17 Steps to Sell Your Boat by Owner. We did it.
Below are all the steps you need to sell a boat by owner. We did it, for the full asking price. While disclosing problems and projects.
Since we lived and traveled on the boat, for two years, we decided that we were perfectly capable of showing our catamaran to potential buyers, without the help of a broker.
If you address the process it step by step manner, it won’t feel so intimidating. If you honestly present your listing, it will stand out and it will pay off!
Know your buyer’s perspective:
Buying a Catamaran in 10 Steps – Complete 2024 Guide.
Sell Your Boat the Honest Way
We heard from buyers, who spent a lot of money to buy a boat, only to find out many concealed problems! The dynamics of the boat market were making some sellers and brokers put their wallets before their integrity.
Such poor transactions do not represent our cruising community. It is still full of wonderful and honest people, eager to help each other, out, on the water.
1. Consider the market.
The boating market of 2024 is a great place for sellers with demand outnumbering supply. Telecommuting is now the norm for many, allowing greater freedom of travel.
Boats are not considered just a luxury vacation vessel.
Quite a few people call them “home” and choose water-front views at various marinas along the US coast, and beyond!
You have to consider the market, before you list your boat, because it will define who you are targeting – are you selling a brief dream, a home, a project – those are very different kinds of buyers.
2. Decide on the price.
Prices of boats have been rising. So, should you pick a higher listing price and bank on the lack of inventory?
Of course! The price of everything is a result of supply and demand.
The boat should still be fairly priced, taking into consideration the condition, the upgrades, as well as the current market.
It has always been our goal to sell whatever we have sold, and move on with our lives. Sitting around, hoping for a buyer in a desperate need of a boat to overpay has never been our strategy.
If you list your boat too high, expect to defend your pricing and potentially push away buyers, who would like to feel they are getting a deal.
Buyers are just as aware of the market, as sellers are.
If you list the boat well below the comparable listings and hope for a bidding war, buyers will be wondering what must be wrong with that boat, priced so low.
What problems is the owner hiding?
So how do you choose the listing price? List the boat for what you would be willing to pay in the current market. If you were a buyer, would you pay that price for that boat?
3. Listing summary.
Your listing should begin with a brief summary of what you are selling. Make sure to include:
- Type of boat
- Listing price
- Owner’s name and contact
- Location of the boat
- Reason for sale
- A single line of honest praise for your boat – what do you love about your boat?
Ours was, “Fully ready for you to sail and live aboard (which is what we currently do!)” and “with MANY major upgrades”.
Treat that phrase as a key word and repeat it throughout the listing. Which is another reason, why it should be an honest, and not a fluffed-up, semi-true statement.
4. Listing Text.
Your listing should be easy to read, as well as pleasant to read. There is a reason you are selling “her”, and not “it”.
Divide the details into sections.
When we were searching for a boat, the captain paid close attention to the instruments and other systems.
I skipped to the condition of the galley and the heads (bathrooms).
It is a good idea to divide and separate the various areas and systems of the boat. For example – layout, sails, galley, instruments, systems, and so on.
Make details stand out.
Do not assume that people will see what you see.
If your seating area is spacious and it is obvious from the photos, write about it in the listing, and make it bold.
Selling our boat in 2022, with an engine purchased in 2021 – of course it is new, duh. We still wrote about it: “NEW engine”.
5. Make it personal.
You are not a broker; you are a person selling your boat to another person. Every boat has a story.
Stories sell.
That means including very brief stories (a line, or two at the most) where applicable.
The satellite tracker conveys? Write about that time it helped you go around a storm.
A composting toilet aboard? Nothing better than knowing your kids swam in clean water, when they dove off the boat, in the Bahamas.
Even with a seller’s market, your listing must stand out.
Know your buyer’s perspective:
Buying a Catamaran in 10 Steps – Complete 2024 Guide.
6. Make it honest.
We stand by it, and we believe it is the best way to sell anything. A list of current projects will save time and earn trust.
List current projects.
A non-working AC unit, a crack in the window, a leaky hatch.
By the way, we love touring boats after a rainstorm, it is the best time to check for leaks.
If the boat is listed in a remote location, like ours was, revealing projects is that much more important, because potential buyers are investing their time to drive and fly.
Fixed problems are not projects.
No need to reveal every trip to West Marine you took.
Every boat breaks, and there is always something to fix.
A new problem may appear two weeks after the new owners move aboard. There is no way to know how someone else will be handling the boat and what the harsh salty environment will claim next!
7. Include your blog and YouTube.
If you kept a blog and/or videos of your cruising adventures, include links to these.
There is no better way to present the story of the boat and its condition.
If you have stories, photos, videos, include links to them in the listing. I would place them at the top, below the summary.
8. Select the photos.
Clean your boat for the photos!
If you are trying to sell your boat for a good amount of money, make her shine! A boatshow-ready boat will help your potential buyers imagine their own shiny boating future.
The buyers must see that the boat is safe to sail or live on, but they do not need to see how you sail and live aboard.
Keep your mess away.
If you live aboard, take everything out of one cabin, clean it, organize it and take photos. Then move everything back in.
If you can leave the boat, while listing it for sale, remove everything that will not be sold along.
9. Create a video tour.
People love watching TV! Make a video tour of your boat, and do not be afraid to show your faces.
Put on clean clothes. Not all boaters wear stained clothes that smell like diesel… Nah, we all do, but there is no need to film that!
There are free video editing programs, which you can use to add some music to the video.
