Are you watching yachtworld.com?
Hi Dave,
Just stumbled across this thread and maybe you have already found a boat by now. I purchased a 35-2 in May 2011. I have started a small blog on this site about my experience that might be helpful to you. I was probably following the one you declined, because I was looking at the very bottom end of the market.
From where I sit in San Diego, and with my very small amount of experience, I think you are going to have a tough time finding much to look at unless you expand your search to at least LA and maybe every place south of you to the Mexican border. I essentially kept an eye on everything on the west coast, and planned little weekend excursions where I could look at 5 boats on a Saturday with or without the broker. I was able to make several "NO" decisions just by walking up to the boat. Although I was watching several boats in the Channel Islands area, I never had to go that far because I found enough to look at closer to home.
I found Yachtworld.com to be the easiest website to work with because it has plenty of inventory, plenty of traffic, and the best advanced search engine. I kept checking out other sites, but either search engine painful or inventory very meager and oudated.
Good luck if you're not already there!
By the way, I'm happy with the 35 size because I think I will be able to single-hand it pretty easily (although my marina neighbors would beg to differ so far) Haven't really gotten to know the 38, so may be true for that also.
Leander