Buyer representation costs you nothing, and changes everything

The most common thing a buyer says at a boat show is that they are "just looking on their own for now". It is said the way you would decline an upsell, as though representation were a service with a price tag attached. On a brokerage sale it is not.

Where the money actually goes

The commission on a brokerage transaction is paid by the seller and, on a co-brokered deal, split between the listing side and the buying side. That split happens whether or not anyone is sitting in the buyer's seat. Arrive unrepresented and the listing broker keeps both halves — for representing the seller, twice.

So the question is not whether to spend money on a broker. The money is spent either way. The question is whether somebody in the room is working for you.

What the seat is worth

Knowing what a boat actually traded for, as opposed to what it was listed at. Knowing which surveyor is thorough and which one writes a clean report for anybody who pays. Knowing that a particular model had a run of bad exhaust risers in certain years, so it is worth pulling one before you commit rather than after.

None of that is exotic. It is the ordinary accumulated knowledge of someone who has been doing this in one market for a long time — and it is worth considerably more than the nothing it costs you.

The awkward part

A broker representing you properly will sometimes tell you not to buy the boat. That is the whole point, and it is also why the arrangement only works if the person advising you is not the person being paid to move that particular hull.