Checking your account…
Same engine, same concluded figure. Switch at any time.
This tool is a calculation aid. It performs arithmetic on the data you supply — comparables, guide values, condition ratings and the adjustments you choose — and produces an indicated value and draft narrative. It does not verify your data, exercise professional judgment, or constitute an appraisal.
Every figure depends on your inputs. The results, and anything incorporating them, remain your professional judgment and your responsibility; the developer accepts no liability for any decision arising from your use of this tool.
What this tool records. Report counts against a random identifier in this browser, your device type, approximate location, and how long the worksheet took to fill in. No vessel details go into these figures — not the boat, not your comparables, not your client, not any figure. A comment includes the email you give, so I can reply; it is never sold, and never used for marketing. Stripe handles tips.
Reading a file or listing, asking the guide, and sharing by link each send data off this device. Reading and asking use AI, counted per account. What is recorded, and why explains them.
Switch at any time. Everything you have entered comes with you, and the concluded figure does not change; the mode changes the wording and what the analysis document is written to do. A broker’s analysis applies the same methodology but is not an appraisal, and says so.
Yours, not any one valuation’s. Signed in, they are kept with your account, so they are the same on any computer you sign in on.
Each line appears in the header of the analysis document only if you fill it in: a blank field leaves no gap. Telephone, email and website share one line.
Kept in this browser and, when you are signed in, with your account. Saved with each valuation, and left out of a copy you share with someone else.
Each section shows its heading and a one-line summary until you open it. Untick to have every section open, as it used to be.
A new valuation starts with “Use the calculation date” ticked under its effective date. Untick to start with a date you set yourself.
Change it under Subject Vessel Adjustments on any valuation where it is not so. A saved valuation keeps the level it was saved with.
Settings you change on a worksheet (rounding, the depreciation scale, blend weights, condition percentages, the expected-sale deduction and the rest) are remembered as your starting point for the next valuation. Reset to Defaults puts every one of them, and the choices under New valuations, back to the tool’s own. Your details and logo above are kept unless you tick the box when asked.
Identify the vessel you are listing. Nothing here is required beyond year, make, model and location — at first contact that is usually all anyone has. Identify the subject vessel. Anything captured below fills the editable fields for your review; nothing reaches the analysis unreviewed.
Pasting text from a listing page? Open every “Show more” and Specifications panel first. Anything still collapsed is not copied, and its figures will be missing here.
Drives every age calculation. Set to today’s date each time you calculate.
Noted in the narrative. Enters the calculation only as a last resort, if no comparable sales, active listings or guide data are entered — otherwise it plays no part.
The price the vessel is listed at, or the figure the seller has in mind. Tested against the evidence rather than used to set it — unless no comps, active listings or guide data are entered, in which case it becomes the basis by default. Leave it blank and the analysis states a recommended asking range instead of testing a figure.
Each engine hour uses up a share of a new engine. With the number of engines, their expected life and the price of a new one, each comparable’s Engine Hours adjustment is worked out in dollars: the difference in hours, at the cost of an engine hour, for each engine. Hours past the expected life count as fully used.
All optional. Propulsion affects which price index is offered for replacement-cost escalation in Section 5 and, with the fuel type, the default engine life used to price engine hours (above); it does not otherwise adjust the value. Hours are per engine; separate multiple engines with / and they are averaged. Where set, the matching adjustment on each comparable is directed automatically.
These three attributes exist to direct per-comparable adjustments rather than to describe the vessel for its own sake. Setting water use to freshwater, for instance, means a saltwater comparable is adjusted downward automatically and in a consistent direction, instead of deciding the sign afresh on every row.
Propulsion is different from the other three: it drives no adjustment at all. Its only job is to preselect the boat-building price index used if a replacement cost is escalated in Section 5, because BLS publishes separate series for inboard, outboard and sterndrive vessels. Left unspecified, the broad all-boat-building index is used, which is the honest default when the drive type was never established. Whatever it is set to, the index remains selectable by hand in Section 5.
Leaving one at Not specified is a real answer, not a gap: the corresponding adjustment is locked at zero and the narrative does not claim a difference that was never established. Water use in particular is never inferred from a listing, because it is rarely stated and guessing it from location would be a guess dressed as data.
Recorded sold prices are the primary basis for market value. Each sale is normalized to the subject’s age before it is used.
Do you have recorded sold prices for comparable vessels?
Sold comparables are the primary basis for market value.
Each retained sale: as sold and as indicated
As of the last calculation — inputs have changed since. Recalculate to redraw it.
