Maintenance Cost V.S. Property Tax!

[s/v Beth]

I know many people in our marina that would be homeless from lack of $$ or just too crazy to live on land. They do quite well in the marina, or sometimes just on the hook. By the way their boats look like, I would say they do very little maintenance. Living on board gives these creative people a place to live rather than in a shopping cart.

[windwalkr]

Interesting Topic, I would say owning a house costs more then a 29 foot sailboat. The Maintenance on the house is around 5-7k a year, Taxes are around 3k, insurance is around $600, Fees and Bonds for the property are another 3k. Utilities like power, water, etc average around 5k a year.. So owning a house for me is around 17.5k a year. The Boat on the other-hand is $130 for dock fees, $30 for power, and $90 for insurance. I scuba so cleaning the bottom is done on site, and maintenance is around $1-2k a year. So owning the boat is around $4-5k a year. BTW, I know several people who live aboard without dock, they move every 30 days.. Their costs are just maintenance and fuel when necessary.

[RNW]

On a side point, how does the tag 'rope' find its way into this thread. :-)

[zengirl]

My experience is that owning a boat (and living on it) costs a lot more then not owning a house ...

Really! That's a shocker.

[hoppy]

I bought my house 25 years ago. It's never been renovated and is pretty tired but now it's worth about 6 times what I paid for it. In about the same time, my fathers former yacht is perhaps worth half what it was when he sold it back then.

Regardless of whatever the annual cost comparison would have shown, there is a clear winner 😃


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[Cheechako]

I think it's very situational. So for me, I pretty much rebuild my boats before heading out for long term cruising. Therefore, my maintenance is almost nothing other than bottom paint every 1.5 years or so.
But if you go in a well worn boat, it could be very high.

[Ribbit]

Land costs are higher than afloat costs, when you take into account other necessary extras that are critical in many areas, such as buying and running a car.

If you don't need a car, you can pay a lot for buses, trains, and taxi's too.

Then there's the expense of the convenience factor. Eating out, buying takeaways, cable or satellite plans for entertainment, internet connections funded at home instead of at wifi hotspots.

How much do you spend on holidays, because you need to get away and recharge your batteries? Batteries that don't get discharged when you are living on a boat, so you don't need to get away from it?

Sometimes you need a gardener or all the equipment, and that stacks up really fast. When did anybody last mow an anchorage, or trim the branches of the 'hedge' 20 ft down? Heck with a couple of major projects in the last 6 months of last year, the gardener element alone cost around $6,000, and the summerhouse/workshop was worth $11,000+! (I paid a lot less for a very high specification). Paving slabs, concrete bases, weed membrane, flint chippings, hiring a mini digger to knock things into shape prior to construction, was about the same as that lot too.

I haven't even bought a fruit tree yet (have you seen how much people charge for PLANTS these days?).

Obviously much depends on the size of boat you buy, how tough it is (how much wear and tear it can take), and whether you can afford to give it the TLC it deserves. If you overbuy, you won't keep up (things start going bonkers - to me anyway - over 35ft loa). That's true of property too. If you have to be hauled out every year, money that could go on other things is no longer available. If you can't dry out for free to check and service through hulls etc, that's another chunk of change you no longer have. I can dry out for free at my Yacht Club, among other benefits, and the annual fee is under $25, plus I can have the use of a cheap mooring when I need it. The next YC down the estuary is a lot more expensive a year, but members get free moorings.

I went for the one in the Countryside rather than the town harbour, but only because I know what I prefer (great pub as the clubhouse too, so no contest).

I make no bones about it, I am buying a really cheap but solid 'old school' boat. I'm not in any rush to go anywhere except to heat and salt air, so I won't be spending $6,000+ on a racing sail. Hopefully it won't need too much too soon after I get it, but CopperCoat is on the agenda to save on haulouts. I'll have to get some snorkeling gear too, because within a few months I'll be able to do my own wipe downs in the water. Standing rigging will likely need doing. Severe Storm spec ground tackle with an all chain rode and windlass, I reckon may pay for itself within 6 months. I'm getting a water purifier too, so I can tank up for free wherever there's running fresh water. It'll just take time to ferry the water to the boat, but time for that, I have.

You can make anything you want to, as expensive as you like until the money runs out. But if you work at it, the amount of expense you can cut, or even avoid altogether, is staggering (as giant supermarket chains all around the World are now finding to their cost, after they tried hiking their prices up once too often).

It's like stocking up with turkeys when they are at massively reduced prices for Christmas. Do you buy one, or fill the freezer? When there's buy one get three free, do you get 4, or do you get 40? When spirits are on offer in the run up to Christmas, I stock dad up with enough to see him through until the discount prices start up again the following September. We'd rather pay £15 a litre (which is more than bad enough, for stuff that only costs about £0.50p to make in a small domestic still) than £24.99.

By the way, property shouldn't be an appreciating 'asset'. Just like a boat, it is a constantly deteriorating liability. Just because meaningless numbers go up, doesn't mean the value of those numbers is improving. All it really reflects, is the extent of the currency counterfeiting that is taking place in a Society.

