Establishing the monetary value for a boat is one of the most important and sometimes the most difficult aspects of dealing with pleasure boats, from the perspective of the seller but of course also for other parties such as buyers, brokers, insurers and marine surveyors

For the seller, pricing the boat well will make the difference between walking away with the right amount of funds to but an even bigger and more performing watercraft, or finding himself undersold and unable to retrieve its investment in full.

As a buyer, similarly your ability to appraise your new toy with the right foreknowledge is essential, and you should not walk lightheartedly into a transaction, or you risk being on the losing side of it. You need to learn about boat appraisal to strike a fair deal.

This is, unfortunately, harder than it seems. Boat prices fluctuate a lot due to a series of sometimes obscure circumstances, such as the place you are in and the season of the year, and these are all things you need to be aware of. Otherwise you may strike what seems a great deal, but in hindsight you may then notice that the transaction left you worse off by thousands or tens of thousands of dollars.

To do the evaluation right, there are two principal routes: One is to employ a professional appraiser, the other one is to do it yourself. Hiring a broker is the easier and quicker solution, but it is not automatically the best option.

In fact, as there is a lot of information available on the subject for those who are willing to spend some time educating themselves, you can do this yourself if you prefer not to be dependent on someone else’s opinion.

Casting your net wide when seeking information is crucial when doing your own boat evaluation. Try to read a lot about the subject, determine the kind of vessel that you are concerned with, and try to establish possible minimum and maximum asking process.

Online or paper trade magazines are a very popular source to compare the min-max values of your boat with comparable objects – check out classifieds, journals, various yards and boat traders. You will find plenty of listings with prices, and if you look at various ads over time (in different issues) you will get an idea of how fast objects are selling, that is if the asking price was right.

Marine get-togethers such as boating festivals are also a great source. At your local marina, you could just meet the right experienced seaman who is willing to chat about boat values with you, giving you the insights you may have missed.

New boat exhibitions are good to gauge current fashions. Fashionable items demand a better price, and you can increase the value of your marine transaction by finding out what features and accessories are currently over- or undervalued.