As soft as the market is right now you can always offer 80% of the asking
price and see what happens, especially if the boat has been on the market
awhile. The worst that can happen is they'll say no, and you can counter.

Make the sale dependent on surveys (general AND engines) and sea trial. The
sea trial is your big "out" if you just don't like the boat. You can just
say you didn't like the way it handled, accelerated, etc. They will make the
sale contingent on your coming up with financing within X days as well
(asuming you're going to finance and not pay cash).

After the survey, you get together and work out what you thing the repairs
needed will cost, and deduct that from the price you agreed upon. Don't let
the owner make the repairs... guaranteed to mask them, cover them up, or do
the repair as cheaply as possible. You want to fix anything the surveyor
finds yourself. Good luck!

--


Keith
__
The journey of a thousand miles begins with a broken fan belt and a leaky
tire.
"sciman" wrote in message
ink.net...
This is probably a pretty newbie question, but I have found a boat I like
at
a somewhat reasonable price. We are talking a 40FT boat that is 5 years
old
so this is a considerable investment. In my offer, what should I be
asking
for? The obvious is pending an independent survey, but are there other
things? In today's market, assuming this is an average asking price, is
coming in with an initial bid at 80% too low?