Marina Slip Purchase as Investment

[Charlie]

Emery Cove in the Bay Area has slips for sale. According to this document you would be paying $3.52 per foot as condo fees. When I had a slip in Richmond I was paying around $8.00 a foot and I would consider Emeryville to be a nicer marina. Their rates are currently $9.00 a foot for a downwind slip and ~$0.50 more for an upwind slip. http://www.emerycove.com/art0608/ECQuestionAnswer.pdf I used to have a brochure with prices that people were offering to sell their slips but I have misplaced it. They are often advertised at the Alameda boat Shows. As I remember the slips ranged from $50k to $75k. I don't know what the terms of the loans were but some had assumable financing. If you could keep your slip full you could get $239 a month return on an investment of $75k or about 3.82% return. I don't know what type of appreciation you can expect. As an investment I don't see if making a lot of sense but instead of a second home I could rationalize it.

[Charlie]

Found the prices a 40' slip is $45k to $55k That brings the return up to 5.74% ( on a $50k slip)

[Chief Engineer]

To say nothing of the Condo-nazis who will try to run your life

[barnakiel]

I thought about it but any place we visited had so many limitations on the contract that I gave up on it as a business.

I tried in: NZ, France, Spain.

b.

[shadow]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

To say nothing of the Condo-nazis who will try to run your life

You nailed it right on the head my friend!! I can't stand people trying to micro manage me!?!?!

[David M]

Overall, I think there are much better investments out there that are much more likely to give you a return.

[markpierce]

Such as paying off all your debts.

[Waterwayguy]

Originally Posted by Chief Engineer

To say nothing of the Condo-nazis who will try to run your life

My definition of a condo is too many people living too close together with too much time on their hands. We had three condo associations in close proximity.

We had the marina condo, a townhouse condo and a high-rise condo all basically on the same property. The marina people called the Sheriff if the townhouse people walked on the docks and the townhouse people called the Sheriff if the marine people walked on the grass, the townhouses surrounded the marina. Do you really want to have to deal with all of that? Most boat slip renters will not. Chuck

[ArmyChief]

Originally Posted by Charlie

As I remember the slips ranged from $50k to $75k. I don't know what the terms of the loans were but some had assumable financing. If you could keep your slip full you could get $239 a month return on an investment of $75k or about 3.82% return. I don't know what type of appreciation you can expect. As an investment I don't see if making a lot of sense but instead of a second home I could rationalize it.

Did any monthly fees, maintenance and taxes if any incorporated into your return?

Not to mention that money is now tied up in a non-liquid asset

[CaptainBW]

Originally Posted by Waterwayguy

With a condo slip comes condo association fees, assessments for repairs, which can run in the thousands of dollars and both you and your renter will have to deal with condo slip owners that don't like having a non owner next door. And these are just a few things off the top of my head. Chuck

I was always afraid of the assessments...they seem like they are lurking below and will surface when least expected, taking an uplanned bite out of your wallet!

[Charlie]

Originally Posted by ArmyChief

Did any monthly fees, maintenance and taxes if any incorporated into your return?

Not to mention that money is now tied up in a non-liquid asset

Army Chief I forgot to add the taxes in but did include the other items. In California that would add up to $550 a year.

I agree with you guys about Condo Nazi's etc. The marina in Emeryville is a different type of condo. It is a condo development of slips. There are no buildings associated with it. I am sure that this is better then condo buildings if for no other reason that there are not a bunch of people sitting at home all day wanting to enforce the rules. Nonetheless it still is a condo and you have the problems of people and rules.

Here is what happened tome a couple of months ago:

The marina where I keep Ohana is next to a Condo Association. I went out for a three day sail the other day and when i came back the security officer of the Home Owners Association started asking me a bunch of questions. He told me that it was against the HOA rules for me to stay on my boat. I told him that the contract that I had with the marina did allow me to stay on the boat and that if he needed to prove it to me that I couldn't stay on my boat. He looked around in his truck and asked me to wait. I told him that I was busy and was not willing to wait. He took off and I went to pack up to leave. Maybe a half hour later I had a knock on my boat and a police officer was asking me who I was. I was very polite to him and gave him my name. He told me that the Security Guard from the HOA had a problem with me being on my boat. I explained to him that I was quite confident that I was well within the rights of the contract that I had signed to rent the berth from the Marina.
I tried to connect to with the Marina manager but was not able to get in touch with him. The officer asked the general manager of the HOA to come down and explain what was going on. The HOA GM explained that the berths were all leased to the condos and that I was not supposed to be there. The officer asked me if I had a copy of my contract and luckily I did. After reading the contract the PO said that I was legal and the GM started trying to bully me into giving him a copy of the contract and my key saying that I would not b e allowed to enter or exit thru the condo association gate which I need to do to access my boat. I would be trespassing. I negotiated with him for a while but ended up telling him I would give him the key after I had loaded up my vehicle b/c we were leaving the next morning. I also said that I would email him a copy of my contract. I gave him the key but decided not to give him a copy of the contract. After talking to the Marina manager I also found out that the Marina actually has ownership of five feet of the walkway and that the only place that I would need to walk on their property was the gate.
As it turned out the Marina Manager decided to sue the HOA. Ain't that California. He going to file for a temporary injunction allowing us use of the gate and some other legal mumbo jumbo. It turns out that the HOA wants to own the Marina and is trying to squeeze the Marina out of business so that they can buy it real cheap. It put a damper on the last night of our vacation but it wasn't horrible. I held my ground and the PO was real nice and listened to both sides of the argument. I didn't have the amo that I needed to fight the gate and key issue but next time I go down there I sure will.
Talk about a waste of money. The Marina ended up suing the HOA. The Marina had to do it b/c the HOA had changed the locks and cut off access to the marina.

