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How to sell a boat (2025)
Published March 13, 2025 by Remi van der Deure
Selling Your Boat: 8 Tips from the Pros
The process of selling your boat doesn’t have to be intimidating. This expert guide unpacks the process into eight integral tips, from strategic planning to successful showings, ensuring that the sale sails smoothly and most profitably.
1. Decide your sales strategy
Define your yachting goals before you begin your search to prevent costly mistakes.
Sell yourself
This gives you more control, but it requires more time, word, and knowledge.
Broker or Dealer
Pros take care of everything, but commissions or trade-in values will reduce your return.
Trade-In
Relatively easy if purchasing a brand new boat from a dealer, but generally means a lower price.
2. Get your boat ready for success
As obvious as it seems, make sure that you go through all parts of the boat and wipe it down, including hidden areas such as storage compartments and coolboxes.
Mechanical Health
Check that all machines and engines are in working order.
Before listing, do some repairs and fix it up.
Transparency is key
Always inform prospective buyers and brokers of any faulty or broken equipment. A marine surveyor will probably find these problems anyway, and the price will be haggled.
3. Set a realistic price
If you work with an experienced yacht broker with good market knowledge they will assist you in determining an appropriate going market price for your boat.
Take a look in online listings for similar boats, plus in magazines and on boat broker websites.
If there are parts on the boat that need fixing that would make it unable to sail (the engine, or the quality of the sails if it’s a sailboat), or has blemishes on the hull, then the price you set might have to be lower than the market price.
Also, remember geography will play a part in the value of the boat, and may command a premium in regions where boats are in high demand and be worth less in areas where they’re not.
Expectation value is also influenced by other variables, such as:
- The popularity of the boat model
- Supply and demand for similar vessels
- Options and equipment level: new sound system, stabilizer, recent refit…
- The economic climate and the stock market.
After you settle on a number remember that a boat is only worth what someone will pay for it.
If the price is too high, it can sit on the market for months.
The type of boating you’ve done also matters because chartered boats may be in worse shape than private boats.
4. Flexibility
Be willing to change your price in light of market response. Begin with a fair asking price and adjust downward if necessary.
5. Importance of maintenance and boat history
Excellent boat maintenance is also a major advantage when it comes to resale. It guarantees that your boat is in good condition overall, which will reassure the buyer.
Proof of regular maintenance
This will be appreciated by people interested in your boat (for example, repair and maintenance invoices or current warranty documents). Gone are the days when you had to pull out stacks of invoices to present to the buyer, now you can access them directly from the mobile application.
Show off your boat’s history and upkeep (provide maintenance and repair records, along with warranty documentation to your broker). This process can be streamlined through digital platforms such as the Seanapps application.
6. Quality listing
Good Pictures is a must as well as appealing and informative description: offer photos from multiple angles and the features of your boat, lighting all properly. Drone Video Tour is a plus.
Provide a thorough inventory: list all equipment aboard and fitted options (which sails, engine(s) detail, electronics etc.) and their condition along with recent upgrades.
7. Showing your boat to prospective buyers
Just like a real estate viewing, boat showings are best left to an expert yacht broker that can provide potential buyers with an unbiased outside perspective and handle their occasionally critical feedback more effectively than the boat’s owner.
It would also help if the broker brings along a presentation of documentation proving legal ownership as well as the boat’s maintenance records.
8. Seasonality
List your boat for sale when potential buyers are in the market, which is before peak Mediterranboating season.
Put your boat on the market late spring to early summer in Europe.
More information?
Read our boat sales & purchase FAQ
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