How Much to Offer
There is no percentage that works. A percentage off asking measures from a number the seller chose, and sellers choose differently. Here is what a defensible offer is actually built from.
The problem with a percentage
Two Boats, One Asking Price
Both are asking $1,250,000. Ten percent below asking is a serious offer on one of them and arguably still too much on the other. The percentage is identical and the two situations have nothing in common.
Boat A
$1,250,000
- On the market
- Three weeks
- Price history
- First asking price
- Comparable sales
- Support the asking price
An offer 10% below asking is a serious offer.
Boat B
$1,250,000
- On the market
- Fourteen months
- Price history
- Reduced twice from $1,495,000
- Comparable sales
- Sit below the asking price
An offer 10% below asking may still be above her value.
So the question worth asking is not how far below asking to go. It is: what evidence supports the price I am willing to pay for this particular boat?
Five pieces of evidence
What the Offer Is Built From
Each of these moves the number, and each has a way of being read wrongly.
What comparable boats sold for
Not what they are asking. Comparable means the same builder and model, the same generation, a similar engine package, similar equipment, similar condition and a similar location. Two boats of the same length and year can sit in quite different places in the market.
Asking prices feed on each other, which is how a whole model drifts above what anyone is actually paying for it. Sold figures are not public, and that is most of the value in having a broker at this moment.
What the equipment is worth now
A boat with a recent generator, current electronics, good canvas, thrusters and a tender you would otherwise have to buy is worth more, sometimes considerably more. Value it on what life is left in it and whether you would have fitted it yourself.
Upgrades are not worth what the invoice said. Electronics age, equipment wears, and some of what the last owner spent was personal taste that means nothing to the next buyer.
What condition tells you before the survey
Walk her as an owner rather than an admirer. Look in the bilges. Look at the machinery space, because a clean, labelled, dry engine room is the best single indicator of how a boat has been treated. Ask for the service records and find out when the major items were last done.
You are not surveying her. You are deciding whether her apparent condition supports the asking price, and what you will be spending in the first year either way.
How long she has been listed, read properly
Days on market is not a discount calculator. A long listing can mean the price was wrong, or that the model is a narrow market, or that she is awkward to show, or that two deals have already failed on survey, or simply that the owner is in no hurry.
Price history matters as much as duration. If she has already come down twice, assuming a third large cut is available is usually wrong.
What you can afford after closing day
Not the purchase price, the ownership. Dockage, insurance, the first haul out, the work you already know you want done, and a reserve for the thing you do not know about yet.
A price you can just reach, that leaves nothing to commission her properly, is the wrong price even when it is fair market value.
On the last of those, work from what she actually costs to keep, which is higher than the ten percent rule most buyers have heard and depends mostly on her age.
Price is one line of it
What Else You Are Negotiating
Two offers at the same number are not equal. A well prepared buyer with a realistic timetable often beats a higher number attached to uncertainty.
The deposit
How much, and when it goes into escrow.
The survey period
How many days you have to survey, sea trial, and accept or reject her. Too short and you are accepting a boat you have not properly looked at.
What happens to the findings
Whether the seller repairs, credits, or neither, and who decides what counts as a defect rather than wear.
The closing period
How long after acceptance you have to fund and close. Long enough for your lender, if you have one.
Delivery
Where she is handed over, and who pays to get her there.
The final walkthrough
Immediately before closing, and what happens if something has changed since the survey.
The closing agent
Who holds your funds until the seller delivers clear title and an executed bill of sale, and holds the seller's paperwork until your funds are there.
What is included
The tender, the toys, the spares, the tools. Put it in writing.
Two ways it goes wrong
Before You Send the Number
Offering high to take it back at survey
Make the offer you can support with what you know now. A survey tells you her condition; it is not a second negotiation you planned from the start. It wastes everyone’s time, it sours a deal you may actually want, and the broker on the other side has seen it before.
