# Buying a slip



## markmonteverdi (Jan 31, 2015)

Ok so in another year or two i want to live on my boat...i have been looking into buying my own slip...i saw a few I liked got in touch with the company...all sounds pretty good...would like to hear every ones thoughts ....
Thank you. Mark


----------



## aa3jy (Jul 23, 2006)

Thought of the same thing years ago..glad I didn’t ..bad neighbors moved in adjoining slips. Better to rent than to own unless it’s a definit investment with profit motivation..


----------



## chef2sail (Nov 27, 2007)

Totally agree with Clay

What about upkeep and repair of yours and neighbors

What about moving . Changing jobs . I can’t beleive they have easy resale. 

Suppose there needs to be dredging


----------



## RegisteredUser (Aug 16, 2010)

Like real estate there are many factors to consider.
They arent all the same animal.
I wouldnt give a blanket no...for all situations and properties.


----------



## Minnewaska (Feb 21, 2010)

Location, location, location. For starters, it needs to be liquid and in high demand, unless you have money to burn. 

It's an interesting consideration for a liveaboard, because it seems rental marinas are denying liveaboards more and more these days. However, dockominiums will also have a homeowners association of sorts, which can also pass new rules. Be sure the right to liveaboard is in the by-laws or a local attorney can attest it is a usage right that a majority of owners can't invade. 

BTW, the real problem with liveaboards are the bad apples that dump sewage in the marina, junk up the decks of their boat with storage or let their ship's condition decline into a shanty. Doesn't have to, nor should it, be that way, but you can end up sucked up into the rage toward others. 

Our rental marina has at least a dozen boat who live aboard for most of the season, including us. You would never be able to identify which they are.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

The internet is one of mankind's worst inventions when it comes to legal advice.

If you need legal advice on slip ownership, this is the worst place in the world to get it.


----------



## Attikos (May 26, 2018)

The motivation for a marina owner to sell slips is, usually, to get out before having to shoulder the staggering cost of rebuilding an aging one. Disclosure of the condition of pilings, docks, seawalls, etc. is rarely what you'd wish. Be observant. Be careful. The last thing you want is to be hit with an unanticipated twenty thousand dollar assessment by the owners' association.


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

Will the owner do a lease-purchase agreement? (link)

That's what we did when we were looking at purchasing a slip. It gives the seller steady income from the slip while you have a chance to check out what's really going on in the marina. We were happy the first two years, then the mix of people in the marina changed drastically and we moved on. I was glad we hadn't purchased and we could.

Find out if it's a quiet marina, a party marina or somewhere in between.

Floating docks or fixed? Floating is MUCH nicer if you're living aboard.

How many slips have sold recently? Are they listed in the local MLS where you can look up prices?

Walk the docks and talk with both weekenders and live-aboards. What to they like or not like about the marina and how it's run?

Condo marinas usually have a condo board (with all the caveats that implies both good and bad).

Do the condo board members handle the day to day running of the marina and regular repairs or is there a full time dockmaster?

Is preventive maintenance getting done?

Questions for the marina-condo board:
- Get a copy of the condo docs and any special rules for live-aboards.
- What are the association fees and are they expected to go up?
- What are the property taxes for the slip?
- How many assessments have there been in the past five years?
- What assessments are planned during the next three years?
- What capital projects are planned for the next few years? (dredging, dock repairs, electrical upgrades)
- Is there dockside water, electric, WiFi and cable? (Yes WiFi & cable, you'll be living aboard)
- What are the rules on pets?
- If it's a condo marina are the slips plumbed for pumpouts. Ours had a connection every other slip and you signed out a cart with the hose from the office. That's a LOT easier than motoring to the local fuel dock for pump outs.
- Is electric a flat fee for live aboards or are slips individually metered?
- What is the mix of sailboats to power boats? Dredging isn't as important to power boats - a problem we ran into in a mostly power boat marina.
- What does their hurricane insurance cover? A big storm can tear up a marina, and a $10,000 per slip assessment can blow up your budget if you're trying to live cheap.

