Looking at new boats

[FuzzyGrub]

The way I see it is if a seller is asking 1,500 he's really looking for $750. If he wants $1,500, he best ask $3k and let the seller bargain the price down. I was taught to NEVER pay anyone's asking price no matter how cheap it is.
I offered him $500 for the boat and he flipped out and said he'll crush it before he'll sell it for less than its worth.
It was a nice boat and likely the best price out there for a rock solid boat but if there's no room to bargain there's no deal. If he had put FIRM in his ad maybe I'd have offered him a bit more.

Yep, that drives people like me that try to price items fairly, crazy! As I have slowly sold my old Mercruiser stuff off on FB marketplace, been holding to just a little adder to make buyer "feel" good. To my surprise, many didn't try to low ball, and paid full price. A couple guys that tried to lowball, quickly realized that their gas and time wasn't worth going home with nothing.

 

[Stevum]

The way I see it is if a seller is asking 1,500 he's really looking for $750. If he wants $1,500, he best ask $3k and let the seller bargain the price down. I was taught to NEVER pay anyone's asking price no matter how cheap it is.
I offered him $500 for the boat and he flipped out and said he'll crush it before he'll sell it for less than its worth.
It was a nice boat and likely the best price out there for a rock solid boat but if there's no room to bargain there's no deal. If he had put FIRM in his ad maybe I'd have offered him a bit more.

Loose screw,
So do you expect to have the Supermarket knock 50% off the items in your cart @ checkout? That's basically what you're saying. When I offer any item for sale I determine what I would feel comfortable paying for it as a buyer. If the person is sincere & respectful I may drop the price 3-5 % but no way in hell am I knocking off 50%. Sounds like you would be one of the type that I would physically remove from my property after advising you that the negotiations are over. Just saying....

 

[OldSailor85]

Price your crap fairly and state it is firm.

Reduces the tire-kicker traffic.

 

[gillhunter]

The way I see it is if a seller is asking 1,500 he's really looking for $750. If he wants $1,500, he best ask $3k and let the seller bargain the price down. I was taught to NEVER pay anyone's asking price no matter how cheap it is.
I offered him $500 for the boat and he flipped out and said he'll crush it before he'll sell it for less than its worth.
It was a nice boat and likely the best price out there for a rock solid boat but if there's no room to bargain there's no deal. If he had put FIRM in his ad maybe I'd have offered him a bit more.

You must have some relatives in Georgia. We usually show them the door. LOL

 

[Stevum]

Price your crap fairly and state it is firm.

Reduces the tire-kicker traffic.

Amen to that OldSailor85 !!

 

[airshot]

I have always priced my stuff fairly and make sure things are running and in good condition or I tell them otherwise upfront ! Usually sell to first buyer once they see I am being honest. Low ballers that make ridiculous offers get my usual comback...I will gladly take more, but not less. The other thing is regular sellers...people learn quickly who constantly has things for sale just to turn over a few bucks and tend to stay away from those folks.

 

[outboard]

I have always priced my stuff fairly and make sure things are running and in good condition or I tell them otherwise upfront ! Usually sell to first buyer once they see I am being honest. Low ballers that make ridiculous offers get my usual comback...I will gladly take more, but not less. The other thing is regular sellers...people learn quickly who constantly has things for sale just to turn over a few bucks and tend to stay away from those folks.

Pricing things for the actual price doesn't work here. Adding 'Firm' to your ad just guarantees no one will respond here. I've bought nearly all of my boats and motors from regular sellers, if it wasn't for a few of them many of my best finds would have never seen the light of day to be resold.

As someone who has been in and around the boating and fishing tackle business to some degree for most of my life I've watched the market change and its changed over the last 10 years more than ever. For the most part we've lost the type of buyer who buys a boat, a motor, and a trailer and puts together a boat they always wanted. For a bit it was a shift to those with no ability to build or fix anything and they simply bought new boats ready to run. Those owners tend to be short time owners or they realize the expense of owning a boat is not for them. Those boats either got abandoned or parked in some garage until someone stumbles on it and by that time the original owner has lost all interest and sells it cheap. There are thousands of such boat sitting in garages out there and anyone with a job or a life simply will never find them as many don't surface until the estate sale.

