Yacht Brokers

Hear, hear!

When you stop to think about it--as opposed to taking a knee jerk (or just plain jerk) reaction to the fellow's comment denigrating yacht brokers--who else has their finger on the pulse, as it were, of the boats that are out there and their condition, selling prices, current market conditions, where the deals are, which boat has a checkered past, which captain is a drunk and/or which boat he ran up on the rocks (and, on the flip side, which skipper you'd trust with your life)? Good brokers are out there every day, and every day brings change to the aforementioned.

These kinds of things are not published in any marine periodicals that I've ever run across. It might even be further shocking to learn that there are a great many more shyster buyers & sellers than brokers out there. True.

If a guy or gal has the wherewithal to purchase a yacht, he/she most likely has traveled the road far enough to be a decent judge of character and will spend some time "interviewing" a broker or three through light conversations on the docks to separate the wheat from the chaff.

As always, there will be those who live by the dictum "Don't confuse me with the facts, I've already made up my mind".

My humble opinion, as always.

I'm 25% a yacht "broker" and for 75% a yacht "dealer" . I must say that Captains more and more often advise owners/clients which vessel to visit/consider/buy depending on how much money the Captain is being offered "under the table" by the selling broker/dealer.

And trust me when I say that its mostly captains the first ones to come up and ask you for a "gift" in exchange for the technical advice to be positive towards your boat on sale, or even simply to shut up and down say anything against you!

Obviously we can't generalize this on all captains, as we can't say the same for all yacht brokers. But as the proverb says, "one rotten apple is enough to have all the basket thown away!"

If the client was intelligent enough to have earned the money he is ready to spend, he wil be intelligent enough to make his own choice on how to spend it!

Two six graders in Fort Lauderdale were chatting during recess about their father's work. One said his father was a doctor and the other said "Oh that must be cool." The other said his father was a yacht broker, and his friend said "Yacht Broker! Honestly?" the other repiled "No, he is the regular kind."

We all know we can delete "yacht broker" from the above joke and replace it with lawyer, CPA, car dealer, contractor, engineer, whatever you want. Just like everyone else in the world there are good, bad, indifferent, why not brokers? Anyone who lumps all brokers (or insert profession here) as bad has to be a little naive.

As a broker who was a captain for 18 years before becoming a broker I always find these types of statements interesting. There are many paths to becoming a good broker, being a captain first is just one of them. A quick point is there are a lot of captains that become brokers but not many brokers that become captains on large yachts. It is too bad in away, as a captain/broker I can see the crew side of the business as can others, but you do not have the reverse going on. When I was a captain I had a lot of respect for most of the brokers I worked with but I did not see the whole picture of how much they needed to know and how much work went it to the job (part of which is working with the captains)

The best way I can explain the transition is it is like being the first mate on a big boat and then moving to captain on a medium size boat. When you where first mate you knew you could do everything the captain did and maybe do it better. When you became the captain on a smaller boat you found out that the responsibility of the position and what was really being done by the captain was far more then you ever knew. That is why you found yourself giving your first mate "that smile" that your captain would give you at times.

There are good and bad and medium in all professions, my advice is find a good broker. You and he working together can do a much better job for the owner then either alone.

Interesting to hear the different backgrounds of the yacht brokers. So far we have captains, a naval architect, and Loren who I assume has been a professional writer and comedian.

I came to yacht brokering 12 years ago after having been previously married to a serious sailor. We built and owned many sailboats and cruised the world. The polite phrase is "due to change in circumstance," he got the 100 footer, I got the pre-nup. Being a yacht broker with an owner's background gives me a different perspective. I won't elaborate here.

My point is that the brokers who have posted come from a variety of backgrounds and are well respected, knowledgable, experienced brokers. We know the benefits of a broker's service to a client either buying or selling. The captain and his opinions, if he has proven trust and longevity with the owner, become one more factor in our helping the buyer make the right purchasing decision.