Age, age adjustment and indication: as of last calculation
Vessels currently listed for sale — the competition. These establish where the subject stands in today’s market: what a buyer weighing her against the alternatives is actually looking at. The subject vessel does not belong here.
Do not enter the subject vessel here, even though she may well be listed for sale herself. Her asking price already sits in Section 1, where the analysis tests it against the evidence rather than counting it as evidence. Entered again here, she becomes part of the market she is being measured against — and where no sold comparables exist, her own asking price would help set her own value.
Do you have current asking prices for vessels listed for sale?
Used for market positioning. Enters the value only as a fallback when no sold comparables exist, or if you deliberately blend it in.
Age adjustment and adjusted figure: as of last calculation
BUCValuPro™, NADA or PowerBoat Guide figures. Reference by default — they enter the value only if you deliberately blend them in, or automatically if no sold comparables or active listings are available. Leave it blank if the vessel is not listed in any guide; the analysis then rests on comparable sales alone.
Do you have valuation guide data — BUCValuPro™, NADA or PowerBoat Guide?
Reference by default. Becomes the value basis only with no sold comparables or active listings, or if you choose to blend it in.
If the report prints one cited figure, as Price Digests does with its Retail column, enter it as Low and leave High blank; it is used as it stands. Two figures are a range.
This is about the guide’s own figures, not the subject vessel’s condition — that is Section 6 and nothing here changes it.
What it is for. A guide range may already have a condition uplift or reduction built into it before you touch anything. If it does, and you also apply a condition percentage in Section 6, condition gets counted twice — once by the guide and once by you. This setting is how the analysis knows which case it is in.
It does not move the concluded value on its own. What it changes is what the document discloses, and whether a double-count caution is raised in the ledger and the narrative.
Read it from the report — the default, and right nearly always. The tool decides in this order: the Condition Adjustment as printed figure above, if you entered one — a $0 there means the guide applied nothing, whatever the condition is called; failing that, the condition name, which it can only judge for guides whose vocabulary it knows. The document then states which of the two it went on, so a reader can see whether the answer was read or inferred.
Yes — the range already includes it — the analysis treats the guide range as carrying a condition adjustment. If you also blend the guide into the value and apply a Section 6 condition percentage, the ledger records a double-count caution and the narrative states that the guide figures were produced with a condition already selected.
No — the range is condition-neutral — the analysis treats the guide range as carrying none, so no caution is raised. Use this when you can see from the report that the guide applied nothing but the tool has guessed otherwise.
Either answer you give outranks what the report says, because you are the one looking at it. The document records that you stated it.
BUCValuPro starts from the same values as the printed BUC Used Boat Price Guide at the beginning of each edition, and is updated as new information is gathered. Its condition and area adjustment scales are more granular than the broader scales printed in the book, so a percentage taken from the book’s table will not always reproduce a BUCValuPro figure and should not be used to check one.
Condition and area. Unless the user specifies otherwise, the evaluation is given for a vessel in “BUC condition” in the Northeast & Mid Atlantic area — a vessel ready for sale, requiring no additional work and normally equipped for its size. Any other condition named on the report means an adjustment is already inside the figures.
What is and is not included. Engine value is included in most cases, but for outboard vessels the engines are excluded and offered as an addition. Trailers are always excluded and offered the same way.
Replacement value, in BUC’s words, reflects the market price of a new boat with average equipment. It does not include condition or area adjustments, and for an outboard boat the engines are not included.
Matches are returned by decreasing probability of fit, so the model shown may not be exactly the one entered. BUC states it cannot evaluate every engine option for every model and displays the closest match.
Other published guides consulted for this vessel, disclosed in the document. Reference only by default — they enter the value only if you choose to average them below.
A valuation that consulted four guides and reported one has told the reader less than it knew. Listing each source and what it said lets a reviewer see the spread between them, which is often the most honest picture of how firm a figure really is.
Setting one aside is a legitimate judgment, and it is disclosed rather than hidden. A guide that does not cover the model, prints a stale edition, or reports a region the vessel has never been in may deserve to be excluded — but the document names it and gives your reason, exactly as it does for an excluded comparable. That is the difference between a considered exclusion and a missing source a reader has no way to ask about.
By default, nothing entered here reaches the concluded value — the primary report above is the only guide figure the calculation uses, whether automatically (as the basis when no sold comparables or active listings exist) or because you deliberately blended guide data into the value. Choosing “Average all included sources” below changes that: every source here that is not marked excluded is then averaged together with the primary report into the one guide figure used.
Cost to build or buy an equivalent vessel new at the effective date. Reported for insurance and as context for the depreciation scales — and never used to derive market value, with one exception: the “Fitted to these sales” depreciation scale in Section 2 is measured against this figure, which does move the concluded value.
