How do I pick a yacht broker to sell my yacht? How do I locate the correct yacht broker to sell my vessel? These are questions that you as a vessel owner may 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 deciding on the brokerage to represent them. Their option was made arbitrarily it seems. When you are all set, you need to find a good yacht brokerage that you can depend on. Some of the factors that you should take into account are honesty, value and expertise.
A yacht is a huge expenditure and lots of people desire to buy one from a yacht brokerage. A brokerage sells boats to interested people for a commission. Clearly, before you consider which one to go with when selling, you will need to be familiar with the commission rate that they charge; it is a standard 10% in the trade.
Of course, you need to look for honesty in a yacht broker. Nobody wants to trade with a dishonest person in any way, but some people are extremely 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 broker should be intelligent when it comes to knowing how to price your yacht. Your yacht brokerage should have a good grasp of the market and how much to value your yacht.
Always look for experience in a yacht brokerage. They should have been in the business for some time. The longer, the better, clearly as this demonstrates they’re able to stay in business. They will not only find a way to sell your vessel at a respectable price, but also be able to obtain the perfect yacht if you are seeking to acquire another one from a broker.
In order to locate the best yacht brokerage, you should shop around. Speak to several people until you get comfortable with one. Request and call up references. Never deal with a brokerage that is assertive or insists that you put your signature on a contract that you do not comprehend. These legal contracts are binding. If you do not understand the listing contract, you should discuss with an attorney. Also remember that purchasing a yacht is like purchasing a residence. You will want to screen the organization as you would a home brokerage company.
Here are some questions to ask while searching for the best yacht brokerage. Utilize this checklist to ascertain what Broker is best for you. I have also indicated our responses to each question.
Would you co-broke with other Brokers that may have a buyer who could buy my yacht? Am I able to get it in writing? We have it in our listing agreement; we continually co-broke with other Brokers. If you cannot get it in writing the broker is more worried about his commission; you could possibly miss out on a deal.
How accessible are you going to be to me, buyers and other Brokers?
We make telephone calls often to other Brokers and wait for days to hear back from them. My Cell phone and PC are always on; you can make contact with me if you need to; buyers can too!
Does your firm work at selling vessels full time or is brokerage just a hobby?
Many Brokers do it in their extra time like a hobby. If your Broker will not act for you full-time, 7 days a week, and holidays if necessary, you should select another firm.
What is the duration of your listing agreement? Can I get out of it if I desire to? Our listing agreement is for an initial 6 months. Our rule is that if you are not pleased with our services, we will release you at any time at your request following that initial period. Most brokerage listing agreements contain a notification clause in small print that says you are obligated to give them a 90-120 day written notification before you will be released.
How do you go about marketing my vessel? Marketing boats is all about exposure. It’s a well-known fact that boat buyers of today shop the world wide web almost exclusively for their yachts. Here you are! In reality statistics demonstrate that about ninety-eight percent of all vessel sales happen as a result of Web exposure.
Ask about the web sites the brokerage makes use of to market boats and yachts. Having your vessel on 10 little known internet sites nobody can come across is ineffective. Ask how the brokerage has completed SEO and what percentage of site visitors visit their websites each month via search engines. Roughly sixty-three percent of our visitors reach us by way of a search engine. It has been indexed by all of the major search engines including Google, Yahoo, Bing, Dogpile, and others.
Ask what terms the internet site is ranked for; our website can be Googled and located on page 1 for “used trawlers”, “used motor yachts”, “used cruisers”, and numerous other search terms.
Can your selected brokerage guarantee that your vessel will appear on Google page one? At our brokerage, we do promise it with each vessel listed.
How many site visitors come to your internet site looking at yachts? We often experience over 18,000 visits to our site monthly, many more than the Yachtworld website.
Ask if the brokerage utilizes the Yachtworld web site, the global multiple listing service web site. This website is the multiple listing site where we share listings with other Brokers. And yes, every one of our yachts is on there.
Global advertising and marketing is a big issue to us; it produces buyers. Do you know that we have had site visitors from as many as seventy eight countries in 2010 from countries such as Australia, Norway, Canada, France, Finland, New Zealand, Australia, United Kingdom, and Germany on this web site, just to mention a few? We sold about 6 vessels to foreign clients in 2010. Request how a brokerage markets and advertises worldwide.
Does the brokerage use direct email marketing? We maintain an email marketing list of several thousand boaters, most of whom are buyers. On a bi-monthly basis we email these customers with a publication about new yachts on the market, price changes, boating headlines and other subjects of marine interest. Your boat will be advertised here. It drives potential customers to the website.
Does the brokerage sustain a blog? We maintain a blog to help educate new customers to the boating community; your boat will be featured there too. It is also indexed by Google daily and creates lots of visitors daily. We write on the blog twice weekly. We additionally maintain a Paradise Yachts presence on Face Book, the social media site where we network with other boaters; many of our fans are boat buyers looking to find the right boat.
We are one of the few brokerages that make use of You Tube to market your boat through narrated videos describing her features. Your vessel will be featured here too.
Furthermore, we also participate in 61 additional social bookmarking web sites with the only intention of bringing the buying traffic to your vessel.
How do you keep me up to date of the progress of your marketing and advertising? At Paradise Yachts we often are told how other Brokers obtain a listing and don’t let customers understand how things are coming along. You will hear from us on a regular basis; about every six weeks. I enjoy sending you an email outlining how I understand the universal market, how many boats similar to yours have been sold and at what value, what the values are with vessels like yours on the market, if any yachts comparable to yours have entered the market and what if any suggestions I have to enhance our advertising and marketing.
How many boats do you maintain in stock? I prefer to keep from 25-35 vessels in my selling inventory. With this number, I am able to keep track of each boat’s monthly progress, look at the website traffic each boat gets, examine what other boats like yours are selling for and keep you up to date on her progress. If I kept more boats in inventory, and you could turn out to be just another number.
What do you actually know about boats; have you ever owned one? I have sold in excess of one boat since the purchaser did his research and sought me out because he knew I personally own a trawler. The buyer sought me out as a result of my boat ownership and know-how. I could talk the talk with him.
And last but not least, ask your broker for a list of boats that sold in the past year. Has he sold any yachts similar to yours?
In summary, 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 investigation and ask a number of questions to recognize you are getting the Broker who has your best interests in mind.
