No Fake Yacht Listings

Fake listings are widespread on many leading yachting Multiple Listing Service (MLS) websites or portals. Many of these sites host thousands of illegitimate new and used boat and yacht listings posted by unscrupulous brokers. These deceptive listings distort the market, making legitimate boats and yachts seem less competitively priced, misrepresenting the true market conditions.

At YachtBuyer, we do not support fake listings. When you browse our site, you can trust that you're seeing a clear and authentic representation of every boat or yacht available for sale, providing you with an accurate market overview.

YachtBuyer is the first website to implement processes that thoroughly verify each boat or yacht, eliminating duplicate listings, and saving you time.

What are Fake (or 'Ghost') Listings?

A fake or ghost listing is a form of phishing whereby an unscrupulous broker creates and posts a ‘for sale’ listing for a boat or yacht that does not exist at the lowest price. The broker may even pinch photos or specifications to make it look genuine.

To make their fake listing more appealing to the consumer, they undercut the asking price of all other real listings for similar models, making their fake listings appear to be the 'best value for money'.

This is harmful for several reasons:

• It tricks prospective buyers into contacting the broker listing the fake yacht
• It pushes genuine for-sale listings down in the search results, limiting a buyer's ability to reach real boats or yachts for sale
• It skews the market and creates a fake overview of the number of boats or yachts for sale

Why do Brokers Post Fake Listings?

Brokers earn their commission from the yacht's sale, paid by the owner. If a broker represents the buyer in a transaction, they are entitled to a significant portion of this commission. These brokers often seek out unsuspecting buyers to represent in brokerage deals.

If you reach out to them about their fake listing, they'll likely claim that the yacht has just been sold or taken off the market. They'll then offer to introduce you to a legitimate yacht for sale. By doing this, they position themselves as the middleman, aiming to earn a significant commission from the transaction.

Multiple or Expired Listings for the Same Yacht

Another significant issue, though more innocuous, still distorts the market. Multiple listings can occur due to open listings — where no single Central Agent is responsible for the yacht because the owner wants to explore various marketing options — or when there’s a joint Central Agency agreement involving multiple brokers. Additionally, expired listings further contribute to a misleading view of the market.

With multiple or expired listings for a single boat, buyers may either become frustrated and walk away or see an opportunity for negotiation, mistakenly believing there is more inventory available than there actually is. This lack of transparency skews the true market value, which is detrimental to both buyers and owners in the purchasing process.

The Winners and the Losers

Websites that host fake listings generate substantial revenue from brokers who pay to post them. These listings are often resold to other unsuspecting brokerage websites, further increasing profits. As a result, it’s not in the best interest of these MLS sites to monitor or remove fake or duplicate listings, as doing so would significantly impact their earnings. The websites profit from these deceptive listings, as do the brokers who unfairly claim commissions they haven’t genuinely earned.

The failure to moderate and remove fake listings while verifying legitimate ones frustrates both owners and honest brokers. This practice not only deprives reputable brokers of the commissions they deserve but also undermines the true market value of boats and yachts by flooding the market with phony, underpriced listings.

How Does This Impact the Consumer? 

As a yacht buyer, it’s important to understand that brokers listing fake boats or yachts are typically not professional and are not the best choice to represent your interests. Purchasing a boat or yacht is a significant investment, so you need someone ethical and knowledgeable, with a deep understanding of the market on your side.

Fake listings negatively affect the entire industry, including builders and owners. Consumers are misled and frustrated, and the industry's reputation suffers, hindering its potential for growth.

YachtBuyer Is Leading the Way in Eliminating Fake Listings

YachtBuyer has long recognized the serious impact of fake listings and has been addressing this issue since launching our superyacht intelligence platform over a decade ago.

For the past 10 years, we've provided many of the world's leading brokerage houses with our Broker Intelligence System, which identifies and tracks all superyachts for sale. With over 15,000 yachts over 24m (78ft), this is the largest and most accurate superyacht database in the world.

Our intelligence team cross-references each superyacht listing with our extensive database to verify its authenticity using the unique shipyard build number before it is published for sale.

If any overlap is detected, we thoroughly investigate to ensure the data is accurate and not duplicated elsewhere. Only after confirming the details does the yacht go live on our site.

Verified Listings

For added reassurance, we have introduced the Green Tick icon, which indicates that the yacht has been fully verified as genuine by the YachtBuyer team, eliminating the possibility of duplicate listings.

Green Tick = YachtBuyer Approved

YachtBuyer is the only website offering a verification service. We are dedicated to ensuring our users find exactly what they're looking for without being misled or encountering inaccurate information.

We also support the industry by ensuring that brokers receive their rightful commissions and that owners successfully sell their boats or yachts at the appropriate price.

What is Required for This System to Work?

• Real-time pricing 
• Multiple data sources to cross-reference
• An internal intelligence team that stays current and can effectively detect fake listings