I’d personally look for a newer boat than that, although that’s obviously just my opinion. 1997 and newer Grady White’s use a product called Greenwood XL in them as opposed to previous boats that just had marine grade plywood. The Greenwood XL is supposed to be much better at resisting rot and not potentially having any issues, although they obviously still can. If you’re 100% for sure wanting to go with the boat you mentioned, as seasick said above, get an accredited marine surveyor to come out and inspect the boat as well as the motor for you. That vintage of Yamaha outboards can have something called a dry exhaust corrosion problem, I won’t get too in depth on it but you can Google it to see what it pertains to. Of which if it does have the issue, it could be a minimum of a $2k fix, if you catch it early on and it isn’t too bad. If you wait, or it gets that bad, you could be looking at buying a completely new motor.
Depending on if you will trailer the boat or if it comes with one, I’d have the marine surveyor, or a trailer shop if he/she doesn’t do that, look over and inspect the trailer for you. Have them look at the bearings, brakes, axles, tires and so forth because you don’t want to have any issues when towing your new to you boat, if you intend to tow it. A marine surveyor should be able to look over at least the entire boat itself to see what works, what doesn’t work and how much it will cost to have those items fixed. Which should reflect the overall price you pay for the boat, as you wouldn’t want to spend top dollar on something that will need a lot of repairs and that potentially has outboard motor issues. Good luck!