The next generation saw their parents loose interest in those boats and either would never own one or can't afford one at any price these days.
That leaves the next generation who has had no boating influence or mechanical experience. That's what we're seeing now. Its a mix of older folks who have a bit of money but no ability to build or fix anything and a generation that wants instant gratification and doesn't mine five digit credit card balances. Neither of those will buy a 'good used boat' they either buy a new boat, gamble on a turn key boat because its cheap enough to hide it from the wife, of they never get past simply the thought alone and go buy a video game instead.

 

[Seafarer]

Price your crap fairly and state it is firm.

Reduces the tire-kicker traffic.

All that gets you here is no replies.

The old timers who have the money to spend seem to want to bargain.

It reminds me of this scene:

 

[OldSailor85]

Pricing things for the actual price doesn't work here. Adding 'Firm' to your ad just guarantees no one will respond here. I've bought nearly all of my boats and motors from regular sellers, if it wasn't for a few of them many of my best finds would have never seen the light of day to be resold.

As someone who has been in and around the boating and fishing tackle business to some degree for most of my life I've watched the market change and its changed over the last 10 years more than ever. For the most part we've lost the type of buyer who buys a boat, a motor, and a trailer and puts together a boat they always wanted. For a bit it was a shift to those with no ability to build or fix anything and they simply bought new boats ready to run. Those owners tend to be short time owners or they realize the expense of owning a boat is not for them. Those boats either got abandoned or parked in some garage until someone stumbles on it and by that time the original owner has lost all interest and sells it cheap. There are thousands of such boat sitting in garages out there and anyone with a job or a life simply will never find them as many don't surface until the estate sale.

The next generation saw their parents loose interest in those boats and either would never own one or can't afford one at any price these days.
That leaves the next generation who has had no boating influence or mechanical experience. That's what we're seeing now. Its a mix of older folks who have a bit of money but no ability to build or fix anything and a generation that wants instant gratification and doesn't mine five digit credit card balances. Neither of those will buy a 'good used boat' they either buy a new boat, gamble on a turn key boat because its cheap enough to hide it from the wife, of they never get past simply the thought alone and go buy a video game instead.

Painting with a pretty broad brush.

Where is your "here"? I'm in NE Ohio.

There ARE younger people with mechanical skill. Most of them are working 60-70 hours a week. With a family, that doesn't leave much time for fishing.

I have never had trouble selling a boat, car, or truck. They all go fast.

 

[airshot]

Pricing things for the actual price doesn't work here. Adding 'Firm' to your ad just guarantees no one will respond here. I've bought nearly all of my boats and motors from regular sellers, if it wasn't for a few of them many of my best finds would have never seen the light of day to be resold.

As someone who has been in and around the boating and fishing tackle business to some degree for most of my life I've watched the market change and its changed over the last 10 years more than ever. For the most part we've lost the type of buyer who buys a boat, a motor, and a trailer and puts together a boat they always wanted. For a bit it was a shift to those with no ability to build or fix anything and they simply bought new boats ready to run. Those owners tend to be short time owners or they realize the expense of owning a boat is not for them. Those boats either got abandoned or parked in some garage until someone stumbles on it and by that time the original owner has lost all interest and sells it cheap. There are thousands of such boat sitting in garages out there and anyone with a job or a life simply will never find them as many don't surface until the estate sale.

The next generation saw their parents loose interest in those boats and either would never own one or can't afford one at any price these days.
That leaves the next generation who has had no boating influence or mechanical experience. That's what we're seeing now. Its a mix of older folks who have a bit of money but no ability to build or fix anything and a generation that wants instant gratification and doesn't mine five digit credit card balances. Neither of those will buy a 'good used boat' they either buy a new boat, gamble on a turn key boat because its cheap enough to hide it from the wife, of they never get past simply the thought alone and go buy a video game instead.

