Value my boat: what is my boat worth to sell?

What a buyer in your region will pay this season, which is rarely the guide figure. Start from a guide value or a comparable sale, then adjust for engine hours, condition, survey findings and the gear that goes with the boat. The calculator above does that arithmetic so you can see each adjustment on its own line.

Fair market value is the price a willing buyer and a willing seller agree with the facts known to both. The closest evidence is the sold price of similar boats in your region and season. Asking prices are a ceiling, and a survey settles the condition questions a buyer will otherwise discount for.

Price it at your adjusted value with room for the negotiation you expect. Fix survey findings before listing where you can, because a buyer deducts the cost of a fix plus a margin for arranging it. A boat priced above its comparables tends to sit, and a long listing becomes a reason to offer less.

Published guide values are the lookup most people mean, and they price a model, year and configuration. Use one as the base value in the calculator above, then let the adjustments for hours, condition and survey move it, because the guide cannot see your boat.

Lower than its private sale value, because a dealer prices in reselling it, any preparation and time on the lot. No dealer we read publishes a trade-in schedule. Get the trade-in offer in writing and compare it with your private-sale figure from the calculator, less the time and cost of selling it yourself.

A starting point, not a valuation. Guide values price a model, year and configuration, and cannot see engine hours, moisture in the structure or the electronics. On a boat more than a few seasons old the survey moves the number more than the model year does. So the calculator starts from a base and applies a buyer's and surveyor's adjustments.

Only as a ceiling. Boats sit on the market and asking prices drift upward from reality, so the gap between asking and achieved is frequently wide. Weight actual sale prices for comparable boats in the same region and season heavily instead. A listed comparable tells you what somebody hopes for; a sold one, what somebody paid.

On most powerboats it is the largest adjustment, because a buyer eventually prices a hull plus a repower. What matters is hours against expected use. Two hundred hours on a twenty year old boat suggests long idle periods, its own problem; eight hundred on a well serviced coastal boat can be unremarkable. Records move buyers more than the meter.

Rectifying usually recovers more, because a buyer deducts the cost of the fix plus a margin for arranging it themselves. The exception is a finding large enough that the boat should be sold as a project. Then pricing it honestly attracts the buyer who wants that, rather than wasting both parties' time.

Title and documentation defects, liens or outstanding finance, and unpaid yard or dockage bills. These are completion issues, not price issues. A federally documented vessel has a federal record; state titled boats have state records. A lien search before a deposit is a small cost against a large exposure: check them before a price is agreed.

Before, where you can. A price agreed subject to survey invites a renegotiation neither side enjoys, because the seller has already emotionally banked the first figure and treats every finding as an attack. Where a seller offers a recent survey, note who commissioned it and when; it is useful information rather than a substitute for your own.

Yes, and consistently. Corrosion history sits behind almost every engine and fitting question, so a freshwater boat of the same age and hours is genuinely worth more. Berthing history is checkable and worth documenting when selling, because a buyer who cannot verify it will assume the less favourable case and price accordingly.