Pricing A Used Boat Accurately: Boat Trader's Price Checker
Using Boat Trader's Boat Price Checker will help you pinpoint an ideal selling price for your boat.
Whether you're upgrading or downsizing, in addition to our trusty Boat Buyer's Guide and Boat Seller's Guide you'll likely consider referencing the old NADA Guides to help you with pricing. Except that today, NADA Guides has been retired by J.D. Power. These days, the more effective tool for assessing a boat's value is Boat Trader's Boat Price Checker Tool. This simple online interface allows boat owners, sellers and buyers to get an accurate view of current boat prices based on real-time market data, answering the common question "what is my boat worth" quickly and easily.
You can use the data you gather from the Boat Price Checker to research and compare it with prices for boats listed on boats.com as well as YachtWorld listings. This will help give you a solid grip on the market realities for your specific boat. It’s also a great way to get to know more about boats in general. Using this resource you’ll be able to get the most money you can for your boat, while setting an initial asking price that will help it sell within a reasonable time. This can be a tricky balance, but luckily we can help you achieve it.
What makes Boat Trader's Boat Price Checker a better method of determining the value of a boat in this day and age, is that the results are based on current listing prices for new and used boats—both actively listed and recently sold. This means the prices shown take into account a variety of variables currently affecting the used boat marketplace including market trends, inventory levels, geographic location and more. Similarly to the pricing information NADA used to provide, the Price Checker Tool gives three price points, high, low and average.
Using the Boat Trader Boat Price Checker
Using the Boat Trader Boat Price Checker is similar in nature to getting information from those old NADA guides. You select the boat by year, make, and size, but in this case you can also plug in your zip code and specify the area to search. You can make it as tight a radius as 10 miles, or search at any distance.
After you enter the boat's details, such as make, model, year and location, the tool will analyze the data in order to provide an accurate market valuation. Instantly, the advanced algorithm reviews active listings and sold boat data to generate a price range for the boat. We’ll use a Grady White Freedom 275 as a sample boat. It’s a popular 27-foot dual console boat set up for single or twin outboards. The following screen will give you the information you’ve been searching for: the boat’s book value, split out into low, median and high price ranges.
Along with pricing information, the Boat Price Checker gives you a link to all the current listings in the Boat Trader database under the parameters you set. Since it goes by length as opposed to model you may get a mix of boats, and sticking with the Freedom 275 test case, we see not only Freedom 275s but also Canyon 271 center console models. Simply scroll down the left side of the screen, however, and you can check the model box to focus solely on the Freedom 275 (or any specific model).
Remember that both sellers and buyers have access to exactly the same information, and will certainly use it to assess the field before anyone makes any offers. There may be good reasons for pricing your boat well outside the range, either high or low, but you should state those reasons right in your listing specs, because you’ll be trying to appeal to potential buyers who have done their homework.
Comparing Price Checker With Prices on boats.com and YachtWorld
How does the price range you've found compare with asking prices at boats.com? Just go to the boats.com homepage and click on the “Boats for Sale” tab. Then you can search in several different ways. Boat type, make, price, length, year, and location can all be set as parameters. You can also search listings by specifying the manufacturer, then choosing the specific model, then adding in filters for details like year, condition, and price. In this case we search for a used Grady White Freedom 275, and (as of this writing) we get 29 results. Depending on your filters, pricing ranges from $255,000 for a 2022 model in great shape, to $87,500 for a boat made in 2011. Yet we also see an older 2012 used model priced at $109,900, showing a huge difference in pricing due to condition and location.
The detective work continues. How are these boats powered, and how many hours are on the engines? What options do they have? What condition are they in? How much are their prices affected by their locations? Is the asking price realistic? Could an older boat’s condition be as good or even better than the condition of some of the newer boats? Without doing your research and comparisons, it can be hard to know.
Boat Pricing: The More Research, the Better
How are these pricing numbers perceived in the real world of boat sales? “To really evaluate what a boat is worth, you need to draw from many sources of information,” once remarked Dave Pugsley, the past president of the Yacht Brokers Association of America, and vice president/general manager of the Brewer Yacht Sales network in New England. Overseeing sales of a wide range of boats in the 11 Brewer brokerages, Pugsley says, “We often have clients come to us with NADA Guide prices. We've found that those prices are most applicable in the small-boat and trailerable world. The more boat size and system complexity increase, the more variables have to be factored into a boat’s value. For most boats, we find that NADA Guide figures are on the low side.”
This confirms information from Lenny Sims, who was once vice president of NADA Guides prior to its purchase by J.D. Power: "Actual dealer sales are a bit higher than the NADA Guides’ median, while private party sales are closer to the NADA Guides’ median. All sales will be based upon each individual unit’s condition and equipment options, therefore it is important to remember that all values are simply a guide. The actual sale price will always be above or below the guide values for a unit. The overall condition, history and local supply and demand contribute to the final asking and selling price of the boat."
Pugsley emphasizes the importance of recognizing regional price differences. “A boat in Florida will often be priced lower than the same boat in New England or the Great Lakes. The Florida boat gets used 12 months of the year as opposed to the northern boat. Also, Florida is a huge boat market, so there are often a lot more examples to choose from. Exposure to the elements can have an effect on pricing, too, but this can work in a lot of ways. A Florida boat might have more year-round exposure, but be carefully protected by the owner, while a northern boat might have an owner who leaves water to freeze on board and cause damage while the boat is laid up. So there are a lot of things to consider. This is why a boat survey can be very important.”
Good selling, good buying, and fair winds!
Also see How to Price My Boat For Sale and if you’d like to list your boat on boats.com – which is visited by over 800,000 boat buyers monthly—visit Create a Listing and choose a package.
Editor’s Note: This article was originally published in December 2010, updated in April of 2018 and last updated in May 2024.