The condo board shouldn't get upset at these questions. Our board gets them every time someone looks at a condo.


----------



## flyingriki (Sep 27, 2012)

Don't forget it is a specialty piece to try and sell some day. Keep your exit plan alive!


----------



## contrarian (Sep 14, 2011)

I checked on one in my local area couple of years ago. Last time I checked it was still for sale. I thought it was over priced for what it was but that seems to be the tendency these days. It was in a private marina in a gated community and the marina was under the by laws of the community HOA. No live aboards, restrictions on the hours that you could come and go, no overnights, yada yada yada and you had to pay dues to the HOA. Only thing it had going for it was that it was in a very protected location. 
Condo with a dedicated slip is another way to go but you have to cross all your t's and dot all your I's to make sure you can use it the way that you want. Say for example you wanted to rent out the condo and live on the boat.. As others have mentioned, finding one where live aboard is allowed can be challenging. The dedicated dockominiums seem to be the way to go in Florida but they are really starting to get pricey.
Naturally that is all subject to change depending on what happens in Hurricane Season! Keep an eye on Florence, you may be able to pick one up pretty cheap.


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

flyingriki said:


> Don't forget it is a specialty piece to try and sell some day. Keep your exit plan alive!


Riki,
In our area the slip market was driven in part by the local condo market -- but slip prices tanked when condo prices dropped.

Our slip was on Long Beach Island on Barnegat Bay. Condos at our marina were going for $800K to a Million. That made $50K for a slip pretty attractive to a lot of people who used their boats as floating condos and they were selling pretty briskly for a while and slowly going up in price; These boats never left the slip except to haul out for the winter.

The problem for us was exactly the fact that few people ever left their slip. New owners brought in boats that extended further and further into already narrow fairways and a friendly marina turned into one with a "New York attitude". These people didn't boat and didn't care about marina maintenance and dredging. Things started breaking down. Condo board politics became a nightmare. We left for a friendlier neighborhood.

By 2010 the bottom had fallen out, foreclosed condos at the marina were selling for $300K and some of those New York "investors" were trying to give slips away. We briefly considered going back but it didn't seem to make sense for us.

Then Sandy hit.

I'd be VERY leery of ever going into another condo slip situation unless it was well established as a BOATING community.

Today I have a dock behind the house. I wouldn't trade it for anything ! 

Jim


----------



## hellosailor (Apr 11, 2006)

Buying a slip?
Does that mean buying into a dock-o-minium association? Where your hands will be tied by a hundred other co-members all the time? And there may be a fixed limit on how long the ground under the slip is leased to the association?

Or, is it really buying a slip? Getting the title and actually owning the land under the slip as well, for all time and without complications?

Little things make a difference. In how the value will change over time, and in how well the neighborhood is kept up--or neglected.


----------



## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

hellosailor said:


> Buying a slip?
> Does that mean buying into a dock-o-minium association? Where your hands will be tied by a hundred other co-members all the time? And there may be a fixed limit on how long the ground under the slip is leased to the association?
> 
> Or, is it really buying a slip? Getting the title and actually owning the land under the slip as well, for all time and without complications?
> ...


My understanding is that the land under water that ebbs and flows is Federal land, held in trust by the individual states. So you would only be buying the structure in the water. That said, I recall that the state of Rhode Island started to charge the equivalent of rent for the water space occupied by docks, but I'm not sure where that now stands.

Be prepared for HOA fees for the slip and associated landslide infrastructure/services-and possibly "rent" for the water space.


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

The "land under the slip" is called riparian rights. 

They should be clearly spelled out in the codo docs when you request a copy from the board.


----------



## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

JimMcGee said:


> The "land under the slip" is called riparian rights.
> 
> They should be clearly spelled out in the codo docs when you request a copy from the board.


As contraire. Riparian rights related to the ability of the riparian land owner to access the water and have nothing to do with ownership of the land under a dock. The right to "wharf out"-the specifics of which may be regulated under state statutes-is part of a waterfront landowner's riparian rights.

