I think you're going to be a bit hard pressed finding what you're looking for at under $30k, especially if you need to have the boat shipped somewhere, as shipping alone can cost $4k-$5k+ depending on where you're shipping it from/to. I bought my 2004 GW 228 Seafarer back in October of 2021 in Maryland for $26.5k, which included a Yamaha F225 @ right under 1k hours and a 2009 aluminum I-beam trailer. I rented a U-Haul and did the trek myself from Deale, Maryland to the Seattle area where I live and it was 3,009 miles. Ended up costing around $3,500 to do so, most of which was the U-Haul rental as you have to pay by the mile and there's an extra fee to do a one way rental. That being said, it took me just over a year to find my boat, looked at a bunch online, put money down on two, had a surveyor inspect one and ended up backing out at the last minute due to an unfavorable inspection. Needless to say, I've been looking at pricing for 228 Seafarer's off and on for years now, of which I think I got a steal of a deal for my boat and haven't really seen much of anything in that vintage since then go for less than $30k. To get under that price, especially now with it being essentially mid July and the busiest time of the year, I think you're going to need to find something older with older power just to be under $30k, especially if your budget is including potential shipping costs. As has also been mentioned before several times in different threads, a lot of credit unions and banks won't finance a boat that's over 20-25 years old. So, I'd definitely think about something like that as well and maybe increase your budget a bit, as I don't think you're going to find what you're looking for at your budget or under, unless you get extremely lucky. Good luck either way and let us know if you find anything.
