Who is going to look better in front of a client when pitching for a central agency listing: the broker with the record of relevant sales, and who knows the going rate for the seller’s yacht, or the one without the track record who is trying to formulate a market value based on the falsified data in the public domain?

The superyacht industry has become satisfied with announcing sale prices in the form of a ‘final asking price’ – a figure that gives no real indication of the actual selling price of a yacht and is nothing but a decoy for other brokerage firms.

Consequently, clients are forced to trust their broker’s experiential evaluation of the marketplace, particularly with full-custom projects where there is no clear-cut system to ascertain where buyer and seller expectations overlap.

Too many sellers are put through the experience of listing a yacht at the wrong price, then having to correct it along with their expectations.

Thus, in issue 181 of The Superyacht Report, the Monaco Yacht Show issue, The Superyacht Intelligence Agency takes a closer look at the 30m+ brokerage figures, providing context for this mystifying marketplace.

For example, we examine the age of yachts sold on the brokerage market between 2008 and 2016. Evidently, most buyers consider seven to 12-year-old yachts to be the most desirable, as shown by the chart in the gallery.

Yachts younger than seven years old may still be carrying a premium price – vessels for sale in this age category can often rival the pricing of new-build replacements at the yard – so they may be seen as less desirable. This is supported by a smaller fleet of yachts for sale and a smaller pool of qualified buyers.

Numerous yachts in the fleet are listed for sale as soon as they are delivered, but at an often-unreasonable price. Perhaps it is when they creep into the seven to 12-year-old category that owners, or second owners, typically become ready to sell and move on.

After the age of 12, when the days of premium pricing and maximum allure are gone, there appears to be a plateau and a very gradual decline in the number of sales.

The full ‘Brokerage Report’ will be featured in issue 181 of The Superyacht Report.

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