Your lucky, in my area most boats sit out in someone's back yard until the cover risen I grates and goes away. The hull fills with leaves and water the sits thru a cold winter. After a few years of not using the boat, they decide to sell it. Power wash and a good clean and buff her shinny then add a for sale sign that says low hours, barely used, like new !! I have at least a dozen like that within one mile and I live in the country where properties care spread out ! Worse case is many have a pole barn, but the boat sits out in the weather !! ???

 

[loosescrew]

Nothing sell fast here.
Although they won't let a hit counter remain up for very long on CL I've been able to get one to last almost a week and the number of hits and the number of those online or logged in browsing is next to nothing and has been for over five years now. FB has lots of people browsing but the stats show most are not local.
The FB system is screwed up. If I go on there and search simply 'boat' and set the max dstance at say a 50 mile radius I'll get five or six somewhat local listings then the rest are hundreds of miles away. If I see one that I want to go back to I have to email myself the link because it will never turn up again in a future search,

I gave up on FB because out of over 500 items I've listed there not a one has sold and none have ever produced a legit contact. Nothing but offshore scammers, data miners, and $20 offers on $4k items.
The revelation that FB somehow restricts what buyers can see somehow came when a guy at work said he listed a few surf carts he had inherited from his father-in-law but had no takers He was asking $40 each and they looked brand new. What got me is that I should have seen them as he lives less than a block away from me. With him on the phone one night I was trying to find his ads to see what they looked like. Not only couldn't I find his ads I couldn't fine his profile period. After he emailed me a direct link to one of his ads I could then see his profile and items listed for sale.

Even after looking over all his ads and his profile, when I backed out and tried to search even the exact title it refused to show me anything he had listed. It kept telling me he was 'Far from my location' and it stated that he was 'outside of the search parameter selected'.

I went back and checked to see that my zip code was right and then where his was listed and both were correct.
I then changed my zip code to one 300 miles away and then it showed his items in a search, I realized that if I changed my zip code to one 300 to 500 miles away I saw more 'local' items than if I used my own. It also varied by the IP address I was using. I can't say why or how it works but it seems to be why when I search on my laptop I get completely different results then I get on my phone, or on my desktop at home despite being signed in on the same account.
The screwed up search makes no sense, its not as if they're making any money of people not finding things and those who list on FB or CL are not likely to list their items anywhere else. I for one would never pay for an ad no more than I'd pay full price for anything used or listed for sale. It would be just as wrong as going to a car dealer and paying the sticker price. When I bought my last new truck the window sticker said $59k. I left there having written a check for $42k and left them a trade in worth maybe $4K in the real world but they marked up the trade value to $12k despite it having 187k on the odometer and four nearly bald tires. and more than a dozen birthdays in its past.
Then on top of that I opted for a cash rebate option of $2,500 . Where would I have been if I walked in that day and just said 'I'll take that one" and pad the sticker price.
A week later a local used car lot had my old truck on their lot for $8,999 with big LOW MILES sign on the windshield. I saw it for sale on CL a few months later for $2k from another used car lot. I bought it back, for $400 after nearly a year on CL. (with four new Chinese tires on it).
I resold it two years later to a farmer in VA for $4k who saw the CL ad being talked about on a motorcycle web forum.
I had only traded it in because it needed so much work and it didn't have ac. After i got it back it had gotten new brakes and new tires and someone even fixed the rust over the rear wheels and put a new bed liner in it.
When I decided to sell it again I swapped out the newer tires for an well worn set off my Bronco and sold the bed liner on CL. I not only got two more years out of that truck bit in a way is made the original deal on the new truck that much cheaper. The last I saw that truck it was listed as registered as part of an estate sale about two years ago and the VIN never showed up as being registered since. The odometer had flipped again by the time I resold it last but 300ci six cylinder can run half a million miles if properly maintained.

