Pricing Tips When Buying a Horse or Selling a Boat!

When I was a child, I loved horses. So much so, that I had horse ornaments and books from my birthday and Christmas presents.

When I was 10 years old, my mother, just months before she died, showed me the money that she’d been secretly saving up week by week, in a carefully hidden drawer, where it stayed until she finally had saved enough to buy me the horse.

A lovely pony to me, but all-in-all a pretty unsophisticated creature, but of course, I loved her so much.

Fast forward almost 40 years and I wanted to get a pet for myself and my family say YES, for a few complicated reasons, a horse was what the “doctor ordered”! (a bit like a boat really, often it can be exactly the right thing for the right reasons in some cases).

But back to the story. Unfortunately, in the very small, land-scarce island nation of Singapore, not only isn’t there much room for horses, there aren’t many horses to choose from if one wanted to buy.

So, I decided to do what many people who are looking for a boat do, and that was to bring “Honey Puff” in from another country where there was more inventory (boats or horses) to choose from. So just 2 days before the tragic earthquake in 2010 in Christchurch, New Zealand, Honey Puff was winging her way to Singapore in style!

Pricing a horse for sale from Singapore or from New Zealand had all the same challenges as pricing a boat to be bought and sold among different countries around Asia. Boat buyers in Asia, little like horse buyers can be hard to find and they also require similar considerations such as delivery, taxes, duties, food, and drinks along with way and shipping or airfreight. All this had to be considered when we were making our offer on Honey Puff.

So how does this relate to boat pricing secrets and strategies?

The thing I really want you to take away from this is the question of how much your boat will sell for is more art than science.

When you're trying to figure out how much your boat is worth, it's not always as easy as plugging a few numbers into an algorithm.

It depends a lot on where the ideal person that will buy your boat (your boat buyer’s avatar) is located.

Yes, you can research the asking prices for similar boats, but ultimately it depends on the market, the country, and the boat itself.

So what this means to you in your boat life in Asia, as a boat seller, is with a large number of countries in a relatively small area, the likelihood of your boat being exported to sell it is significantly higher than in places like Australia or the United States. So this adds to the cost for the purchaser which then reduces your boat value into that purchaser or in that market.

So here’s your next step as it relates to what you and I just shared: consider three things when pricing your boat for sale

1. Where is the most likely buyer of your boat located?

2. Is your boat going to be hard to sell or easy to sell?

3. What results do you want and by when?

When you consider the answers to these three questions, your boat pricing strategy should become clearer.

Good luck with pricing your boat for sale or buying a horse to make you feel contented!