[mzm farm]

I do see a point when sellers do not post a firm price, especially on a young horse. There is quite a difference in Dobbin, unbroke 3yr colt and gelded Dobbin w/6months solid riding.

I actually prefer ranges for prices and budgets - it gives me flexibility as seller if my horse improves in training/performance. When I ask the buyer their budget, I don't really care to know the exact top or bottom number, I just want to know we are in the same ballpark.

I do think it is silly not to say a price on a sale item when asked. The seller can always say "make an offer" and the buyer can then decide what it is worth to them - nothing much wrong with that either. Seller needs to have thick skin if buyer decides Dobbin is worth $XXX while the seller was really thinking $XXXXXX.

BTW, if you called me up and said what is Dobbins price, I would tell you the price set for the horse even if you had 3x as much in your budget.

[meupatdoes]

Horse prices are not always advertised. Part of that is because the buyer's trainer sometimes wants to get paid by the seller. I am not making any judgement here. But the fact is you may not end up selling your horse to an inquiring buyer because their trainer will nix the sale because the seller isn't giving them money.

I have always liked ads that put a horse's price in a range so that the buyer can tell if it is something that may financially work for them but won't necessarily kill a sale if their trainer is trying to be paid.

AGAIN: I am making no comment about that being cool or not, just that it happens and as a seller you can blow yourself out of the water.

Yes, by all means let's not make any judgments about buyers's trainers who take a secret cut out of the price without their clients's knowledge.

What level of unethical does somebody have to achieve before you will make a call that it 'isn't cool'???

[dags]

As chunky mentions, if the seller only has one horse then of course they should be spitting out the price. But I agree that when you are speaking with an agent that has a whole lot of sale horses available, "What's your budget?" is/can be a perfectly innocent question. I have 65 horses listed, trust me when I inquire about your budget it's so I can start building a list of potential matches. Of course I also inquire about your experience, goals, turnout situation, training program, mother's maiden name (just kidding...)

And yes meupatdoes, you are correct. There are buying agents out there that will nix a sale if the price is on the internet. My sellers are welcome to include a price in their ad and establish their stance on this, but I won't force them to.

[dags]

Once, I paid $50,000 for a $20,000 horse. I found out after the fact because I met a lady who was looking for a nice AO horse. She had $20k to spend. (This was a long time ago). We were talking and she told me that she and her trainer were scheduled to fly up to try my horse, except I got there first. I asked her why she would go all that way to look at a horse who was so far out of her price range, and she said, "Oh, but he wasn't. the asking price was $20k....."

Not picking on you Lord Helpus, but you pose an interesting situation.

You've stated two quoted prices for the horse, but what was the horse actually worth? This is not evident in your story.

If I have a fire-sale seller with a $50K horse and we are getting nothing, and suddenly I have someone on the phone that likes the horse and has $20K. Knowing the dire situation on the sellers side I would call the seller and say, "Hey, found $20K for you, how about that?" They may say yes, they may say no. Let's say they said "#*&$@! yes, I'll take it." And stomp their feet and walk away, at least slightly relieved to be out from under monthly bills.

But then you call about the same horse, based on a $50K quoted price tag, and you actually have $50K. Does the seller have to honor the $20K price to you now?

Now, this is all based on the premise the horse IS a $50,000 animal. Was yours? How much could you have sold it for? Are you now obligated to take a hit on your purchase price, because to somebody else the animal was once available for $20K?

Who screwed you? Was it your agent, on the Buyer's side, that did the inflating? Or the seller?

Horses. Black and white, they are not.

[chunky munky]

Yes, by all means let's not make any judgments about buyers's trainers who take a secret cut out of the price without their clients's knowledge.

What level of unethical does somebody have to achieve before you will make a call that it 'isn't cool'???

The point is my dear meup, is that I do not care to make an ethics judgement here. I know what I think about it, just choose not to give my op in this board. But it appears that you would like to give my opinion for me.
To deny that this happens is just hiding one's head in the sand. My point is it is often not the seller that is inflating the price, it may be their own trainer/agent.