Replacement cost is what it would take to build or buy an equivalent vessel new at the effective date. It answers a different question from market value, which is what this vessel would sell for in its current condition, and insurers frequently want both.
It is also the basis Martin's two tables are actually published against — they give the proportion of current replacement value a vessel retains at a given age. Recording the figure here makes that relationship visible. It is also, by default, what the “Fitted to these sales” depreciation scale in Section 2 is measured against — see “Why it matters” under the engine-exclusion checkbox below, which is the one place this figure genuinely does move the concluded value.
Where the figure comes from. You ask the people who sell them. For a vessel still in production that is a call to the builder or a dealer: what does one cost new today, rigged comparably? That answer is the replacement cost. Enter it, record the source, and leave the escalation box alone — the figure is already current. A valuation guide may also print one, which is convenient when you have a guide, but it is one source among several and rarely the best.
When escalation is needed. Only when the best figure available is not current, and the usual reason is that the model is no longer built. If nobody can quote a new one because there isn’t one, and the strongest evidence is what the last hulls delivered for some years ago, that figure is real but stale. Escalating it to the effective date using a published boat-building price index is more defensible than reporting a stale number as current, or inventing an uplift. The same applies to a builder’s quotation obtained for an earlier appraisal.
Most valuations will not need escalation at all. Where it is used, the narrative states the source figure, its date, the index series, both index values and the resulting factor, so a reader can check the arithmetic.
Guide replacement figures are often stale or generic. Where you have a better number — a manufacturer quotation, a dealer's build sheet, your own experience of comparable new construction — enter it and record where it came from. The narrative reports the source, because “as quoted by the manufacturer” and “based on the surveyor’s experience” are different claims and should not read alike.
Do you want to state a Replacement Cost?
Reported for reference. Not used to derive market value, except that the Fitted depreciation scale in Section 2 is measured against it.
Tick this if the figure came from a guide that leaves outboards out — BUCValuPro does, and says so on the report.
Replacement cost is reported for reference and never derives market value — with one exception. The fitted depreciation curve divides every comparable sale by it to work out what proportion of a new vessel that sale represents, so a replacement cost short by the engines makes every boat look like it held its value far better than it did.
Measured on a real set: a replacement cost missing the engines produced a decline of 0.5% a year where the true figure gave 4.8%. The curve still fitted and still looked plausible.
Enter the cost of new engines of the type fitted, not their depreciated value. The whole figure describes a new vessel, so the engines in it must be new too.
How the subject vessel differs from the comparable sales. Condition and equipment are handled here together so the same advantage is never counted twice — choose one method below to drive the value. The condition rating always informs the narrative regardless of which method is selected.
How the value is derived — the figure every adjustment below is applied to. The tool uses the strongest available evidence by default; switch to Blend to combine sources with weights.
Comps primary is correct in nearly every case, and it is the default. Recorded sold prices are what a vessel actually changed hands for; everything else is an opinion about what one might. The tool takes the strongest evidence you have supplied and uses it, so with sold comparables entered there is nothing to decide here.
Blend sources is for the case where more than one source carries genuine evidential weight and none clearly dominates — typically when sold comparables are few, or absent, and guide data or asking prices are the only other evidence available. It is not a mechanism for moving the answer toward a preferred figure; weightings should follow from the quality of each source and then be left alone.
Where comparables are plentiful and closely matched, blending usually weakens the conclusion rather than strengthening it — averaging strong evidence with weaker evidence produces something weaker than the strong evidence alone. Guide data is reference material unless you have deliberately decided to rely on it.
Sets the condition language used in the narrative. The percentage above is editable — click it to set a market-supported figure for the selected rating, or leave it at the default.
BUCValuPro publishes these six bands under the heading “Percent to be added or subtracted” — so, like this tool’s own condition percentages, the scale is additive and never compounds.
This tool offers eight stops where BUC names six bands: Fair and Above-average each get two, told apart by their percentage. “Average” and BUC’s “BUC Condition” are one idea under two names — a vessel ready for sale, needing no work, normally equipped for its size, and carrying no adjustment in either direction.
Nothing here is applied to your figure. A percentage of your own that falls outside BUC’s range is not an error: BUC’s bands describe the national used-boat market, and a preparer holding local sales evidence may properly land outside them. It is a difference worth being able to explain, which is the whole reason it is shown here instead of after the fact.
Source: BUCValuPro, Conditions (bucvalupro.com), as published.
These are mutually exclusive by design. Applying a condition percentage and itemized equipment for the same advantage would double-count it.
