The landscape of online boat sales in Canada
This morning I got up and checked out the online listings for used sailboats for sail in Canada, as I do most days. On the same listing website I use to buy bbq parts, lumber, and used card tables, there was also a 50+ foot yacht priced at a cool half-million. If you keep scrolling, tucked in between cars for sale for $2000 and an old stove that came out of a hunting camp, you'll see a world-trotting catamaran, again priced in the hundreds of thousands.
The MLS for boats
There is a multiple-listing-service (MLS) for boats. Much like the one for houses, it's in the control of brokerages and average people can't just pay a fee to post their boat up for a private sale. Brokers take a percentage of the sale as a fee and I assume, also some liability if the deal goes bad. My preferred website for navigating this is Yachtworld. There you can see well-heeled yachts and contact a broker for more information. It's been my experience that brokers may or may not answer questions or emails. I think that's a big part of why more people are choosing to sell their boats directly.
Enter Kijiji
Super-popular in Canada, Kijiji has categories for everything. Even better it makes it easy to conduct cross-Canada searches. If you're looking for a specific boat, being able to search the whole country at once is very beneficial. I use it on my phone mostly as the android app has "saved searches" so I can quickly check in... but I will note that the website makes it easier to see how many items are for sale in a category. So today there are over 1000 boats listed in Sailboats in Canada which is hard to determine from the app.
It absolutely blows my mind that there are $500,000+ boats on kijiji. I guess because I'll probably never have that much cash I can spend on a boat. But still, this is a website where you can find people selling CDs for $5 and old McDonald's toys. It's also worth noting that if you're a club member you may find opportunities there. Particularly if your club has a large work yard where boats get left or donated.