[FollowingCs]

Originally Posted by hoppy

I bought my house 25 years ago. It's never been renovated and is pretty tired but now it's worth about 6 times what I paid for it. In about the same time, my fathers former yacht is perhaps worth half what it was when he sold it back then.

This is all relative. Going to depend on house, house location, house size, boat location, boat size. - and the market at purchase and sale. Too many variables.

I'm in Ohio, bought the house in 2001, and trying to sell now 15 years later. We will be lucky to get Origin Cost + Improvements out of it. So not everywhere does real estate appreciate at a decent rate. Yes, our neighbors down the street made like $200k on their 5 year Air Force stay in California, but that was just perfect timing also.

But yes, in general, real estate does appreciate, and boats depreciate.

~ Following Cs ~

[jcdexter]

Everyone we ever knew who bought a condo in an association that had really low monthly fees ended up paying thousands later for maintenance not covered by the fees. One assessment on a two bedroom condo was $32,000. The association game is to suck you in with low fees when they developed the property, get out of town, and leave the owners holding the bag when the roof or siding needed to be replaced. If the deal is too good to be true it probably is. If you own your own boat you're in charge.

[TitoSoto]

Originally Posted by windwalkr

Interesting Topic, I would say owning a house costs more then a 29 foot sailboat. The Maintenance on the house is around 5-7k a year, Taxes are around 3k, insurance is around $600, Fees and Bonds for the property are another 3k. Utilities like power, water, etc average around 5k a year.. So owning a house for me is around 17.5k a year. The Boat on the other-hand is $130 for dock fees, $30 for power, and $90 for insurance. I scuba so cleaning the bottom is done on site, and maintenance is around $1-2k a year. So owning the boat is around $4-5k a year. BTW, I know several people who live aboard without dock, they move every 30 days.. Their costs are just maintenance and fuel when necessary.

See, thats a great comparison! Thanks!

I have never owned a house long enough to know, but to me it seems like the high cost of maintaining one offsets any "appreciation" that a property might have... ?

Everyone talks about how boats depreciate (and they do), and houses appreciate (and... sometimes they do). But I can't help to think that when you actually add the living cost difference maybe things aren't so peachy for homeowners...

[markpierce]

Thoughts like this are why there are many derelict boats anchored about (who would rather not pay to pump out their holding tanks.)

[cards26]

You need to get a free boat first. This really cuts down on your expense.

Free 31' sloop sailboat (St.Aug FL) - Free-Boat.com

[TitoSoto]

Originally Posted by cards26

You need to get a free boat first. This really cuts down on your expense.

Free 31' sloop sailboat (St.Aug FL) - Free-Boat.com

Hahaha holy cow this is amazing

[rwidman]

If you're looking for cheap living consider living under a bridge and get rid of the boat. You can't make a logical comparison between a house and a boat.

[Sailor Jer]

Originally Posted by rwidman

If you're looking for cheap living consider living under a bridge and get rid of the boat. You can't make a logical comparison between a house and a boat.

Amen!!!

Silly comparison IMO, better comparison would be living outta an RV crowd/homeless people living in their vehicles to liveaboard boaters in yachts/boat people ....(all whom are considered essentially homelessness they own no property and have no official legal residence)

I utilize military base campgrounds/marinas which IMO has a better crowd/class of people but then I'm military...there is no derelict vehicles/vessels as it won't be tolerated as military people/bases live by the logic of responsibility as well as people's honorable conduct...no boat people mentality or shady homeless personalities ..a level of class/discipline is expected/enforced and this keeps moral/standards high. Something civilians don't understand much less appreciate IMO...many don't know better...

In my experiences with civilian operations of campgrounds/marinas...and people parking their RV/living outta their car/vehicle not staying in campgrounds on the streets is pretty similar to non marina crowd/cheaper mooring fielders/boat people/anchorage people whom don't boat but use a boat as a abode though the people ashore living outta their car/vehicle not in trailer parks/campgrounds can't really squat freely/for free anywhere but "the slabs" (former marine base given to some county in California where local sheriff doesn't enforce law)

I've seen RV crowd people with million dollar RVs pulling $100K offshore fishing boats parked in campgrounds next to run down window vans that can't pass a safety inspection as an abode for families living in squaller, those people like shore version of boat people squatting not boating asking where the local bleeding heart orgs who give out freebies/money...again much like boat people who exploit bleeding heart orgs squatting in squaller anchoring just outside mooring fields where cheapo rich people paid $340 a month for mooring ball for their Hinckley/Kadey-Krogen/Island Packet worth a million complaining about the eye sore boat people with their downed masts, junk piled on dirty decks etc.

To compare living/maintenance costs of living on a yacht to living in a condo/house is laughable...like comparing day to night or carnivores to herbivores IMO...again more reasonable/rational/realistic comparison is cost of living/maintenance of living outta a car/RV to liveaboard boat/yacht