It May be Time to Sell

[JSpark]

Yes, the market is slow for sellers, but well maintained boats priced according to the market are moving. Com-Pacs especially. Last month my slip neighbor at the marina sold his CP25 without a trailer in two days. My CP23D on a trailer sold in a week. Both boats were in excellent condition. Two other boats in the marina have also sold. All four boats were priced practically given the market. Interestingly, I got no inquiries from Craigslist. Facebook marketplace was very active and generated good inquiries and lookers.

TopsailB, I believe I saw your CL posting.  You had a real good looking 23 based on the pictures.  I was headed down to Surf City the weekend after the listing dropped off (for other reasons) and was contemplating reaching out.  Probably bigger than I need with my plan to keep a boat on the trailer most of the time.  But to your point, your CL listing was noticed and was on the verge of an inquiry.  Probably worked out for the best overall - you sold the boat and I'd likely still be trying to find time to take it out.

[passagesfromtheheart]

A fellow named Mitch from Texas recently bought Eclipse hull #29 in Ft Meyers.  He is considering buying my sailboat lift modification system. 
I spent a short time as a used boat salesman in San Diego circa 2009. If it weren't for having a captain's license I would have starved since no on was buying boats during the great recession os 2008/09.  During that time I had a few listing that I put on Sailboat Listings.  Incredibly, I still get calls for some of those boats. As stated earlier by Carl--I think-- they never seem to drop their ads. 

Hmmm...interesting, I wonder if this is the same Mitch from Texas who has the popular "Small Boat Big Water" YouTube channel. He had (or still has, maybe) a Com-Pac 23, but I saw that boat for sale on FB Marketplace for some time. The ad was still there, last I looked, not too long ago.

It seems a lot of ads on FB and sailboatlistings dot com are often old and no longer valid. Speaking from experience re: sailboatlistings: If you forget your username for the site (which I did), you cannot get tech support to get back into your account, so you have no way to delete your ad -- this is what happened to me and that's why you still see my old 1990 Com-Pac 23 'SV No Mas' ad still up. Shortly after selling, I had marked it SOLD on the ad (when I should have just deleted the ad at the time instead). I still get inquiries on that boat from time to time, even with having noted the boat as sold. But, yeah, I can't back in to that ad to delete it as I yet I still don't recall what I had used as a username at the time.

[TopsailB]

TopsailB, I believe I saw your CL posting.  You had a real good looking 23 based on the pictures.  I was headed down to Surf City the weekend after the listing dropped off (for other reasons) and was contemplating reaching out.  Probably bigger than I need with my plan to keep a boat on the trailer most of the time.  But to your point, your CL listing was noticed and was on the verge of an inquiry.  Probably worked out for the best overall - you sold the boat and I'd likely still be trying to find time to take it out.

JaVa is one good looking boat and is in great shape. She went to a good home in Jacksonville FL. I was especially pleased that the new owners are 20 somethings-a different generation of sailors! The new owner plans to leave the boat rigged and keep it on the trailer a good bit of the time. Although the trailer is set up for easy launch and retrieval, rigging/de-rigging took three hours or so. Not hard, just time involved. If you were planning to trailer the boat to and from ramps, rigging the boat each time might have become annoying at best.

[passagesfromtheheart]

...I never look at sailboat listings because they never delete the sold boats.

In this case, the best strategy to use the sailboatlistings site (and reduce the old ad frustration situation) is to click the 'View All Sailboats' link at the top left hand side of the website homepage. That will bring up results showing what ads have literally been posted most recently. Of course if a boat sells in two hours after posting, for example, and the seller doesn't mark the ad sold or delete it...you still run into the same thing.

As I mentioned in my prior post, however, I find the same frustration with FB Marketplace ads -- and there, more frequently, no one responds to my inquiries -- ghosts me -- which is the ultimate insult. I cannot stand that. I've also experienced this on CL as well.

IMHO: If an ad is up, the boat should still be available -- that is the strategy I use as a seller because I also cannot stand it when people inquire with "Is the boat still available?" especially right after I said at jump street in my ad "If this ad is up, the boat is still available."

[Vectordirector]

I never saw that Eclipse for sale in Ft.Myers.  Do you know where was it was listed for sale? 

 After (many) years of using Sailboatlistings to buy and sell a couple of boats, I've found that the way that clicking on the most recent tab described above is the quickest way to find the most recent ads.  The other way is to search by state and just look at the ads with pictures.  Those are often the most "real" ones. 

 As time goes by the site becomes more useless as more people forget to take their ad down.  I wish the owner would purge anything older than 2 years.

Cheers,

Vectordirector aka

Bryan

[Bewildered]

First to Chelle:  It is a different Mitch than the Mitch from "Small Boat Big Water" fame.  I love his videos.
Bryan,  The Mitch who purchased the Hull # 29 Eclipse did not mention where he found the boat listed.  It sounds like somewhat of a fixer-upper as the former owner painted over the teak eyebrows.