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Anyone Seen A Bigger Reduction On A Boat For Sale ?


alan_fincher

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Hmm Looks like Summat Special

http://www.heartwoodnarrowboats.co.uk/Gallery_Summat_Special.htm

 

We went on it Crick last year. We were warned it was a bit top heavy but its what the customer insisted on.

 

Thanks for that post, we often wondered what the boat was like inside. Very high specification, but for a modern engined narrow boat, I still believe that it was overpriced.

 

Mike

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Please forgive my ignorance of boatbuilding but if you had a top heavy narrowboat, wouldn't you just add more ballast? I realise there's a limit to "how low can you go" but there looks to be plenty of freeboard left on that one....

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Please forgive my ignorance of boatbuilding but if you had a top heavy narrowboat, wouldn't you just add more ballast? I realise there's a limit to "how low can you go" but there looks to be plenty of freeboard left on that one....

 

I suppose it depends on the draft. You wouldn't want to build a dredger that will struggle on shallow stretches of the cut.

 

Mike

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I have always taken the view that you should price an item at what you realisticly think it is worth, which means that the only area of negotiation is between that figure and what a genuinely interestaed viewer thinks it is realisticly worth.

 

This modern trend to try and knock down the asking price by a ridiculous percentage has been encouraged by TV programmes like Re-location etc. and is becoming the norm for many people. All this does is encourage sellers to hike their asking price in anticipation of ridiculously low offers, and slows down the whole selling proceedure.

 

When our boat was last surveyed, the surveyor suggested that the asking price, if we were going to selling it, should be £28k-£30k, which in my opinion is silly. I reckon that an asking price should be around £25k with a probably sale value of around £23k-£24k. If we offered the boat for sale at £25k and someone offered £15k, I would just ask them to put the offer in writing and walk away. They may enjoy some perverse pleasure fom the haggling process, but not in my time.

Edited by David Schweizer
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No matter what you're buying an item is worth "your money"... what do I mean by that?

In my line of work we buy high value second hand items regularly (not boats), we examine them, make our minds what its worth to us and make an offer accordingly. We are told many times that our offer is too low... maybe it is, but that is the sellers point of view, not ours. An item is only worth what the individual wants to pay for it, but then I am buying with a view of resale again.

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I have always taken the view that you should price an item at what you realisticly think it is worth, which means that the only area of negotiation is between that figure and what a genuinely interestaed viewer thinks it is realisticly worth.

 

This modern trend to try and knock down the asking price by a ridiculous percentage has been encouraged by TV programmes like Re-location etc. and is becoming the norm for many people. All this does is encourage sellers to hike their asking price in anticipation of ridiculously low offers, and slows down the whole selling proceedure.

 

When our boat was last surveyed, the surveyor suggested that the asking price, if we were going to selling it, should be £28k-£30k, which in my opinion is silly. I reckon that an asking price should be around £25k with a probably sale value of around £23k-£24k. If we offered the boat for sale at £25k and someone offered £15k, I would just ask them to put the offer in writing and walk away. They may enjoy some perverse pleasure fom the haggling process, but not in my time.

 

So, is your boat 'realistically' worth £25K or £23-24K? If the former, why accept the latter? If the latter why not simply ask for that and refuse to take anything less?

 

In our case, I don't think we were being 'trendy' in knocking down the asking price. The asking price was ridiculous.

It's a market place, and one feature of market places has always been negotiation or 'haggling' in which either side can walk away.

 

http://www.reidsguides.com/t_sh/t_sh_haggling.html

 

from the above link:

 

"Now begins the back and forth, a ping-pong match of prices that draws closer to some median as you go. This median depends on the place, the merchant, and the item. The thing may only be worth as little as 25% or as high as 75% of his original asking price. This back and forth is a way to feel each other out and decide where the price should be. It's supply and demand on a person-to-person basis."

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So, is your boat 'realistically' worth £25K or £23-24K? If the former, why accept the latter? If the latter why not simply ask for that and refuse to take anything less?

 

In our case, I don't think we were being 'trendy' in knocking down the asking price. The asking price was ridiculous.

It's a market place, and one feature of market places has always been negotiation or 'haggling' in which either side can walk away.

 

http://www.reidsguides.com/t_sh/t_sh_haggling.html

 

from the above link:

 

"Now begins the back and forth, a ping-pong match of prices that draws closer to some median as you go. This median depends on the place, the merchant, and the item. The thing may only be worth as little as 25% or as high as 75% of his original asking price. This back and forth is a way to feel each other out and decide where the price should be. It's supply and demand on a person-to-person basis."

Do you adopt the same approach when buying a pair of shoes or fuel for your car? I guess not. So why adopt that approach when purchasing a boat. If the price is ridicuolously high fair enough, but if the price is fair, and you really want it, why waste time haggling, during which time someone elso may have snuck in with something approaching the asking price.

 

When we bought our boat, the surveyor suggested trying to knock £500 off the price. I knew the vendor's reputation and knew he would just walk away, I also knew that he was asking a resalistic price. The subsequent sale of some of his other boats has proved that we got ours at a good price.

Edited by David Schweizer
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Do you adopt the same approach when buying a pair of shoes or fuel for your car? I guess not. So why adopt that approach when purchasing a boat. If the price is ridicuolously high fair enough, but if the price is fair, and you really want it, why waste time haggling, during which time someone elso may have snuck in with something approaching the asking price.

 

Not with fuel - as it's pointless - but yes, sometimes, especially if I know there's an identical item on sale somewhere else at a lower price. I work on the principle that if you don't ask you don't get. The worst that can happen is that the seller says 'No', which is fine. Then you have a choice to buy at the stated or asking price, or walk away.

 

"But if the price is fair" Who decides what is fair? The difference between your asking price and selling price demonstrates that you - as the seller - have at least two versions of what is fair. Is one of those fairer than the other?

 

"Why waste time haggling?" Because you might save yourself some money.

 

"Someone elso may have snuck in" That's the risk you take.

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