Slip Purchase in Santa Barbara

[Nikday]

I have been looking at all the different aspects of owning a sailboat and the slip seem to be the most confusing one to me. I live in Santa Barbara and they have a tiered structure depending on the length of the boat on how much you per foot in monthly slip fees. From what I have read it appears if I buy a slip I still need to pay monthly slip fees, and the purchase of a slip is really long term lease since the slip is actually owned by the city of Santa Barbara. Is the above correct and if it is are there city owned slips that you can rent and just pay the slip fees without purchasing a slip? Sorry if the question seems basic, but I have been having trouble in finding a difinitive answer on this question online.

Thanks,
Nikolay

[TaoJones]

From your post, it sounds as if you wouldn't be buying a slip, but someone else's place in line to rent a slip. If there is a long waiting list for a Santa Barbara municipal slip, that makes some sense, but if there is no such long wait, it makes no sense at all. Just contact the city agency that oversees the harbor and get the information directly from the horse's mouth, as it were.

In many places where there had been full marinas and long waits, the sagging economy has changed all that. Not only is the wait list gone, in some locales they are even lowering slip fees to get the marina filled again. I don't know about Santa Barbara, though - that's a pretty desirable location with a lot of deep pockets in residence, so there may indeed be a long wait there, still.

TaoJones

[Bash]

The wait list for slips in Santa Barbara got to be so long that they've closed it; you couldn't put your name on it if you wanted to, and even if you could the chance of a slip coming open during your lifetime is negligible. Slips are, however, transferable. What this means is that if you really want a slip there, you have to purchase a boat that has a slip and have the owner transfer the slip to you, at which point you'll be able to rent the slip. This situation tends to inflate the value of boats being sold with transferable slips--boats will sometimes sell for twice their market value only to have the new owner swap slips between his real boat and his "new" boat, putting the "new" boat up for sale elsewhere for half what he paid for it.

Unless you're disgustingly wealthy, a better option might be to look into marinas in Oxnard or Ventura.

[svHyLyte]

Nikolay--

You would be "buying" the right to lease a slip. While it has shortened somewhat due to the recession, the waiting list in Santa Barbara is lengthy--unless of course, you are plugged in to the local political hierarchy, in which case it's "no problem".
While picturesque, the Harbor in Santa Barbara is not particularly favorable and suffers from a good deal of shoaling making access problematical for deeper draft yachts. You are likely to find Channel Islands Harbor a more favorable marina by a good deal.

FWIW…

[Nikday]

Thanks for all the replies, I called the harbor today and it appears the list has been closed for the past 11 years. I saw a Catalina 27 for sale in SB for $2k plus a slip for additional $23K. Plus an additional 200-225 per foot for slip transfer fee, which makes a 25' slip cost $28K not in my budget.

[zeitgeist]

Update for anyone reading this thread a decade+ later:

I bought a slip ($20K + $10K transfer fee = $30K) and Catalina 270LE ($20K) in 2017, and have been living aboard for about a year now.

The monthly fee is just under $400, for my 28' boat and the $120/mo Liveaboard fee.

If you consider rent here is about $1250/mo, or even more if you want to live alone, the yearly cost is about $15,000/year.

My rent comes out to about $5,000/year.

So, the slip makes sense in the long term, after about 2-3 years for a 25' slip, 6 years for a 30' slip, and a full decade for a 35' slip. Also, when you go up in size your slip rent goes up $50-$100 as well.