pop yachts missouri

 POP Yachts and RVs Mark Ellefsen 573-207-4022

Sell My Boat

POP Yachts is a boat and yacht broker. Like a real estate agent, our job is to work with buyer and seller to facilitate a professional and safe transaction.

Purchasing a boat has its own process, defined by decades of tradition. While not all transactions are alike, knowing what the typical process is beforehand will help set proper expectations and ensure your transaction is smooth, fast and safe. 

LOCAL REPRESENTATION:

We want to meet you in person, get to know your vessel, take 100+ professional photos and a video. We're going to be with you every step of the way.

BRILLIANT MARKETING:

We post your boat advertisement on 166 websites, including Boatcrazy.com, UsedBoatYard.com, Boats.com, iBoats.com, BoatBuys.com, BoatQuest.com, and on and on and on.

SECURE & SAFE TRANSACTION:

We have a fully-staffed closing department to make sure showings and survey go smoothly. We process all funds safely through escrow and we handle all the paperwork.

Below are the steps to selling your boat the POP Yachts way:

Tell us about your boat.

At this point, we're not going to gather that much information. We just need to know some basics so we can be sure we are a good match to sell your boat. We can only advertise boats where we have a local representative who can come out to photograph your boat and get to know the features and equipment specific to your vessel. Also, we don't advertise boats that are complete and total projects or boats which are under a certain price threshold for their condition.

It's pretty simple actually — if your vessel is in our area and in decent condition or better, we want to advertise it! 

Sign Our Marketing Agreement

Our agreement is straight-forward and simple. It's quick reading at two pages but, if you're not in the mood to read, here are the highlights:

You can cancel any time for any reason.

You can sell your boat on your own, at any time, and we aren't owed anything.

We won't change the advertised price without your permission.

You don't have to accept any offer, other than a full price offer.

We receive a commission only if your boat sells to a buyer we procure through our marketing efforts.

We promise we're going to do our best to sell your boat. You can take that to the bank.

Provide proof of ownership and 1 recent photo.

We're almost there — promise! Before we can start advertising your vessel, we need a couple more things.

We're going to need to prove you own the vessel, or have the rights to sell it (if owned in the name of a business/entity). This means we need to see a copy of either a Registration, Title or US Coast Guard Document. If you have it handy, you can take a picture of it with your phone and email it in.

We need at least one photo, but more is useful too. this first photo allows us to find some buyers in our database we know are actively looking for your model boat and notify them right away. we don't send notifications without at least one photo. this helps build interest so when we do upoload our 100 or more photographs, we have prospective buyers already asking for and waiting to see the additional photos..

We're also going to validate your Hull Number and run a BoatHistoryReport.com report (a $34.95 value). Everything we do is always at no cost.

NOTE: If a trailer is included in the sale, we're going to need to have documentation on file for the trailer too. 

Professional Photo Shoot

At this point, your advertisement has been published with the photos you provided however it lacks any serious amount of detail. Don't worry — we will fix that. In the meantime, we're also going to start attracting interest with the advertisement in its preliminary state so that we have buyers ready as soon as our photos and full advertisement hits the web.

Your local representative should be contacting you within a day or two. Our local reps have very busy schedules and wide areas, so it can sometimes take a week or two before a convenient time can be scheduled. This of course depends on your area, as some areas are tightly packed with representatives and we can get out to you much more quickly.

We strive to take 100 photos or more and a video (when we can). Today's buyer wants to know anything and everything before committing their time or their family's time to travel to see a boat anywhere. This used to apply mainly to an out of town buyer but, these days, many buyers will want to study all 100 photos before driving only a few miles across town. Buyers have come to know POP as the "photo people" and we like to keep it that way! 

Approve Our Advertisement

We're going to send you a list, called a "Feature List". It will be in PDF form attached to an email. This list will contain all the equipment, electronics and boat features included with the sale, including everything from the GPS unit to the water skis (if they are included). It's important you sign off on this list, as this list will become an Appendix on the Purchase & Sale Agreement when we bring you a written offer from a buyer.

This same email will ask you to click a link where you will review a high-resolution screenshot of your current advertisement and sign off electronically that you believe the advertisement is true and correct to the best of your knowledge and that all items mentioned will be included in the sale. This entire process only takes a few minutes — you can do it from any computer or smart phone. 

The Marketing Machine

At POP, we truly are a MARKETING MACHINE. If we were forced to pick only one job that we were the best at, this is it. When it comes to advertising your boat, there is no better way than through POP Yachts.

We put the advertisement for your boat on 166 websites. Compared to the typical brokerage, we tower over the competition. You could say we're aggressive, but that might be an understatement. In more than 90% of cases, one of our advertisements for your vessel will be found on the first page of Google when searching by make/model/location within just 24 hours. That's scary good!

It's all about getting your boat in as many searches on as many websites as possible. 

Handling Inquiries

It's our job to talk to anyone and everyone who inquires about your boat. This means we respond to all the phone calls, emails and texts.

Believe it or not, working online leads is an art form. Qualifying a buyer correctly and quickly, while simultaneously putting off the lowballers and blocking the scammers isn't easy.

We've gotten pretty good at our jobs! Every day we process more than 262 unique buyer inquiries. Our current average response time is 78 minutes! 

Written Offer & Negotiation

We only accept offers from buyers in written form on a valid Purchase & Sales Agreement. Requiring a buyer to put their offer in writing and sign on the dotted line is a pretty sure way to verify the buyer means business. The worst thing we could do is notify you of an offer, only to have the buyer disappear and not return our calls. Requiring all offers to be in the form of a valid contract helps mitigate that from happening.

We handle all negotiations between yourself and the prospective buyer. This covers everything from the agreed upon price to the terms and conditions that you or the buyer may wish to see in the purchase contract.

About 1 in 3 written offers finalize into a completed transaction (currently 26.86%). So, from this point, there is still some work to ensure the transaction completes successfully and your boat gets sold. 

Inspection & Closing Process

During the inspection process, the buyer may request a personal inspection, mechanical survey, engine compression test, oil analysis and/or water trial. It's not as bad as it sounds. We coordinate everything from here to make sure a time is arranged that fits everyone's busy schedules.

At this point, just about 2 out of every 3 deals will turn into complete transactions (currently 54.57%).

According to our standard Purchase & Sales Agreement, the buyer pays for any inspection or surveys however, for liability reasons while you still own the vessel, we request you (seller) captain your vessel for any water trial or provide for a captain to be available.

We're almost done. If the prospective buyer likes what they see, they'll sign and return to us the Acceptance of Vessel document. If the buyer backs out after this point, they forfeit their deposit, so nearly 100% of deals proceed once this document has been signed. 

Delivery to Buyer

We're almost there! At this point, we would ask you to find any and all manuals, documentation, service records, and anything else you have regarding your vessel. Once you have these, please secure them somewhere inside the vessel for the new buyer.

Please gather all keys for the vessel (including any cabin keys) and hand them to the POP rep or to the new buyer directly. The buyer may alternatively send a ground shipper to pick up the vessel.

That's it — the sale is done! Are you ready to go shopping for your next one? 

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