There's no telling how many times that truck had been haggled over in its life. I'm now 20 years into the 'new' truck which now has almost 15,000 mi. on it now so chances are this one will out last me and I doubt there's much out there new I"ll ever feel compelled to write a check for so long as the ac blow cold in my current truck.

 

[boatyard]

Your lucky, in my area most boats sit out in someone's back yard until the cover risen I grates and goes away. The hull fills with leaves and water the sits thru a cold winter. After a few years of not using the boat, they decide to sell it. Power wash and a good clean and buff her shinny then add a for sale sign that says low hours, barely used, like new !! I have at least a dozen like that within one mile and I live in the country where properties care spread out ! Worse case is many have a pole barn, but the boat sits out in the weather !! ???

None of that means very much though when your talking about a 14ft aluminum boat like the OP is looking for, Other than saltwater corrosion and maybe a new piece of wood that even the dimmest of folks can manage to replace there's not much to go wrong even if it sits and gets wet outside.

My personal boat, an open Mirrocraft Lake Fisherman 16 footer has zero exposed wood and a single two lawyer strip of transom wood about 12" tall and 6ft wide. I replace the wood in my buddies identical boat two years ago and made a second already fitted panel for when mine finally needs it, The rest of the boat is all metal. I have to lift out 'floor' panels made from 3/8" plywood and a few short pieces of 2x4 that drop in place that spend the winter in the rafters of my garage. The boat sits outside with a canvas tarp. I flip a 12ft boat over on top of it support the cover when it snows. The motor gets run out of fuel and any gas left in the tanks gets dumped into next years lawn mower gas jugs, I keep a small 3 gallon tank with treated fuel that I used to fire it up on occasion when the weather is warm through the winder and if not I'll at least crank the motor over a few times to keep the impeller from taking a set. Other than some faded paint its in every bit as good of condition as when I first bought it in 1985.

 

[FuzzyGrub]

Your lucky, in my area most boats sit out in someone's back yard until the cover risen I grates and goes away. The hull fills with leaves and water the sits thru a cold winter. After a few years of not using the boat, they decide to sell it. Power wash and a good clean and buff her shinny then add a for sale sign that says low hours, barely used, like new !! I have at least a dozen like that within one mile and I live in the country where properties care spread out ! Worse case is many have a pole barn, but the boat sits out in the weather !! ???

Always breaks my heart when I see that. At least the open style tin boats can usually be restored without sinking allot into them. Wood filled tins and fiberglass boats, not worth the time. I can't count the number of Bayliner yard planters seen in my lifetime. And that is coming from a happy bayliner owner.

 

[oilsmoke]

I won't bash any brands but about 15 years ago a buddy decided he wanted his own boat. He had just retired and wanted to spend some time relaxing and fishing. He set a budget for a boat and went looking. Another buddy was helping him look over various boats but I had agreed to look at anything he decided he was serious about. After they looked at a dozen used boats he decided to bite the bullet and buy a new one That quest started at a boat show but the model he wanted there was sold. They then went to that dealer because they told him they had one almost identical for sale for a lot less money back at the shop. They went to look at the boat and it turned out to be a left over model from three years prior. This was in 2010 and the boat was an '06 or '07 model.
They took the boat pending an inspection which the dealer agreed to. They show ed up here with it that afternoon and wanted me too look over the deal. The dealer was knocking off $12k from the current list price for that model but the motor on it was a pre-Bombardier Evinrude Ficht 150 made in 2002.

It had no other notable options on a 19ft center console. The boat had obviously been sitting and was filthy from dust and dirt, The gel coat was faded a bit and the motor looked like it had sat outdoors since day one. I climbed up on the boat, on a roller trailer that I'd call two sizes too small for the boat, and gave it a good once over and right away the floor didn't feel right. The floor felt 'crunchy' under foot.

