Trip Advisor Pro

If you have searched at any of the bigger boat classified sites it's not unheard of anymore to see a considerable amount of the listings posted are 'bank owned' or bank repo boats. This seems to be particularly more pronounced with performance type watercraft. The question that frequently gets thrown around in blogs and community forums is whether banks and credit unions are desperate enough to accept serious offers as little as 20 to 30% of their asking price. Anything less than that and you will be hard pressed to get a bank to justify a response.

Making an all cash offer will typically give you more room to bid low. Your offer needs to be reasonable with respect to its market value and if it is... you can expect the lender to seriously consider your proposal and either counter that offer or based upon on how long the bank has been attempting to remarket the boat -- agree to it outright.

Is it advisable to go directly to a local, regional, or national bank and ask them what boat repos they have for sale? You can if you're willing to wade through a lot of red tape, time, and no responsiveness. For the most part banks are busy lending and don't have time to service repo negotiations or sale transactions. A However, a company called Boat Auctions Direct has aggregated and listed many sources in North America that do list repossessed boats, RV's, ATV's, marine equipment and accessories, etc. I find it a much more efficient means to this end.

The reality of striking up a deal with a bank on one of their repos is that most banks choose not to work directly with the general public. They opt instead to go through experienced brokers and trusted repo auction houses or liquidation outfits for the sake of convenience and efficiency. It's just more systematic and even more important they can focus on their core services: lending. Some banks have so many repo boats to manage that they are buying fleet insurance coverage.

It just make sense to go directly to the bank, however, repo auction houses will often have a standing contract established with the bank or credit union. Pre-defined terms are set as to how much liquidation companies profit from the sale. The benefit for the bank is that they are able to leverage a trusted name (a respected local marina or liquidator) in addition to their knowledge and expertise along with a storage lot to efficiently remarket the boat repos for banks. Essentially the bank will almost certainly try to recapture at least the loan amount in default once the hammer drops to end the boat auction.

An honest question is whether or not banks provide an opt-in list of bank repo boats going to auction? This may be true for smaller sized community banks or credit unions however , most often the bigger lending institutions are contracted with local or regional repo outfits or repo boat liquidation outfits to efficiently seize and remarket their collateral. In the latter case of smaller banks you can ask to speak to the bank officer who heads up the "special assets" department if they do not already have a dedicated web page for liquidating non-performing assets within their main website.