For Owners · Updated August 2026
NADA and blue book guides do a fair job on production runabouts. Above roughly 40 feet, they quietly fall apart. Here is why, and what brokers use instead.
The Short Answer
Book guides are built on volume: thousands of near-identical hulls with predictable depreciation. Larger boats break every one of those assumptions.
A 24-foot production bowrider has thousands of sisterships, so a modeled average lands close. A 62-foot sportfish or an 80-foot motor yacht might have a few dozen sisterships in the world, each with different engines, hours, electronics, tower, gyro stabilization and refit history. Two same-year hulls of the same model routinely sit $500,000 apart on the market, and both can be priced correctly.
There is also no Kelley Blue Book for boats, despite how often people search for one. The reference guide for production boats is NADA Guides, now under J.D. Power. It is a reasonable starting point under 40 feet. Above that, coverage thins, equipment dominates value, and the modeled numbers drift away from what boats actually trade for.
The other quiet problem: book values and asking prices are not sold prices. In today's buyer's market the spread between what sellers ask and what boats close at is real, and only brokers with access to closed-sale data can see it.
What Brokers Use
Professional pricing comes from two places: what comparable boats are asking right now, and what comparable boats actually closed for.
The first half of that analysis is now free on this site. The valuation assistant below pulls live comparables from the YATCO MLS, the same multiple-listing platform brokers use, and frames an honest asking-price band for your boat in about two minutes. No book averages, real boats on the market today.
The second half, closed sold data plus a condition-adjusted recommendation, is the full market analysis Greg Gaus prepares for owners considering a sale. Twenty years as a working captain, seven years inside Westport, $88M+ closed. The analysis is free and confidential.
Live YATCO MLS comparables plus an asking-price band, in about two minutes.
Common Questions
Straight answers, from the data on this page.
There is no Kelley Blue Book for boats the way there is for cars. The industry reference for production boats has been NADA Guides, now published by J.D. Power. It works reasonably well for high-volume production boats, but above roughly 40 feet the listings thin out and book values stop reflecting what boats actually trade for.
For larger boats, skip the book guides and look at live comparables: what boats of your builder, size and era are asking on the open market right now. The free valuation assistant at doublegyachtsales.com/what-is-my-yacht-worth pulls live comparables from the YATCO MLS and frames an asking-price band in about two minutes.
Book values are modeled averages, not offers. Real value is set by current competing inventory, your engine hours, service history, equipment and how the boat shows. In a buyer's market, boats priced off a book number instead of live comps tend to sit. Sold prices also typically close below asking.
Brokers price from two datasets: live MLS comparables, meaning every similar boat currently for sale and how long each has been listed, and closed sold data, meaning what comparable boats actually traded for. As of August 2026 Greg Gaus prepares that full analysis free for owners considering a sale.