Buying
Buying a boat in Miami: what to check before you fly down
September 7, 2026 · 3 min read
Most people buying a boat in South Florida are not in South Florida. They are in Ohio, or Toronto, or London, looking at twenty photographs and trying to work out which one is worth a plane ticket. This is what to establish first.
Ask how she has been stored
The single biggest difference between two identical hulls of the same year is where they sat. A boat kept on a lift, rinsed after use, is a different machine from one that sat in a slip in Biscayne Bay for eight years. Salt does not care about your survey date.
Ask directly: lift, slip, dry stack or trailer, and for how long. If the answer is vague, that is itself an answer.
Get the real engine hours, and the service record behind them
Hours on a display are a number. Hours with a service history are information. For outboards, ask for the dealer's diagnostic scan; every modern engine logs its own hours, its running temperatures and its fault codes, and a scan takes ten minutes.
On diesels, low hours are not automatically good. An engine that has done 200 hours in twelve years has spent most of its life not running, which is its own kind of wear.
Establish the title position before anything else
Ask whether the boat is titled or documented, whether there is a lien, and who actually holds the paperwork. A boat with an outstanding loan can still be sold, but the payoff has to run through the closing, and that changes the timetable.
If the seller cannot tell you the title status quickly, budget extra time.
Look at the photographs properly
A listing with forty photographs and none of the bilge, the engine room or the underside of the hardtop is telling you something. So is a boat photographed only from the dock side.
What you want to see: the bilge, the engine mounts, the transom, the underside of the T-top or hardtop, the state of the upholstery in daylight, and the electronics powered up.
Understand what the asking price means here
South Florida has more brokerage inventory than anywhere else in the country, which cuts both ways. There is more choice, and there is also more competition for the good boats. A well-kept, well-documented boat at a fair number moves quickly. A tired one sits at a high number for a year.
Compare the asking price against other listings for the same model and year rather than against a book value. On every listing on this site we show what the rest of the market is asking for that exact model, which is the comparison that actually matters.
Book the survey before the flight, not after
If you are travelling, arrange the survey and the sea trial for the same trip. A surveyor worth using will be booked a week or two out, so the sequence is: agree a price subject to survey, book the surveyor, then book the flight.
A sea trial should include a proper run at cruise, a wide-open-throttle pull, and time at idle to see what the temperatures do. Twenty minutes around the bay proves nothing.
The questions that save a wasted trip
- Where has she been stored, and for how long?
- When was the last full service, and by whom?
- Are there any known faults, however small?
- Is the title clear, and who holds it?
- What has been replaced rather than repaired?
- Would you take her to Bimini tomorrow?
That last one is the most useful question in boat buying. The answer, and the hesitation before it, tells you more than the listing does.
If she is between Palm Beach and the Keys
We are based in South Florida and can usually get aboard within a few days, run her, and tell you what the photographs do not show. If you are considering a boat in that stretch, ask us to look at her before you book anything.
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