Here in CT, the state requires that any fixed dock be high enough in the intertidal range to facilitate the public passing underneath. Nor can the dockowner restrict the boating public from using the water underneath a fixed dock. In other words, IMHO, the slip owner does not own the water or the land under the slip.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

Don't confuse him. He's playing "Lawyer".


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

fallard said:


> As contraire. Riparian rights related to the ability of the riparian land owner to access the water and have nothing to do with ownership of the land under a dock...


<SIGH>

Why make it more complicated than it needs to be for the poor guy?

You could write pages on the legal differences between "riparian rights" (flowing waters such as rivers), "Littoral rights" (ocean, beachfront, lakefront or bayfront) and "riparian zones" as defined for tidal and non-tidal intersection areas.

What matters is that his ownership rights will be clearly spelled out in the association docs. The wording may vary from state to state, but from a practical standpoint it really doesn't matter if he owns the mud under the boat or the water column defined by the bounds of the slip.

From a conversational standpoint every realtor I've worked with refers to "riparian rights" to keep things simple.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

And you think feeding him incorrect information furthers his understanding.

I see.


----------



## RegisteredUser (Aug 16, 2010)

Jammer Six said:


> And you think feeding him incorrect information furthers his understanding.
> 
> I see.


You're another one of the people on this forum who are unhappy in their life.
It shows in your posts.
This forum has been an outlet for you to release anger...for a long time.

Maybe change something in your world....
This probably isnt the only forum you use.

Make changes...so life is fun. You probably already know this.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

Another difference is that I don't pull anything out of my ass when I'm answering questions here.


----------



## fallard (Nov 30, 2009)

My comments in post #15 were intended to be helpful and based on more than a rudimentary understanding of riparian rights. Take them or leave them, as you wish.


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

fallard said:


> My comments in post #15 were intended to be helpful and based on more than a rudimentary understanding of riparian rights. Take them or leave them, as you wish.


Fallard, unfortunately Sailnet posts have no tone and you seem to have taken mine as dismissive, but it wasn't intended to be.

I've been involved quite a bit with realtors the past two years looking at waterfront land and they all refer to riparian rights for any waterfront property. I've yet to hear one make a distinction between flowing water and tidal water. Since that's what the original poster is likely to hear I didn't want to confuse the issue.

I still feel his best bet is to read the condo documents for his marina to understand his rights at that location.

Jim


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

Jammer Six said:


> Don't confuse him. He's playing "Lawyer".


Hmm, the original poster asked for information on buying and owning a slip at a dock-ominium.

I suggested some questions he might ask the association about assessments, maintenance and insurance based on my experience owning a dock-ominium slip. You know what he actually asked about.

The caveats vary by state which is why I suggested _he read the condo docs to see what his rights are_.

So to you, suggesting someone _actually read_ sounds like a lawyer? 



Jammer Six said:


> Another difference is that I don't pull anything out of my ass when I'm answering questions here.





Jammer Six said:


> And you think feeding him incorrect information furthers his understanding.
> 
> I see.


My feedback to the poster's question was based on owning a dock-ominium in New Jersey, being on a condo board in Florida for a property that includes boat slips and two years going through the process of buying land and now building a waterfront home and dock that required I get up to speed on waterfront rights.

I was trying to help the guy; as far as I can see the only thing you've contributed to this conversation is snarky comments. And how does that help anyone? 

But then looking back at some of your other posts that's about all you contribute on SailNet.


----------



## Jammer Six (Apr 2, 2015)

In other words, you gave legal advice based on everything _except_ the law.


----------



## JimMcGee (Jun 23, 2005)

Jammer Six said:


> In other words, you gave legal advice based on everything _except_ the law.


Ahh, I should have known better than to respond to a pathetic troll.

Now for the ignore button...ah that's better.


----------



## Donna_F (Nov 7, 2005)

Folks. I think the OP got the message. The rest of us are tired of the rest. Please stop. Ignore buttons are your friend as has been discovered.


----------

