Careering after a fair market value

Are too many genuine sellers falling into a buyer-less void left by ‘not-serious’ sellers?

Every time a yacht is listed for sale, it instantly sets a trend; a benchmark. Yacht pricing has a domino effect. When a yacht crops up on the market at a certain price, others follow suit, and before you know it the market is teeming with yachts at that price.

Genuine sellers are forced to trust their brokers – even more so in the larger, or custom yacht sector where accurate pricing data is particularly scarce – so it’s therefore important that brokers are level-headed, consider the implications of the yacht’s price on the greater industry, and set a fair and achievable market value.

After two or three years, when the initial outbreak of interest has subsided, the yacht can become a tough sell and people may begin to wonder if there’s something wrong with it.

But, if the boat was overpriced originally, as it reduces in price, the market has correspondingly reduced, so it remains overpriced and is persistently chasing a fair market value, which is an expensive and common mistake for sellers.

Let’s look at the current Benetti market around the 60m mark. The average listing has been on the market for about two-and-a-half years. And most notably, one has been for sale for over 1,500 days, although it is by no means the worst offender in the greater market.

If you consider a €3.5 million per year operating expenditure budget; that’s nearly €14.5 million since it has been for sale. Had this boat been listed at, or near, its asking price today (roughly €6 million less than its listing price), a few years ago, the seller would have probably sold himself out of the buyer-less void he finds himself in today.

It’s unavoidable that vessels will be listed to test the market, but it’s a huge problem for the industry when they are followed by genuine sellers. Time on the market is a killer and owners need to be more aware of the savings a quick sale can guarantee.