3 Tools to Help You Value a Boat for Sale

Whether you’re about to buy a boat or sell a boat, use these three tools to help you value a boat for sale and decide your target price.

Despite the high-demand, low-supply market conditions, boats are being bought and sold every day. Just check our new and used boat inventory to see. And this market can make the boat-buying, and selling process emotional. Before you list your boat for sale or take one for a sea trial, be sure you’ve properly vetted the boat’s local market value, the monthly payment if you’re a buyer, and perhaps even consider a cash offer.

Enter just three values to see how much boat you can afford.

Because boats don’t carry annual property tax like homes, payments are often lower than you realize. Know the boat you want? Start with the target boat price, or your target monthly payment, and add a market interest rate and target number of payment periods to yield your monthly payment. If you’re starting from a target monthly payment, enter the same interest rate and target number of payment periods and our calculator spits out the target price you should aim for when you browse our boats for sale. Check out both of these boat loan calculators right here on our site. 

Gauge any boat’s baseline value with this regularly updated “blue book” for boats.

The National Automobile Dealers Association (NADA) compiles boat sale prices. With a few details like boat make, year, engine type, engine hours and condition, the tool yields values for auction, trade-in and private party sales. While the current boat marketplace is a Wild West seller’s market, NADA has been busy keeping up with the prices in your region. We always recommend also taking your local listings into account, so be sure to browse boats for sale near you using our buyer’s tool to check out the prices of boats similar to the one you’re buying or selling. 

These quick and easy tools can be the difference between scoring the best deal and feeling like you left something on the table.

For sellers: what if you got a high offer, no-hassle price from a dealer?

At Boats for Sale, our goal is always to get that boat for sale sold as quickly as possible. The quickest option is our cash offer. All you have to do is create an account, upload some pics and information about your boat, and submit! And it’s completely obligation-free. We work with a variety of local dealers to arrange the fairest price for your boat. And in today’s marketplace, it’s been coming in pretty high as dealers compete to gain inventory at all costs. Then we’ll contact you with the best offer price. If you accept, we’ll arrange a transfer of ownership, and get that payment to you as quickly as possible. This offer is a great way to gauge your boat’s value, and to unload it 1-2-3.