Services
Jeff does not disappear at the closing.
Most of his business is repeat clients and referrals. That does not happen because of how a sale goes — it happens because of what comes after one. Three things he does beyond the transaction.
I have owned over 16 boats in that time and your service after the sale is phenomenal.
01
After-Sale Refits & Upgrades
The part of the job most brokers treat as someone else's problem.
A boat changes hands and the broker's involvement usually ends there. The new owner inherits a vessel they have owned for a week, a list of things they want changed, and no idea which of the yards on 17th Street will do the work properly. That gap — between the closing and the first season actually being enjoyable — is where most of the frustration in yacht ownership lives.
Jeff works that gap. He specifies the work, picks the subcontractors, negotiates with them, and supervises them while they are aboard. Because he has been buying and selling in Fort Lauderdale since 1980, he knows which yard is good at paint and which is good at electronics, and which one is quoting a number it has no intention of honoring.
It goes further than most people expect. One long-standing client has Jeff paying the vendors directly and keeping the running account for the boat — the owner transfers money and Jeff handles the rest. That is not a service anybody advertises, and it is not something you offer a client you met last month.
The commercial logic is simple. An owner who had a good first season calls you when they want a bigger boat. An owner who spent it arguing with a yard calls somebody else.
02
New Build Project Management
A different job from selling a boat, and very few brokers can credibly take it on.
A new build is a construction project that happens to float. It runs for a year or more, usually in a yard several thousand miles away, in a language and a business culture that are not yours. The decisions that matter most — tankage, machinery, the layout of spaces you have only seen as a drawing — are made early, by people who will not be living with the result.
Jeff has run these repeatedly, with Neptunus in Ontario and Johnson Yachts in Taiwan. That means specification, contract, the schedule of payments against build milestones, yard visits at the stages where a visit actually changes something, and commissioning at the end.
What an owner is really buying here is somebody who has seen the failure modes. Which options are worth the money and which are a yard upselling. Which delays are normal and which ones mean something is wrong. What a hull looks like at 40% complete when it is supposed to be at 60%.
This is the capability; the buyer-facing route into a new build is the New Construction page, which covers the builders Jeff represents and how a project actually runs.
03
Buyer Representation
Somebody in the transaction whose interests are yours.
A listing broker works for the seller. That is not a criticism, it is the job — but it does mean that a buyer walking into a transaction without their own representation is the only party at the table without an advocate. On a seven-figure purchase that is an odd position to choose.
Acting for a buyer means finding the right boat rather than selling the one at hand, being straight about condition, and being present for the survey and the sea trial — where an experienced eye is worth considerably more than the fee. It also means being willing to say no. More than one client's letter mentions Jeff talking them out of a boat, or disagreeing with them when they were about to walk away from the right one.
It extends to boats that are not publicly for sale. After forty-six years in one market Jeff knows who owns what and, more usefully, who is starting to think about moving on. A meaningful share of what changes hands at this end of the market never reaches a listing site.
If you know what you are looking for and cannot find it, that is a conversation worth having rather than a search worth continuing.
Why it works
This is the repeat-client engine.
None of the three is a bolt-on. An owner who was looked after through a refit is the owner who lists with Jeff when they move up, and who sends their friend. A new build delivered properly is a client for the next twenty years. Representation that was honestly on your side is the reason a name gets passed along at a dock.
That is what the figures at the top of every page actually measure: not marketing, but forty-six years of people coming back.
Get in touch
Tell Jeff what you need.
A refit you want run properly, a build you are considering, or a boat you cannot find. He answers these himself.