Off-market superyacht sales are surging, powered by a wave of newly minted billionaires and a broker ecosystem built entirely on relationships, encrypted messages, and carefully timed text messages designed to make a buyer feel they are accessing something no one else can see.
The pitch is deliberately cryptic. Tomek Wrzesinski, a Monaco-based broker with more than 20 years in the business, sends a simple weekend text to a prospective client: ‘Maybe I have something for you. I just need to check if it’s still available. It’s an off-market offer.’ The last three words, he says, are usually enough. ‘After 20 minutes, you have an answer: Yes, yes, yes.’
Known off-market transactions are on track to rise by around 5% this year compared with 2025, according to data from Super Yacht Times Intelligence. Anders Kurtén, chief executive of the brokerage Fraser Yachts, estimates that off-market deals have probably doubled since 2019. Wrzesinski says his own inbound business has increased by around 300% over the same period.
The Numbers Behind the Boom
The broader superyacht market is providing the backdrop. Superyachts, generally defined as vessels over 30 metres, clocked 442 sales in 2025, up 12% from the prior year, according to BOATPro, a yacht intelligence firm. Sales hit a three-year high in the first half of 2026. (Denison Yacht Sales, citing BoatPro data with a wider 24-metre threshold, recorded 470 transactions in 2025; the difference reflects the vessel-size definition each source applies.)
At the very top of the market, prices are rising sharply. Data from the brokerage Camper & Nicholsons shows final asking prices for megayachts (60 to 100 metres) and gigayachts (over 100 metres) soared 33% and 38%, respectively, last year. These two categories were also the only segments to see a decrease in average time on the market before purchase.
The pace of transactions in the first half of 2026 underlines the scale of appetite. Northrop & Johnson’s Q2 2026 Superyacht Market Report shows 326 pre-owned superyachts sold in H1 2026, with total sales value reaching $3.51 billion, up 15% from $3.05 billion in H1 2025. Average sale value rose to approximately $10.8 million, up around 25% year-on-year. September 2025 produced what Lumenautica describes as the largest brokerage transaction in superyacht history, when Feadship’s 119-metre yacht Breakthrough sold through Edmiston.
Fraser Yachts offers the clearest illustration of how fast deals are moving. The brokerage sold 12 superyachts in 12 days in January 2026, having closed more than 30 sales in the four months prior, with a combined value exceeding half a billion dollars. Yacht Style reports Fraser recorded a 63% year-on-year increase in yachts sold in 2026, outperforming the global market, and was for the 15th consecutive year the brokerage through which more people bought and sold yachts than any other, completing 35% more transactions than its closest competitor.
Kurtén points to two forces sustaining the pace: the enormous wealth created in markets over the past several years, combined with a significant backlog of large ships under construction that has kept supply tight. ‘As with anything, if there’s the right price to be found, a lot of stuff that isn’t officially for sale ends up being for sale,’ he says.
How Off-Market Superyacht Sales Work
The process for completing off-market superyacht sales is structured around discretion. Buyers find a broker with deep industry ties, provide proof of funds, and typically sign a non-disclosure agreement before a boat is ever discussed in detail. Text messages and internet searches related to the transaction are usually encrypted, says John Hermanson, an off-market broker based in Kuwait. ‘Off-market listings don’t exist in a database. They exist in relationships. A broker who has been in the industry for decades will know about a yacht before it is even listed,’ he says. Hermanson has been building his network since the 2008 financial crisis and runs a LinkedIn group with around 120,000 industry professionals.
Brokers are paid accordingly. On a typical boat over $10 million, Hermanson says the standard commission is 2.5% of the final sales price, equivalent to at least $250,000 on even the smallest qualifying sale. The average price of a used motor megayacht typically starts at around $60 million, according to the chartering platform Yacht.com.
The fuel for demand is the AI boom and the run-up in stock and crypto prices in recent years, Hermanson says. The world has minted 400 billionaires so far this year, bringing the total to 3,428 worldwide, the largest number ever recorded, with combined wealth exceeding $20 trillion.
Status dynamics keep the cycle moving. Buyers typically hold a yacht for around three years before upgrading, Wrzesinski says, driven by the one-upmanship that pervades the upper end of the market. Wrzesinski pointed to a client who recently sold a 60-foot yacht and bought a new one after the embarrassment of docking between two larger vessels in Europe. ‘You will buy a bigger one. It’s always like this.’
The one risk brokers acknowledge openly is what happens if the AI market unravels. Kurtén says a sharp drop in asset prices could erase significant wealth, but remains confident demand would recover within a few years. The question of whether that confidence will be tested depends on how long markets hold.