Another buddy was there too and he followed me up the ladder onto the boat. He calls me to the back of the boat where he tells me to 'step here' and asked me if the floor feels normal or not'?. As he said that my foot goes through the floor. The deck fiberglass was just that, just a thin layer of glass no more than 1/8" thick. My foot went through the deck and up to my knee. At that point I was more pissed off than anything else and gave the rest of the floor a few more good hard stomps and went through it in several places. I'm no lightweight at 300lbs but boats shouldn't break like eggshells.

I stopped looking after that and told them they best tell the dealer where he can shove that thing.
The dealer tried to blame them on being too heavy, (neither one was over 250 lbs). They got their deposit back.
I later found out that they had hauled some boats up from a sister location in FL after a hurricane wrecked their showroom there. They had repaired some of the damaged boats and moved them north to unload them. What happened to that boat had nothing to do with how it failed but age and time in the sun certainly didn't help it much.

None of those issues apply to a tin boat though. A basic 14ft aluminum boat should for most purposes last forever even with minimal care. It why I prefer aluminum over glass. It can sit for years in stasis without issues and be the very same boat it was when last used.
Its why they hold their value and with how rare new models have become that value has gone up quite a bit over the years as well.

 

[mirrocraft16]

Always breaks my heart when I see that. At least the open style tin boats can usually be restored without sinking allot into them. Wood filled tins and fiberglass boats, not worth the time. I can't count the number of Bayliner yard planters seen in my lifetime. And that is coming from a happy bayliner owner.

The best part about a simple utility type boat is that it don't need a ton of work to be ready to fish.
A good transom panel, which in most cases is no more than a pair of 12"x60" pieces of 3/4" plywood glued together and bolted in place, maybe a seat or two and floor panels if you wish but nothing structural unless its lived in the saltwater full time. Most are trailered and the fact that most here do little to cover them means that salt gets washed off in the rain.

I cover mine, I use an old junk boat for my winter cover, I slide the junk hull atop my boat to hold up the cover over the winter.
In the summer I've got a wood stand with a basketball on top and a heavy tarp. It doesn't get wet and the tarp nearly reaches the ground on the sides so even the paint is protected when its not being used. If i venture into saltwater it gets a wash down in Salt-X and fresh water. When I'm gone someone will likely get a really nice old boat.

I can safely say I would never sell it for what I see many boats going for these days. For my use, the wide hull of the Mirrocraft Lake Fisherman is perfect. It'll handle the shallow back creeks, run hard in the river and its big enough to deal with the bay on calm days as well. I used to fish with a guy who had one and he didn't hesitate to take his out into the bay or even the ocean on calm days.

I've rebuilt quite a few 'wood filled' aluminum boats over the years, mostly Starcraft SS models, for the most part its just a matter of a couple hundred bucks worth of plywood and paint and some time. I never got too carried away restoring them because the way I see it the original transom and floors lasted 50 years, anything I put on there will likely out last me or its next owner.

Lately I've not bothered though, there's not been enough takers for a boat that's either ready for a motor or even turnkey.
The money just don't seem to be out there so I haven't bought any projects and by the looks of what's listed neither has anyone else.
Just the same I've bought a few really nice boats and motors for next to nothing here. In the fall and around Christmas there's always someone dumping their pride and joy for cheap either to buy hunting gear or Christmas gifts for the kids.
Once income tax checks start coming in they're looking to buy another boat and sell that hunting gear they bought last year.

I already see some decent looking boats listed but none seem to be moving very fast regardless of the price.
A cheap boat will always sell, most have no problem coming up with $400-$500 or so but much more and it'll likely have a few birthdays on CL or FB here.

 

[FuzzyGrub]

I cover mine, I use an old junk boat for my winter cover, I slide the junk hull atop my boat to hold up the cover over the winter.

That is what I do for covering my DMI1648 at camp. Except it is a perfectly good 10' rowboat. No one’s there thru the winter, to clear it off. They had over 200” of snow this year. Photos from x-skiing neighbor.

PS: For small tinnies, just flip them over and prop them off the ground, and they will last nearly forever.