Equipment the comparables lacked. Enter contributory value, not installed cost.
Contributory value is what the market pays for a feature, routinely far below what it cost to install. A $180,000 stabilizer may add $60,000 to what a buyer will pay. Entering the invoice figure is among the most common ways an appraisal becomes indefensible.
Enter only equipment the comparable sales did not have. Where they carried similar gear, the advantage is already reflected in their achieved prices, and adding it again double-counts.
Off by default — keeps the narrative concise and avoids a brokerage-listing tone.
Auto-filled from dropped receipts (editable). Leave blank if unavailable (most valuations).
Documented reasons outside condition and equipment. Applied last. State the basis.
This is the adjustment most likely to be challenged, because it is the one with no structural check behind it. Everything else on this page derives from data entered above; this is the surveyor’sbroker’s judgment applied directly to the result.
Legitimate uses: a known defect not captured by condition, a distressed or non-arm’s-length sale, an encumbrance, an inspection finding. Each should be stated plainly and supported by something a reader can verify. Left blank, the narrative attributes it to professional discretion — which is honest, but weaker than a stated reason.
If a discretionary adjustment is doing substantial work in the conclusion, that usually indicates the comparable set needs revisiting rather than the adjustment needing enlarging.
These belong to the valuation in front of you, and are remembered as your starting point for the next one. Your name, logo and contact details, and how a new valuation opens, are in .
Applies to the narrative, the headline figure and the calculation summary alike.
Rounding signals the precision the analysis actually supports. A figure carried to the dollar implies an accuracy that comparable-sales analysis cannot deliver, and invites challenge on digits that were never meaningful.
The unrounded figure is always disclosed alongside the rounded one, so nothing is hidden either way. Turn rounding off where a specific figure is required — a settlement, a stated policy limit, or a lender's fixed amount.
Whichever you choose applies consistently. A rounded headline over an unrounded narrative is the combination most likely to be questioned.
The expected life of an engine of each kind, used to price the difference in engine hours between the subject and each comparable (Section 1, Engine hours priced from engine life). Rules of thumb, not published figures: a valuation can state its own.
On by default. Turning it off leaves the figure recorded in Section 5 and on screen, but keeps it out of the written statement — useful where the report addresses market value only and a replacement figure would invite questions it is not there to answer. It never affects the concluded value either way.
Naming every comparable reads well with three and becomes unreadable with forty, duplicating a calculation summary that already carries the full detail. Past this threshold the narrative reports the count and the range instead.
Nothing is lost either way. Exclusions remain disclosed as a matter of USPAP regardless of how many there are, and every comparable is itemized in the calculation summary whatever this is set to. The setting governs how the prose reads, not what is disclosed.
Set to none to always summarize, which suits reports where the comparable schedule is attached separately.
On by default. The document’s “Summary of the analysis” is the concise statement: one paragraph saying how the figure was built, closing on the supported range. Turn it off for a document that leaves the explaining to its tables and charts. It never affects a figure.
A review prompt, not a rule. No standard prescribes a figure here, so this is a default rather than an authority. A comparable requiring a large adjustment is weaker evidence than one requiring a small one; the analysis document marks those at or beyond this figure and leaves the weight they carry to you.
What happens when you ask. Your question and a summary of what you have entered — the subject vessel, your comparables and their figures, and any review notices the tool has raised — are sent to Anthropic’s Claude API to be answered.
That is the only way it can tell you anything useful about your valuation rather than about valuation in general. Nothing is stored on this site: the conversation lives in this tab and goes when you close it.
Your firm block goes too, once a report exists. The summary includes the text of the finished document, and your name, credentials and contact line sit at the top of it. There is no client-name field in this tool, so a client is named only if you typed one into a field yourself. Your logo is not sent.
If you would rather not send vessel details at all, close this panel — nothing has been sent yet, and the rest of the tool is unaffected. What is recorded, and why.
Not sure where to begin?
Guidance only — it never changes your figures.
Something here need fixing?
Recalculating writes a new narrative from the current entries. Choose what happens to your edits. If you keep your wording, check that the figures in it are still right: the worksheet will tell you if it no longer states the concluded value.
Your address is used to reply to you — often the answer is a control you have not found yet, and that is a two-line email rather than a feature. It is linked to the report counts already held for this browser. It is never sold and never used for marketing.
We reply to the email on your account, often with a control you have not found yet.
Up to date
Every step from the basis to the conclusion, added once and never compounded, as the analysis document prints it.
Your edits are kept. Recalculate to bring the figures up to date.
Prototype worksheet — verify all figures and extracted data independently. Not a substitute for surveyor judgment or USPAP compliance review.