Best option for selling an older boat

[vaporbluebu]

Our friends bought a new Malibu and need to sell an older Mastercraft Maristar 230 (guessing around a 2003). He had an idea for selling that I thought I would ask the crew. It currently doesn't have a tower, but he is wondering if it would sell faster and for possibly more money if he added one over the winter and sold in the spring. I told him he will for sure get more in the spring than right now. I think he would for sure recoup the tower cost when selling but not sure if he would make enough extra to be worth the hassle. Thoughts?

[Eagleboy99]

Friends of mine had a 2000 Malibu V-drive (can' recall the exact model).  No tower.  They traded it in for a huge MC and the dealer redid the teak platform, added a cheap tower and wet-sanded it and sold it for 10K more than the trade value.  Before that happened I offered to help at least clean it up.  IME, adding a cheap tower and putting lipstick on the pig will more than pay off IF you do the work, not the dealer. YMMV

[shawndoggy]

Agree... add perfect pass too.  A tower and perfect pass should make you money.  I'm not sure I agree about a "cheap" tower (if going to the trouble, why not put a decent one on?), but that's me.  Definitely don't do one that would look goofy on the hull.  Something like the samson edge would look good and be a nice addition.  The monster towers I've seen in the wild all seem to be floppy creaky messes and would almost make the boat worse than not having a tower.  They are inexpensive though.

[RyanB]

I agree with putting on a good tower if you can do it yourself.  But truth be told, I think we are still in for a crazy year with boat sales due to COVID, and it likely will sell fast in the spring either way.

[shawndoggy]

3 minutes ago, RyanB said:

I agree with putting on a good tower if you can do it yourself.  But truth be told, I think we are still in for a crazy year with boat sales due to COVID, and it likely will sell fast in the spring either way.

ha, I kinda wonder if we get vaccine/herd immunity and we can engage in "olden days" sorts of activities whether some of the steam might blow out of the boat market? Maybe 2021 is gonna be the right year to sell.

[Eagleboy99]

1 hour ago, shawndoggy said:

A tower and perfect pass should make you money

As noted by others, depends on how much you plug into it.  And by a "cheap" tower I meant something in the 2K range, not the 4-5K. PP will run, what, 1500? It gets to the point where your margin quickly decreases.   Personally, I would not put PP into a boat I was going to sell unless it was a ski boat.  Here's an interesting brace of boats for sale:  note the diff between dealer and private sale (ignoring the MY diff). https://www.boattrader.com/boats/make-mastercraft/model-230-maristar/

[Eagleboy99]

49 minutes ago, shawndoggy said:

ha, I kinda wonder if we get vaccine/herd immunity and we can engage in "olden days" sorts of activities whether some of the steam might blow out of the boat market? Maybe 2021 is gonna be the right year to sell.

Well, I personally do not see that happening in 2021; maybe in 2022?  The pace of rollout, anti-vaxxers, etc. all slow down the progress.  I _suspect_ that once we get back to "olden days", some new boast owners will sell.  Especially after a winter of storage, summerization costs, etc.  I think 2021 will be the start of a buyer's market.

[vaporbluebu]

1 hour ago, shawndoggy said:

ha, I kinda wonder if we get vaccine/herd immunity and we can engage in "olden days" sorts of activities whether some of the steam might blow out of the boat market? Maybe 2021 is gonna be the right year to sell.

 

44 minutes ago, Eagleboy99 said:

Well, I personally do not see that happening in 2021; maybe in 2022?  The pace of rollout, anti-vaxxers, etc. all slow down the progress.  I _suspect_ that once we get back to "olden days", some new boast owners will sell.  Especially after a winter of storage, summerization costs, etc.  I think 2021 will be the start of a buyer's market.

I agree. I think fall sports of 2021 is the soonest things MIGHT start really get back to normal. We just bought a left over 2020 23 LSV and talking with the salesman they are expecting this year to be another banner year. I can see this spring as a sellers market and 2022 as a buyers.

[wdr]

1 hour ago, vaporbluebu said:

 

I agree. I think fall sports of 2021 is the soonest things MIGHT start really get back to normal. We just bought a left over 2020 23 LSV and talking with the salesman they are expecting this year to be another banner year. I can see this spring as a sellers market and 2022 as a buyers.

My dealership said the same thing last week. They said “they sold less boats this year due to the production halt, but would of sold more than the previous year if they would of had the boats”. The sold everything they had! One would think that after the monster sales of the last 2 years, that there will be a lot of those boats coming on to the market once the owners figure out they aren’t  really 1% ers like the rest of us.😊

Edited December 13, 2020 by wdr

[Gavin17]

I'd just clean it, fix any issues you can find and list on craigslist in the spring.  Spending 2k+on a tower just to sell sounds like a big gamble.   

[Eagleboy99]

53 minutes ago, Gavin17 said:

I'd just clean it, fix any issues you can find and list on craigslist in the spring.  Spending 2k+on a tower just to sell sounds like a big gamble.   

My kid is looking at a condo right now.  The owners did SFA on it; shows like heck.  The kid is offering 80% of list and will probably get it for close to that.  A wakeboat should have a tower these days.