Here is part of an email that I sent to a friend, "I just got word that the Home Owners Association and the Marina went to court and the Judge was not very happy with the HOA. The outcome was that the courts granted a preliminary injunction against the HOA – meaning that the HOA has to grant us access and give us keys. From what Jack Cunningham told me the HOA made some outrageous claims such as “The Marina owns those boats and is renting them out for weekends running a hotel.” Well this is very far from the truth and the HOA didn’t have a shred of evidence to prove their case. There are two hurdles that have to be met in order for the Judge to grant a preliminary injunction 1) There needs to be preponderance of evidence supporting the Marina’s case. And 2) there in no undue burden on the HOA. The Marina was required to post a bond for any damage to the HOA property caused by us “unruly” boat owners but the Judge required substantially less then the HOA had requested. They are still going to go to court and the Marina is going to be going after damages. Hopefully Larry Peterson will be asked to resign from the board after a judgment against the HOA ends up costing the homeowners money. I feel sorry for the owners of the condos but I guess they should have voted Larry Peterson out of office. The rekeying of the locks was not a very good idea by the HOA it just ended up costing them money and now they have to give us keys again."

Sometimes justice does prevail. I hope that the HOA manager (Larry Peterson) takes some personal liability for this.

[Waterwayguy]

Originally Posted by CaptainBW

I was always afraid of the assessments...they seem like they are lurking below and will surface when least expected, taking an uplanned bite out of your wallet!

In the marina I managed we finally had to replace all of the bulkheads around the entire basin. Tens of thousands of dollars assessed to 100 slip owners. Shortly before that the entire marina had to be rewired, tens of thousands of dollars assessed. The entire docks had to be re-planked, many many thousands of dollars, all within a two year period. Chuck

[Captain Bill]

I have my boat at a marina that will sell you a slip or rent you one. This marina is 8 miles from the nearest town and there are more slips in the area than there are boats. Five years ago at the beginning of the real estate boom there were a lot of slips built in the area because slip rents were going up at 30% a year. Thirty percent or more of the slips are now sitting empty and a lot of marinas are on the verge of bankrupcy. Our Marina raised the rent 30% this year in an effort to get renters to buy slips. They raised the price 4 years ago and haven't sold a slip since. My slip is priced at 88,000 and there is simply no way it is worth that much money. When you do buy it what do you own? In our case it would be a 50th share in the dock and clubhouse and the right to pay property tax on the bottom that state law says you can't own. So is 1/50th of a $400,000 piece of property worth 88,000 plus monthly association fees? Seems to me you are paying 11 times what it's worth.

You also have to be careful about ownership and the right of the "owners" to actually sell you the slip. We had a marina attempt to go condo a couple of years ago in a nearby town. It seems that a local hotel many years ago got a building permit for a waterfront hotel on the condition that they build and operate a city marina for the town, but the town retained ownership of the marina and a small strip of land along the seawall. In the intervening years the hotel and city management changed several times and forgot that the marina did not belong to the hotel. When the hotel decided to sell the slips they chased all the renters out and started selling slips. Fortunately a local attorney was aware of the original arrangement and put a stop to it, but not before several people had purchased slips. Now there's a big ugly court fight over all of it. If you decide to buy a slip make sure that the guys selling it really have a right to sell it.

[delmarrey]

Originally Posted by David M

Overall, I think there are much better investments out there that are much more likely to give you a return.

I think David has it right! Especially his signature. Life begins where land ends.

[discostu]

Originally Posted by David M

Overall, I think there are much better investments out there that are much more likely to give you a return.

After reading all the replies; I think this one sums up pretty much the whole thing. Thank you, everyone.

If nothing else, I think I'd rather put the money elsewhere than deal with all the hassle and low returns when you factor in the various costs, potential assessments, not to mention California state taxes which can only go up in the long run as we hobble from one fiscal crisis to another.