Choosing a yacht broker should inspire the same confidence as choosing a captain: experience at the helm, sound judgment when conditions change, trustworthiness to do the right thing every time for you, and an understanding of your future boating aspiration. Whether you are selling a much-loved sportfishing boat or searching for a larger motor yacht, the right relationship makes the journey as rewarding as the destination.
“Our family-owned company has been doing business in the Great Lakes for over 50 years,” said Amy Krueger Malow, President of Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales. “You don’t get to be the #1 brokerage in the Great Lakes by luck or chance. It takes a real commitment, every day of the week, to show up for your clients and give them the experience they expect. As we know, recreational time is limited and the entire family looks forward to that day on the water. Our commitment is to ensure that we do everything possible to get the client is in the boat they want, whether that’s through the purchase or sale process, and keep them on the water all season long with our service capabilities.”
Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales (JBYS) brings together Great Lakes yacht brokerage, new boat sales, marine service, and transaction support within one organization. With more than 50 years of company heritage and locations across Michigan, Illinois, Ohio, and Florida, JBYS offers something particularly valuable to buyers and sellers: local knowledge backed by the resources of an established, full-service operation. Simply put, there is no better yacht brokerage firm in the Great Lakes to sell your boat or yacht.
#1 Great Lakes Yacht Brokerage – By The Numbers
With a 98% customer satisfaction rate over thousands of transactions, at Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales we pride ourselves on delivering incredible results for both our buying and selling clients. With all of the major brokerage firms in the Great Lakes using the same MLS system, there is a substantial amount of data that we can point to as to why JBYS is the #1 Great Lakes brokerage. According to the soldboats.com MLS database:
- JBYS sells 3 times more boats than anyone else in the 46-foot+ segment
- Our listings sell 20% faster than the Great Lakes average
- Overall, our team sells 30% more boats than our competitors
- JBYS yacht brokers average 90% of the original asking price for our clients
At Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales, we achieve the highest selling price for your boat in the Great Lakes in the shortest amount of time. With 7 Great Lakes locations, and 2 locations in Florida, along with nearly 70 team members, the combined experience you have access to as a client is simply unmatched.
Your Midwest-To-Florida Yacht Brokerage Connection
A strong Great Lakes yacht brokerage needs more than a broad advertising footprint. It needs good people in the markets it serves.
Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales has seven strategically-placed Great Lakes locations: St. Clair Shores, Charlevoix, Holland, Grand Haven, and Spring Lake in Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; and Marblehead, Ohio. Our Florida presence includes a Naples sales office and a separate Williams Jet Tender Service Center.
Many of our clients are seasonal, spending summers in the Great Lakes and winters down in Florida with their boat. That doesn’t mean the process of selling it all of a sudden stops.
The practical advantage for our clients is a regional network working to sell their yacht, that moves with the seasonal geography change. Our brokerage team continually goes back-and-forth from the Midwest to Florida, ensuring your yacht never misses an opportunity for purchase. Both Florida and the Great Lakes are among the top three boating markets nationwide and our team has the pulse of each.
Our Naples-based services include current market valuations, listing preparation, buyer outreach, showings, negotiations, and coordination through closing. For a seller, the implication is important: the yacht’s home port does not need to define the limits of its market. For a seasonal owner, the relationship does not have to start over when your cruising grounds change.
Manufacturer Relationships That Create Opportunities For Brokerage Clients
A professional yacht broker should be able to discuss more than the same specifications you read on the listing. Buyers need help understanding layouts, equipment choices, manufacturer reputation, model differences, geographic considerations, and how a particular yacht fits their plans.
JBYS’s new boat manufacturer relationships give its brokerage operation another source of product knowledge and pool of potential buyers. Out of every 5 boat or yacht transactions, 4 of them are for a brokerage boat. While JBYS receives new boat leads from each of our premium manufacturers and we meet plenty of in-market shoppers working our new boat displays during the major boat shows, the probability is that those buyers will end up purchasing a brokerage vessel.
With each boat show season, our CRM continues to grow with potential buyers for your pre-owned yacht; a clear advantage over other brokerage firms with no new boat brands. Our professional yacht brokers also become factory-trained and receive proprietary information from our world-leading new boat brands, giving them an informational advantage, as well.
Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales also has the financial capability to take your pre-owned yacht in on trade. Contact us today to find out about the market and learn what other boats for sale in the Great Lakes you’re competing with.
(Below: One of our new yacht manufacturer partners, Princess Yachts, displays the new X90 at a recent boat show.)
Yacht Marketing That Reaches Beyond Your Home Port
Your yacht may be lying in a familiar slip, but its next owner could be searching from another state.
The JBYS marketing team has decades of combined experiences selling boats and yachts of all different sizes, prices, and situations. This type of support staff is important for brokers and for yacht sellers, as many brokerage firms don’t have a dedicated marketing team.
Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales also commits major budget to marketing our clients’ listings. We are on all of the major boating marketplaces, including MarineSource.com, Yachtworld, BoatTrader, Yachtr.com, and others. According to the annual reporting from the MLS, our clients’ listings receive twice as many impressions (views of their boat online) than other Great Lakes brokerage firms.
Additionally, we use multiple MLS systems to feed your listings to hundreds of other broker websites for maximum digital exposure.
Here are several other marketing channels that JBYS utilizes:
- Email Marketing to over 3,000 yacht brokers and over 30,000 potential buyers
- Social Media Marketing that reaches over 200,000 accounts monthly
- Collaboration with major social media channels, such as Boats Gone Wild
- Google Marketing that captures both organic traffic and paid traffic
- Digital display advertising on major websites that capture boaters
- Utilization of AI in our marketing efforts
- Print Marketing in strategic regional boating magazines
- Major boat show displays & attendance at both regional and national shows
- Local Great Lakes charity sponsorships & events that reach the boating public
- Curated client rendezvous that keep JBYS connected with boaters year-round
For a yacht seller, the value lies in the combination: broad distribution, multiple ways for buyers to discover a listing, and attention to what the marketing is actually producing. A yacht deserves more than a listing that goes live and is left to wait. “We meet buyers where they are,” continued Amy. “Whether that’s through a referral conversation, online, or in person at an event, we want to make sure we’re there when they are.”
When Choosing A Great Lakes Yacht Broker, JBYS Belongs At The Top
For Great Lakes boat owners, Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales offers a compelling combination: an established regional presence for nearly 50 years, substantial sales experience, broad marketing capabilities, the best manufacturer relationships, and service and business-office support.
The strongest reason to choose JBYS is how those capabilities work together. Local representation is more useful when connected to a wider buyer network. Product knowledge is more valuable when supported by technical expertise. And a successful sale is more satisfying when the experience leaves an owner confident about what comes next. It’s for these reasons that JBYS sells nearly 300 boats and yachts annually for upwards of $190 million.
To discuss selling your boat or buying your next yacht, contact Jefferson Beach Yacht Sales at 866-490-5297 or sales@jbys.com. Start with a conversation about your boat, your plans, and the approach that best fits your goals.
