A quick 5 step guide on how to sell your narrow boat.

1. Use a good brokerage company.
Using a professional, established and recommended brokerage company will definitely speed up the process of selling your narrow boat, why?

A good brokerage company will already have customers looking for a narrow boat. They will also have excellent website traffic which means your boat will be seen by 1000s of visitors each month.  They will have other marketing tools in place such as social media, email marketing and offline marketing in top publications.

So by using a brokerage company means your boat will get the exposure it needs to sell and you don’t need to do any of the hard work, you can leave that up to your broker!

2. Prepare your boat for sale.
If your boat is in the best shape it can be, then it’s more likely to sell quickly.  Just like when you are selling a house if your boat is clean, tidy and in good order it will stand out from the others.

By spending a bit of time ensuring everything is as it should be, you are more likely to get the asking price or as near as. Buyers will not be able to negotiate over issues that could have been sorted out before the boat went on the open market.

3. Be realistic about the price.
Now this is really important if you want to actually sell your boat.  There are times when people have to sell when they don’t want too, as circumstances force them to sell when they would rather not.  In situations like this it is sometimes hard to let go and over price the boat.

Be sure that you have done your homework if you are selling privately, and that you have the boat priced correctly.  If you are using a broker they will price your boat at a price that will make the boat attractive and sell on today’s market.

If your boat is on the market for a long period of time then it may be a good and realistic idea to look at the price.  Buyers have a wealth of information at their disposal and will be able to research pricing at a click of a button.

An overpriced boat will not be an attractive proposition to buyers, with other boats on the market priced to sell.

4. Work with the buyer if there is a problem at survey.
If there is a problem after the survey, work together with the buyer to come to a solution that works for both sides, you don’t want to lose your buyer at this stage.

By coming up with a deal that works for both of you, any issues can be addressed and the sale will still go through.

5. Be patient.
You may be really keen to sell your boat, but it’s not going to happen overnight!  Well not as a rule anyway.  Some boats on brokerage can sell in minutes but others will take a little longer.

Depending on how many people are looking for your style of narrow boat, it’s condition, and how many other boats like yours are on sale at the same time will determine how long it will be before an offer is put in.

Typically once a narrow boat has been sold it takes 4 -6 weeks before the sales process is complete. So even if your boat is sold in a few days it will still take a few weeks for the process to be completed.