Sell the boat????

[Old school Ultra]

Has anyone sold a boat? I am thinking about selling ours and moving up later in the year, My question?? What about the test drive??? Do you just take the prospective buyer to the lake for a day of fun in the sun? Do you get a big non-refundable deposit???
Any input??

[andy01]

You only do a demo to show that the boat runs and drives as promised. You do that at the time of delivery, once paid for. If the boat is not as promised then buyer gets their money back. Demos are not to see if they like driving your boat.
Andy

[boats&bars]

Has anyone sold a boat? I am thinking about selling ours and moving up later in the year, My question?? What about the test drive??? Do you just take the prospective buyer to the lake for a day of fun in the sun? Do you get a big non-refundable deposit???
Any input??
When I sold my last boat I put it on the fake a lake in the driveway, but I did offer to take him to elsinore,he bought it before we could go.
have the buyer give you a $100 dollar deposit to make sure they will show up , have them meet you at the lake and have the boat at the dock, take em for a spin ,let em drive it, go back to the dock, and ask them if they want it, if they do put it on the trailer and do paperwork, if not thank them for looking and send them on their way. I have done it in the past and it seemed to work out ok.......

[boats&bars]

You only do a demo to show that the boat runs and drives as promised. You do that at the time of delivery, once paid for. If the boat is not as promised then buyer gets their money back. Demos are not to see if they like driving your boat.
Andy
Andy you have a point, there are lots of tire kickers out there so you gotta be able to sort them out.

[HocusPocus]

in the last few years i have sold 7 boats, none of them wanted a demo ride even though im only about 30 min from silverwood lake. all i did was put water to it and fire it up in the driveway, showed them the basics and that it went into gear smoothly. none were high dollar boats (20k or less).

[rerfert]

I've sold 4 boats thus far and only had one guy want to take one to the water and drive/check it out.
Mind you all 4 were priced about 500/1000 under what they were actually worth for a quicker sale.
My first jetboat sale I had a guy ready to write a check and the wife wanted to think about it....
so over breakfast they decide they would like to test it out....
I haul it out the 30 miles, Pay the $5 and run him around the water for 15 minutes.....
He likes everything but the air cleaner noise :rolleyes: so I turned it backward and he was happy with that......
all to come back to the boat ramp and have him need to talk it over with the wife.....
No sale and a waste of my time......
I like $100 non refundable deposit idea
if the boat checks out and the new buyer gets cold feet it should cost him/her $100....
Not unreasonable if I were ready to buy a boat in the driveway $100 ernest money would not be a problem to water test.

[Old school Ultra]

Thanks, Great idea....
I really appreciate the info!