Selecting a Yacht Broker to Sell Your Yacht

How do I decide on a yacht broker to sell my boat?  How do I get the correct yacht broker to sell my yacht?  These are questions that you as a boat owner might ask when it is time to sell your boat.  In my communication with sellers, I find that most, if not all of them had no plan when choosing the brokerage to represent them.  Their option was made arbitrarily it appears.  When you are prepared, you need to find a first-class yacht brokerage that you can depend on. Some of the points that you should consider are honesty, value and expertise.

A yacht is a huge expense and numerous people decide to purchase one from a yacht brokerage. A brokerage sells boats to interested parties for a commission. Clearly, before you think about which one to go with when selling, you will want to be acquainted with the commission amount that they charge; it is a customary 10% in the trade.

Of course, you want to look for honesty in a yacht broker.  No one wishes to trade with a dishonest person in any way, but some people are very dishonest without appearing to be.  Check out the history of the brokerage before making a commitment, and ensure that there are no complaints filed against them.  The brokerage should be competent when it comes to pricing your yacht.  Your yacht brokerage should have a good grasp of the market and how to price your yacht.

Always check for skill in a yacht brokerage. They should have been in the trade for a while.  The longer, the better, clearly as this indicates they're able to stay in business.  They will not only find a way to sell your boat at a decent cost, but also be able to acquire the ideal yacht if you are looking to purchase another one from a broker.

In order to locate the right yacht brokerage, you will have to shop around.  Talk to several people until you get at ease with one.  Request and call up references.  By no means deal with a brokerage that is pushy or insists that you sign a contract that you do not comprehend. These legal documents are binding. If you do not understand the listing contract, you should confer with an attorney. Also remember that buying a boat is similar to buying a home. You will want to screen the business as you would a home brokerage company.

Here are some inquiries to raise while looking for the finest yacht brokerage.  Utilize this list to determine what Broker is best for you.  I have also included our response to each question.

Would you co-broke with other Brokers who may have a buyer who could purchase my yacht?  Can I obtain it in writing?   We have it in our listing agreement; we constantly co-broke with other Brokers.  If you cannot get it in writing the broker is more worried about his commission; you could potentially lose out on a deal.

How available are you going to be to me, buyers and other Brokers?  We make calls regularly to other Brokers and wait to hear back from them. My Cell phone and computer are constantly on; you can reach me if you need to; so can buyers!

Do you and your staff sell vessels full time or is brokerage just a hobby?   Many Brokers do it in their free time like a hobby.  If your Broker will not work for you full-time, 7 days a week, and holidays if necessary, you need to select another firm.

How long does your listing agreement last?  Can I get out of it if I desire to?   Our listing agreement is for an initial six months.  Our rule is that if you are not pleased with our services, we will release you at any point at your request following that initial period.  Many brokerage listing agreements have a notification clause in small print that says you must give them a 90-120 day written notification before you will be released.

How do you go about marketing my boat?  Marketing boats is all related to exposure.  It's a known reality that today's boat buyers shop the world wide web almost exclusively for their boats. Here you are!  Actually statistics demonstrate that about 98% of all boat sales happen as a result of world wide web publicity.

Inquire about the web sites the brokerage makes use of to advertise boats and yachts.  Having your yacht on 10 little known internet sites no one can locate is ineffective.
Inquire how the brokerage has completed search engine marketing and what percent of visitors come to their sites monthly by way of search engines.  Just about 63% of our visitors contact us due to a search engine.  Our website has been indexed by all of the most important search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Dogpile, and others.

Ask what terms the web site is ranked for; our website can be Googled and found on page 1 for "used trawlers", "used motor yachts", "used cruisers", and numerous other search terms.  Perhaps that is how you located us?

Can your selected brokerage certify that your boat will be seen on Google page 1?  At our brokerage, we will warrant it with each vessel listed.

How many visitors come to your internet site searching for yachts?   We frequently have over 18,000 visits to our web site monthly, thousands more than the Yachtworld internet website.

Ask if the brokerage uses the Yachtworld website, the international multiple listing service internet website.  This site is the multiple listing website where we share boat listings with other Brokers. And yes, every one of our vessels is on there.

International advertising and marketing is a big matter to us; it produces customers.  Do you realize that we have had visitors from as many as seventy eight nations in 2010 from countries such as Australia, Norway, Canada, France, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, and Germany on this web site, just to name a couple? We sold about six boats to foreign customers last year.  Request how a brokerage markets globally.

Does the brokerage use direct email marketing?  We keep an email marketing list of several thousand boaters, many of whom are purchasers.  On a bi-monthly basis we email these buyers with an e-newsletter about new boats on the market, price modifications, boating headlines and other subjects of marine relevance.  Your boat will be advertised here. It sends potential customers to the internet website.

Does the brokerage maintain a blog?  We maintain a blog to help educate new buyers to the boating community; your boat will be posted there too. It is also indexed by Google every day and produces lots of site visitors daily.  We write on the blog two times per week.
We additionally maintain a Paradise Yachts presence on Face Book, the social media web site where we interact with other boaters; lots of our fans are boat purchasers searching to locate the right vessel.

We are one of a few brokerages that make use of You Tube to market your boat via narrated videos describing her features.   Your vessel will be featured here also.

Additionally, we also participate in 61 other social bookmarking internet sites with the only intent of bringing the purchasing public to your vessel.

How will you keep me informed of the progress of your advertising and marketing?  At Paradise Yachts we frequently hear how other Brokers get a listing and never let customers know how things are progressing.  You will hear from us often; about every six weeks.  I like sending you an email outlining how I view the broad market, how many boats similar to yours have been sold and at what price, what the prices are with vessels similar to yours on the market, if any boats comparable to yours have entered the market and what if any recommendations I have to improve our advertising and marketing.

What number of yachts do you maintain in inventory?  I like to keep from 25-35 boats in my selling inventory.  With this number, I can follow each boat's monthly progress, assess the traffic each yacht receives, research what other yachts similar to yours are selling for and keep you up to date on her progress.   More boats and you could turn into just another number.

What do you truly understand about yachts; have you ever owned one?  I have sold in excess of one boat because the purchaser did his investigation and sought me out because he knew I myself own a trawler.  The buyer found me as a result of my trawler ownership and expertise.  I could talk the talk with him.

And finally, ask your broker for a list of vessels that sold in the last year.  Has he sold any boats comparable to yours?

To summarize, don't just pick the Broker that happens to be down by the local marina.  He may spend more time on the golf course than you do.  Do some Internet research and ask a number of questions to recognize you are getting the Broker that has your best interests in mind.