Guides
Buyer's guides for boat shoppers, written from the buyer's side
Plain answers to the questions that decide what you pay and what you end up owning, written by people who negotiate these deals. Read one before you visit a dealer or call a seller.
Start here
Three guides that cover most of the money
What the paperwork adds, what the engine is worth, and when the seller is ready to deal.
Every line between the advertised price and the out-the-door price, sorted into real costs, negotiable charges and padding. Includes the wording to use when you ask for a quote in writing.
Why a low-hour engine can be the risky one, how the engine computer shows the way a boat was run, and which records and tests to ask for before you make an offer.
How storage bills, leftover inventory and show season shift the advantage through the year, and how to buy in the off-season without giving up the sea trial.
How we write these guides
We write down what we know from working boat deals: how a buyer's order is built, what sellers say when you ask for an engine report, where a quote tends to change between the handshake and the signature. When we describe how something works, we describe how it generally works across the industry. We do not dress up general knowledge as a client story, and we do not quote statistics we cannot stand behind.
We do not publish filler. If a topic does not change what you pay, what you check or what you sign, it does not get a guide. That is why the list above is short. It will grow slowly.
Each guide carries the date it was last updated, and we revise a guide when the underlying facts change. One limit applies to all of them: taxes, doc fee rules, titling and registration vary by state. We tell you what to check, and you should confirm the specifics with your own state before relying on them.
Reading gets you most of the way. If you would like a person to look at an actual quote, our free deal check does that. And if you want someone to find the boat, negotiate it and read the paperwork for you, see how our boat buyer's agent service works.
Next step
When the reading is done, put a real quote in front of us
The guides explain how deals work. A deal check applies that to the numbers a dealer or seller has given you, at no cost.