[chunky munky]

The other thing you all may want to remember is if I as a professional find a horse that is priced at 20K that in my opinion is worth 50K, i will most likely buy it myself and then price it at 50K on the open market ;-)

[ToTheNines]

never mind

[dags]

Dags, if you read what Lord Helpus said, her story goes that the other person said "the ASKING PRICE was $xxxx..." That is what we are talking about here. Your scenario has one "asking price". Her scenario has a different asking price for different people.

I think that part of the story could easily be up for interpretation on a whole lot of levels. This buyer that missed-out could have said "asking price" and meant "what they begrudgingly accepted to show him to me for". I find it hard to believe the term "asking price" was even used, but maybe it was. The point remains that there's a whole lot you can't tell from this story. One being which side screwed over LordHelpUs, the seller or her own agent? And two being, was the horse actually worth $50K?

The subject here has to do with sellers being asked to state their asking price before being told what the buyer's budget is.

I actually thought the subject was this:

Is the sales market for higher end hunters not as weak as the overall market, or is the sales market in general improved over the last 6 to 12 months.
<snip>
I am not on this site to complain. I am very interested in this boards opinion. Are our expectations to high? Is it strictly a supply and demand issue? The 3'6" amateur rideable hunter is very desireable and, possibly, much more difficult to find.

But, I provided one possible, detailed answer to this question way back here and it has been largely ignored, so I could definitely be wrong about the OP's intended subject matter.

[convertedhorselover]

Well the thread seems to have morphed into something a little different from the original post.

The first question was if the horse market (specifically hunter land) had rebounded in the last year. I thought the budget was going to get a competitive junior hunter but maybe I am(was) wrong.

The other point I was trying to make is the process seems to be a little flawed. I agree with many on this board that your trainer or agent absolutely needs to know your budget. My problem was only with a seller (or sellers agent) asking my budget before informing me of an asking price when they were specifically contacted about a certain animal. That is where I believe there is a possibility for altered (inflated) prices.

[RumoursFollow]

When I talk to other trainers about a horse they have for sale.. The conversation usually (when it is someone who thinks along my lines) goes something along the lines of "yes I have that one for sale and he's x amount." then if I express interest, we may move on to "well I also have such and such horse but he's actually 25k (whereas the other horse is 15k) and I would say "well thats not (or is) within their budget" and we figure it out that way.

I have not bought many off sale ads in recent times, but by word of mouth or through friends.. Several of whom when they find out I'm on the hunt will run down a list of what they have and in what range.

If I were to start doing a lot of sales (soon after pigs fly) I really like the websites with the ranges.. You know A= $10,000 or less B= $10,000-25,000 etc etc. If nothing on the page is in our range, we move on, and IME it atleast gives seller some room to wiggle.

[ponies123]

Not picking on you Lord Helpus, but you pose an interesting situation.

You've stated two quoted prices for the horse, but what was the horse actually worth? This is not evident in your story.

If I have a fire-sale seller with a $50K horse and we are getting nothing, and suddenly I have someone on the phone that likes the horse and has $20K. Knowing the dire situation on the sellers side I would call the seller and say, "Hey, found $20K for you, how about that?" They may say yes, they may say no. Let's say they said "#*&$@! yes, I'll take it." And stomp their feet and walk away, at least slightly relieved to be out from under monthly bills.

But then you call about the same horse, based on a $50K quoted price tag, and you actually have $50K. Does the seller have to honor the $20K price to you now?

Now, this is all based on the premise the horse IS a $50,000 animal. Was yours? How much could you have sold it for? Are you now obligated to take a hit on your purchase price, because to somebody else the animal was once available for $20K?

Who screwed you? Was it your agent, on the Buyer's side, that did the inflating? Or the seller?

Horses. Black and white, they are not.

I was thinking along the same lines. Everyone on this BB is constantly saying that "a horse is only worth what a buyer will pay for it". So if Buyer A will pay 25k for a horse, but Buyer B will pay 45k for it, is it a 25k horse or a 45k horse? According to a lot of opinions stated on other threads, it's a 45k horse because someone will pay that.

At the end of the day the buyer makes the decision to pay x amount for their new horse. Presumably you had the opportunity to ride and vet and research if you so chose. As a buyer it is up to you whether you pay x for a horse.