 GCW

BigKahuna

BigKahuna

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Okay a quick rant.......My wife saw a boat online that she liked for sale a couple hrs. from us in South Carolina. A 2014 2275 GCW with a 200 HP Yamaha and SPS package. I called the company up that's selling the boat for this couple and told him.......If you are able to arrange a test drive my wife and I will come down on Saturday and give it a good inspection. He told me........Sir, If you make me an accepted offer on this boat I can set up the test drive. Otherwise you can not test drive it. What?!?!? I told him I'm not going to offer you anything until we see and test drive it. (Nautical told me that this is a pretty common practice.) We are NOT going to South Carolina tomorrow......
 
I can see that on a high priced cruiser or something, but a basic pontoon?? I had that happen to me once with a vehicle, when the GMC Typhoon came out ....

Cant you make an offer, then if you don’t like it for any reason, just tell them no after test drive?
 
I can see both sides of this. From the sellers standpoint, they want to make sure someone is serious and not wasting their time. However, the seller should not say there will be no test drives without an accepted offer. They should encourage you to come over and look at the boat thinking if they can get you to look at it you will buy it. From a buyers view, you want to see something before making any kind of commitment. I'm not sure what I would do (as a buyer). If you think the boat is clean, priced well, and not too far of a drive, you could make them an offer. You would need to make sure they know that you have the right to back out if the boat does not meet your expectations.
 
SEMPERFI8387 said:
I can see that on a high priced cruiser or something, but a basic pontoon?? I had that happen to me once with a vehicle, when the GMC Typhoon came out ....

Cant you make an offer, then if you don’t like it for any reason, just tell them no after test drive?
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I guess I could but usually the offer would be based on what we observed not sight unseen.....
 
Lay Lake said:
I can see both sides of this. From the sellers standpoint, they want to make sure someone is serious and not wasting their time. However, the seller should not say there will be no test drives without an accepted offer. They should encourage you to come over and look at the boat thinking if they can get you to look at it you will buy it. From a buyers view, you want to see something before making any kind of commitment. I'm not sure what I would do (as a buyer). If you think the boat is clean, priced well, and not too far of a drive, you could make them an offer. You would need to make sure they know that you have the right to back out if the boat does not meet your expectations.
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I can see both sides too. It would eliminate the joyriders. But if we're driving 2 or 3 hrs. I would say we're pretty serious about possibly buying. Found out after talking to the broker that the boat is actually almost an hour farther away from us (and from him) Hard to make an offer based on viewing photos.
 
If you are truly interested in the boat perhaps you could say, the book value on the boat is $. That would be what I am willing to pay if the boat is in the condition I would expect, if not that obviously my offer would be less
 
Yeah, yeah, yeah... both sides and all, but why would a seller make it more difficult to make a sale?

I once took my Donzi to a lake an hour away for the prospective buyer to test. It became pretty clear pretty early on that he wasn't a serious buyer, but what the hell, I still got a boat ride. It wasn't the end of the world. The guy who eventually bought it drove from S. Carolina to Michigan to buy the boat and never even asked to get it wet.
 
I absolutely lean towards the “what is the selling broker thinking” on this one. Selling something entails dealing with “tire kickers”. If you are selling on behalf of someone else as some kind of broker, well frankly you are getting the option of doing that and making a couple $$$ off the sale for that very reasons: seller isn’t willing to deal with “tire kickers” so they have contracted with you to do it for them.

If really interested, I like some of the advice above, contingent offer based on condition and clarity on backing out if not satisfied. However, I wouldn’t want to give these people my money with that kind of attitude, so I’d REALLY, REALLY need to be dying to buy it to them give them my hard earned money for it.
 
It's easy to have your cake and eat it too on this one. Make an appointment to look at the boat and make your journey to meet with the dealer to view it. If it's in great shape and you're interested in moving forward make them an offer based on your acceptance of the boat after a sea trial.

If they want to sell the boat and accept your offer, do the paperwork and write them a check for a down payment and then take your ride and close the deal or decline for specific reasons based on the failed sea trial.

This is pretty straight forward stuff for most dealers and even private sellers. You'd be surprised how many people will jack you around all afternoon with no intention of buying your boat.
 
If they need to tow the boat around (or to you) to let you drive it, then I’d get it. But if you’re going where the boat is and it’s sitting in the water, I’m with you and wondering what the seller is thinking. But it’s likely a way for the broker to ensure he’s in the middle of the discussion between you and owner as not to get cut out. It may not be the seller demanding this but the broker.
 
Okay, first off, they're called RUDDER kickers, not tire kickers! Unless of course they're just buying a trailer but then I would push for "bunk busters" if those buyers got too annoying! :cool:

Second, yes, my brokerage has a similar policy but to be clear it's only about the water test, not coming to see it in the first place. Yes, it seems odd and counter productive but remember we're not a big, waterfront store with demo boats bouncing out there in the docks waiting for you. We're brokers representing private sellers like yourself and trying to PROTECT their property. Everyone is comparing boat buying with car buying but it's very different. If you want a more appropriate comparison, try asking a Harley dealer for a test drive on a $23000 motorcycle. You'll find it's a similar policy if they let you at all.

If we didn't make sure buyers were serious and had a little skin in the game then all we would be doing all day is dragging other people's boats to the lake, launching them, putting $20 worth of gas in them, recovering them and dragging them back to the yard only to hear "nah, I don't want it now" or much worse "Okay, I'll give you THIS for it." No, sorry, we're not going to do that. All we're really asking is to make sure you WANT the boat FIRST. The boat is going to ride fine and you'll have a chance to see for yourself but do you WANT the boat? What about the ride will THEN make you WANT the boat? Think about it. It is extremely rare (I've seen it once in the past 3 years) for a person to change their mind because of the test drive UNLESS the boat has an issue, in which case there is no risk of deposit loss and at that point we can fix the issue or adjust the price. We have alienated buyers with this policy and we're okay with that because chances are they were never really serious in the first place. Before any water test, we must be in agreement on ALL TERMS, especially price. Then we do paperwork and collect a deposit.

There are other issues that come up often:

People want our "best price" over the phone before they even meet the boat in person. We used to do that but discovered that once they have that "best price" it then becomes the new ASKING price in their mind. After they see it, they find any issue they can (rarely real, usually imaginary) and proceed to start negotiations all over again.

"Will you hold it for me for a $500 deposit?" Sure, we can do this but don't come two weeks later then ask for your deposit back after we've turned away a dozen actual buyers because you wanted to secure this boat for free AND CONTINUE SHOPPING.

Trailers are free . . . didn't you know? "Yeah, take $5000 off AND throw in the trailer and I'll take it." Many times these "free" trailers were purchased by us for $3000 to $4000 because the owner didn't have one. Trying to collect that and a fair commission becomes very challenging to say the least!!

I do get it . . . up until 3 years ago I was that guy who wanted the best price over the phone and a free trailer but I was negotiating with stores on one or two year leftover NEW boats, not some poor broker on a private customer's used boat. Just ask yourself how you would expect us to treat you if you signed us up to sell your boat.

I swear this is karma for all of the good deals I had to fight for when car shopping.
 
The broker sent me a text today "inviting" us down to see the boat next weekend. To be continued.........
 
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