If you want to insert a video of a beautiful sunset, or kids jumping off the boat, by all means – you are selling a dream!
Say the date in the video, you can even show it, to emphasize that it is a current video. This will also save you hours of live video tours.
10. Post the listing as a website.
Once the listing is complete and three-times checked for errors and spelling mistakes, it is time to post it.
If you have a blog, you can create the listing as a separate blog post. This is what we decided to do.
If you do not keep a blog, create one single website, with the name of your boat as the website name.
You can use wordpress.com, for a free website. Or, create a paid one, they are not expensive for a domain and a few month’s worth of hosting.
If your listing is its own website, put in a couple of menu tabs – About us, Photos from Sailing Adventures, Contact Us, etc. The longer your keep the buyers on your website, the more they will imagine themselves aboard that boat!
11. Share the listing on social media.
Gone are the days when listing the boat on a couple “by owner” websites will do the trick. You have to share your listing on social media!
Find the Facebook groups, which are in your niche and post the listing there. They don’t need to be only “For Sale” groups. Many allow for business/sale posts on certain days. The more exposure, the better.
For example, we are a family of five, who owned a Privilege. I had joined the Privilege boating groups and a couple of family sailing and traveling groups, such as Kids4Sail, Worldschoolers, Wildschoolers, etc.
Ideally, join those groups prior to listing the boat, so you can participate in some discussions.
It is annoying to join a group just to post your listing. Then, again, those who might be looking for a boat will care less.
12. Respond to all questions.
If you choose to sell your boat by owner, you will have to deal with at least four lines of communication – by phone, via e-mail, through social media and blog/video comments.
Respond to all, politely and with patience.
Expect all kinds of interest and questions. These people are your customers, one of them will probably buy what you’re selling!
In the end, we received and accepted an offer, which arrived via a comment on our blog post – the last place I’d expect! So, you never know.
Stay away from irrelevant discussion threads.
Be careful how you engage in social media commenting. Many conversations start among participants responding to your listing.
Unless they contain a question you must answer, you do not need to participate.
13. Ignore haters.
Social media commenting brings me to the next point – ignore hate speech and do not engage!
There are always people who will find something negative to say about your listing, your boat, your price, your dog, your shoes, (you get the point).
It is best to ignore them. Negativity breeds negativity, and your goal is to sell a boat and create a positive experience for the buyer.
To sell a boat by owner means sifting through comments multiple times per day. Pick your battles, and keep your tone positive.
14. Be ready with answers to common questions.
What might be obvious to you, will be completely new information to a potential buyer. No question is a stupid question.
Make a list of questions buyers ask.
There are many websites, which list all the questions you must ask before you buy a boat.
To make it easier, here are a few in our post: Buying a Catamaran in 10 Steps – Complete 2024 Guide.
Do not tell buyers to read your listing.
Be prepared with answers to these, because you will hear them over and over again.
Address each concern and clarification personally, positively and with genuine desire to help (because it all helps you sell your boat).
15. Treat potential buyers as guests.
Ensure everyone who has invested time and money to come tour the boat, is treated as a guest.
You never know who will write the check.
There is no recipe for success, and you certainly do not have to offer anything in addition to the item you are selling.
It takes time. It is not always convenient. Not all guests are pleasant.
Regardless, you are the host, and you have something you need sold.
Consider including a day-sail.
Our boat was listed for sale in a remote location. We included a brief sailing trip for everyone who would be willing to fly over and see the boat.
This was our own treat, weather permitting, not a sea trial.
Offer a sea trial only after a deposit.
Our brief sailing trip (no more than an hour) was something we threw in, because our serious buyers took the time to fly and tour the boat.
Had we been at a marina, in the US (where the majority of the buyers were), the sea trial would have been offered only after a deposit.
Make the boat smell nice.
Most boats have a distinct smell. Not all buyers are used to that.
The free warmed up cookies, filling your boat with the sweet aroma of vanilla are a must, regardless of location.
Buy a box from the local grocery store and leave them covered in the sun for a bit. Then boil water with a bit of vanilla for a couple of minutes, right before the guests arrive.
This will create warm cookies without the extra heat aboard.
16. Figure out the paperwork.
You can download a PDF contract, or hire a third party to execute the sale and deal with all of the paperwork. We have done with both ways. Doing it yourself is a bit more work.
Download your own contracts.
There are multiple sample contracts you can use and tweak a little, for your particular case.
We used one through BoatUS, and it worked just fine. It is a bit riskier to sell and buy in this manner.
We were a bit on edge until the check cleared. If we were the buyers, we prefer an escrow agency.
Hire an escrow agency.
When we purchased our second boat, directly from the owners, they preferred to hire a third party just to handle all of the documentation.
Such agencies are referred to as “escrow agency”. They are very convenient and are well worth the peace of mind for both sides.
They typically charge a flat fee for their services.
Avoid spammers.
Regardless of how you choose to proceed, be very careful of spammers, who promise to transfer funds quickly.
Here is a brief article on common red flags to watch for.
17. Remain available after the sale.
Once the boat has been sold, keep the line of communication open and offer help, if needed.
You are not required to do anything further, but you know your boat best, why not help out the new owner, if there are questions along the way.
We are grateful to the owner who sold us our boat, because he was always willing to respond to a quick text or e-mail regarding the boat. It would be nice to pay it forward.
After all, it’s not just about the money, especially if it’s already in your bank account, right?
Helpful Links
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