While I don't necessarily agree with the concept that a successful business person will make the best choices relating to anything marine, I am a proponent of recommending clients hold formal interview processes including asking brokers for recent references from both sides of their latest yacht sales. Yacht brokers make their income solely based on commissions. In my opinion, "bad" brokers are those who cross lines of ethics or morality enticed by the money factor, or they are lazy or inept. It shouldn't take much for a client to figure out that these are not the successful brokers and they are not the majority of professionals in our specialized field.

Judy

Full disclosure

Judy, that sounds a great deal more exciting, and probably a tad more lucrative than my true background, which found this newly degreed engineer going to work in the engineering department of a famous South Florida yachtbuilder.
I learned how yachts are properly constructed. This was in the era when the engineering management told the sales and accounting types what kinds of yachts that the company would build. The president acted as a kind of referee.
Can you imagine?
Turns out that I realized in short order that down at the other end of the hall was where all the fun was, and thus began my sales career.
In the thirteen years I was there, I learned how to drive and dock sixty-footers by myself, was taught how to properly tie a line around a cleat, figured out how to deal with grumpy management and Difficult Clients,and was, in general exposed to many,many different sales situations, other boat manufacturers, the engine people, accounting, service departments both good and bad (ours was not highly regarded), extemporaneous public speaking, and lots more.
A great powerboat--and people-- education was what it was.

And, just like John DeCaro said above, I thought, when asked to join the retail world, I pretty much knew it all by then. Heck, I'd traveled around the country for years showing brokers how to sell my stuff.
You would be right in assuming that I found myself at the bottom of a rather long-ish learning curve.

In this amalgamation of people and boat-stuff known as Yacht Brokerage, many tools are required and, among them, a sense of humor can be handy at times.

The ability to write a concise sentence don't hurt none, neither.

And the bell rings. There is a point where any businessman knows that it's beyond being a quick study, and the time has come to hire someone else with the specialised knowledge that is required. As in other transactions it takes two.
If I hire someone to do the job and they fail then I'm just as much at fault. I either didn't do my due diligence in order to confirm the capabilities of the person or I didn't do the due diligence in order to confirm the capabilities of that person. ( No, that wasn't an error duplication)
Sure, there are some darn slick critters out there in any profession, but it just isn't all that hard to pick up the phone and get more information about someone these days than I sometimes care to think about.
Blasting away at any particular profession is a mug's game,... great, good and failures in any group. ( Proviso.. I admit it, I enjoy jokes about lawyers and politicians as much as anyone)
All that being said, sometimes if the businessman doesn't have the bell go off in his head that it's time to get a pro in on the project things can go sideways. If the due diligence has been done then the pro that comes in that is worth his or her salt will be professional enough to take said businessman and straighten him out or resign the job.

You lost me.

Sorry
I have to switch back to North America.

Giving someone a choice where both choices have pretty much the same result is the only way to get things done when negotiating in some places.

Short strokes is that I was saying that it would be my fault if I chose the wrong person.

How much do boat brokers make in the sale of a MY ? Does the selling broker split with the buying broker. Has the downturn in boats changed things.

Jon, think of yacht brokers like real estate agents. They get their commission based on the sale and from the seller's proceeds. The buying and selling brokers split the commission. I think the commission percentage may vary depending on value of the vessel being sold, but the last one we listed, I think the commission was 8%.

For the vast majority of yachts and qualified brokers, the commission is 10% of the contracted selling price. If there are 2 brokers, a listing broker (the one with the boat) and a selling broker (the one with the buyer), then the commission split is either 50/50 or 40/60 depending on the brokerage houses. The economy has not effected the commission percentages.

Judy Waldman
Yacht Broker

percent

"Qualified Broker", now that is a good one

Hello! Didn't two brokers recently pull off a miracle on a recent sale with the most difficult seller in marine history and a buyer who thrives on denigration?

Just jerking your chain back

J

And usually the broker splits 50% of the commission with their brokerage house........