The Economist delved in the world of valuing boats:

• Just like a house, cargo ships are bought and sold, and bankers have to estimate the value of the ship before the deals can proceed.
• Old-style ship brokers are expensive – they can charge $1,500 for the valuation, and in the close shipping community, it’s hard to get a valuation without everybody finding out about it.
• A website called VesselsValue is trying to do for shipping what Zillow and Zoopla did for real estate – an online directory where people can get instant checks of a ship’s price.
• VesselsValue takes into account things such as current and estimated future costs of shipping cargo when providing valuations.

Read more about the business of valuing ships over here.

Source: The Economist