Letting the trip you made decide the price
Decide your walk away number before the negotiation gets personal. The flights and the weeks you have spent are not reasons to pay more. Equally, losing a genuinely hard to find boat over a small gap is its own bad outcome, and sometimes the right offer is a strong one: a well priced boat, a sought after model, little comparable inventory, or real competing interest.
The point of the negotiation is not to beat the seller. It is to end up with the right boat on terms you are still comfortable with in six months, when the excitement has worn off and the bills have started.
Questions
Making the Offer
Is the asking price the same as market value?
No. The asking price is what this seller is asking today. Market value is what boats like her have actually changed hands for, adjusted for her condition, her equipment, where she is lying and what the market is doing. The gap between the two is not fixed. On a boat priced off real sold evidence it can be small; on one priced off what the owner paid, or off what the boat next door is asking, it can be very large. Asking prices feed on each other, which is how a whole model drifts above what anyone is paying. Sold figures are not public, and that is most of the value in having a broker when you are deciding what to offer.
How much below asking should I offer on a used yacht?
There is no percentage. Not five, not ten, not twenty. A percentage off asking measures from a number the seller chose, and sellers choose differently. A boat that came to market this month at a price supported by sold comparables and a boat that has been listed for fourteen months after two reductions are different situations, and the same percentage means opposite things on each. Build the offer from evidence instead: what comparable boats actually sold for, what the equipment is worth today rather than when it was bought, what her condition tells you before the survey, how long she has been listed and what her price history shows, and what you can still afford after closing day.
Should I get a survey before making an offer?
No, and you would struggle to. In a brokerage transaction the order is offer first, then an accepted purchase agreement, and the survey and sea trial happen inside the period that agreement sets. A seller is not going to haul a boat out for somebody who has not made an offer, and you should not be paying for a survey on a boat you have no agreement to buy. What you do before the offer is the unpaid version: walk her properly, look in the bilges and the machinery space, and read the service records. That is enough to decide what to offer. The survey decides whether you go through with it.
Can the price change after the yacht survey?
It can, but it is not automatic and it is not a second negotiation you were always planning to have. What your options are depends on the purchase agreement, which is why you read it before you sign it. Typically you may accept the boat, reject her within the survey period, or go back to the seller on what the survey found. The seller may repair, credit you, or decline. What does not move a price is ordinary wear: a fifteen year old boat will have a list of findings because every fifteen year old boat does. What changes a deal is a material finding you could not reasonably have known about. Know your dates, in writing, before the surveyor turns up.
Where does my deposit go?
Into an escrow account, not into the broker's operating account and not to the seller. It is held until the conditions in the purchase agreement are met or the agreement ends. Ask who the escrow agent is before you sign anything. When the time comes to wire, confirm the account details by telephone with the escrow agent, on a number you looked up yourself rather than one in the email. Wire fraud in boat closings is real and it targets exactly this moment: a convincing email, correct boat details, changed account numbers. No legitimate escrow agent will object to you ringing to confirm.
Should I offer low and renegotiate after the survey?
No. Make the offer you can support with what you know at the time. A survey exists to tell you her condition, not to give you a second negotiation you planned from the start. It wastes everyone's time, it sours a deal you may actually want, and experienced brokers on the other side recognise it. The same applies in reverse: a seller who knows about a problem and says nothing is storing up a failed deal rather than avoiding one.
We Act for Both Sides of a Sale
Aspire represents sellers and buyers, and sometimes both in the same transaction. Where that happens we tell both sides in writing before any offer is made, neither side’s position is carried to the other, and the commission does not change because one brokerage is on both ends. If you would rather have separate representation, say so and we will arrange it. None of the advice on this page changes depending on which side we are on, which is rather the point of writing it down.
Tell us which boat
Send us the listing and we will tell you what comparable boats have actually sold for, what her equipment is worth today rather than new, and what her time on the market and price history suggest about where an offer should land. That is a conversation about one boat, which is worth more than any percentage.
Sold figures are not public, which is the whole reason this is worth asking rather than estimating. We will tell you what the evidence says, including when it says the asking price is fair and there is no room in it.
Or call (954) 560-2811.