Without a boat

Attached you will find the deed of delivery, signed by the buyer – that is the mail I received from the broker. It is now really final, Casper is sold. After 8 years together, we each go our own way.

In early January, I receive a message from the De Valk brokers. An offer has come in for Casper. Whether we want to seriously think about it. The offer is more than 30% lower than our asking price. I find that strange and am tempted to say that I will not think about it.

But, how did our asking price come about? When we wanted to put Casper up for sale in October, we had a certain amount in mind. However, the broker indicated that we could ask much more and that the boat would be sold quickly in the current market (see november article). We then indicated that we doubted whether that was a realistic asking price, but in the end we agreed. We are asking a little less than the advice, but still high. “We can always go down.

Now in January we are faced with the question of whether we want to seriously consider the offer, because “the market is a buyers’ market” according to the broker. This is strange, in October the message was still that the boat will be sold quickly for a high price.

In addition, there is something about a boat that needs to be traded in. I don’t want to have anything to do with that, but “that will be fine”. We are going to think about the offer.

Buy first then sell(twice)

The offer is slightly lower than what we wanted for it. But we also have to remember the broker’s commission. Carla and I agree, the communication will be that we want X amount in the end after all costs are taken off. With that, the broker will start talking to the potential buyer.

We get a message back that the buyer has agreed. The only thing left to do is to look at the trade-in boat. A week later, I get a purchase agreement emailed from a boat(not Casper), by the broker. After I call him, it turns out it is the trade-in boat. It seems to be “common” for me to trade that boat in, and the broker does already have a dealer for that trade-in boat…what a strange story. In the end, I agree with the broker that I will first sign a preliminary purchase agreement in which I sell the trade-in boat to the dealer. Once I have that in writing, I sign the purchase of the trade-in boat. After that, the process of selling Casper continues.

So in a nutshell, I am selling a boat by purchasing another boat which is immediately sold again… what a strange world this boat business. Is this normal? Is this always done this way? How is this legal? Well anyway, on faith we just did this process.

In the end, everything worked out and a family is now the owner of Casper. We have been in contact with the buyers and I can confidently say that Casper has a nice place with a family again.

Retrospective

Did we learn anything from selling Casper? Yes, we have doubted whether we would go through a broker or sell Casper directly ourselves. Because of the convenience of a broker, we do not have to do visits ourselves, we chose a broker. We wouldn’t do that now. In addition, we should have continued to use our own asking price. If the price is too high, it won’t come to the attention of the right audience. In the november article, we indicated we didn’t know anything about the trade, maybe we were wrong 😉 .