Waterfront (2nd) home or a boat you can spend weekends on?

M

mrsrobinson

Well-Known Member
Mar 9, 2006
7,704
Virginia
Boat Info
2001 380DA
Engines
Caterpillar 3126
All else equal, if you could only have one, would you own a boat you can cruise in and spend weekends on, or a waterfront 2nd house?
 
I'll take a crack at it! I definitely would get bored at a house once the novelty wears off! My boat on the other hand.... I cruise to lots of exciting places, I have great boat neighbors to share the hobby with, terrific bonding time with wife and kids, it challenges my mind when I'm planning, fixing and doing. Not to mention my excitement clearly bleeds into midweek with Club Sea Ray!
 
My first boat 17' w/115 Johnson, which I would drag over to Eastern Washington (desert side), put in on the Columbia river by Vantage, there was a little development called Sundland. I had a couple of friends with properties there and thought that's what I wanted... Made a couple of offers and thank God, I was turned down. It's a 2 hour+ drive and on holidays you can double that. I looked around for bigger boats and bought my 300 Weekender. I moored it 5 minutes from my house and my vacation takes 5 minutes to get started. The 300 didn't last long as we discovered we loved being out on the water and the 400 I was looking into grew into the 450 that we bought 14.5 years ago...
 
We went with upgrading our existing home, and buying a larger boat. Although it’s too big to keep on our mooring at the house, we are only 20 minutes away from the marina. I wouldn’t classify it as a cottage, although we spend just about every weekend on it, and an average of two nights during the week.
 
Just painted the house and changed a few windows this year. So far this year the house budget is beating the boat budget. I also know first hand that living on the coast here in the east, that salt air and high winds would probably add to maintaining that house. Cheaper to buy the boat! LOL.
 
Boat.... Last thing I want is another house to take care of..(but I have no problem taking care of the boat)....plus being stuck in the same place. That is why we havn't bought something in Florida... I rent down there and choose different homes and places.
 
Now with most my years already used up I'll take a nice cabin in the middle of a couple hundred acres of wilderness, don't need any water at all except to drink. It'd be seventh heaven if the only BS I had to hear was a squirrel chattering because I was about to cut his tree for firewood. :)
 
mrsrobinson said:
All else equal, if you could only have one, would you own a boat you can cruise in and spend weekends on, or a waterfront 2nd house?
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Depends if I want to stay married or not!
I am lucky to have both (although my boat is not in the class where it would be a trade off against our 2nd house/cottage).

I think a key aspect of that "Sophie's Choice" though is whether the boat can be used all year round where you live. We use our cottage any time we want, all year round. The boat (at least in Canada) is a 5 month thing in a good year.

Also, real estate appreciates with basic maintenance, boats not so much.
 
If I have to choose, my vote is the boat. That way my boat is a destination as opposed to just something docked in my back yard. That said, if I DID own waterfront property, I'd likely have both.
 
Agreed to waterfront property with a small boat to run around in.

Regarding maintenance cost, I'm not sure a boat is less or more expensive than a house. I'd have to see the numbers, which will be difficult unless you do both and compare.
 
We lived in a waterfront home for 44 years and we bought it before owning a cruising boat. We had owned various boats before but just happened to not own one when we bought the house. The ideal waterfront home is not a vacation home. It is a home located nearby where you work. These homes are a little tricky to buy for folks who are new to lakefront living. You need to be on the right part of the lake. You need to be in an area where bugs blow away from your frontage and patios. You need reliably deep water. You need permits to build a slip for the biggest boat you ever want to own. You need to know about seawalls and docks, and electrical power around water. The list goes on. These homes are expensive to own so you need enough income to weather a few storms. Based on our experience, I would buy the home and then think about a boat later. There will always be lots of boats for sale. There are relatively few nice waterfront homes for sale where you can live in them year round and enjoy a reasonable commute to work.
We did end up buying a boat that we lived on in northern Michigan after the condo we put an offer on was sold before we could make a counter offer. That actually turned out to be a good thing for us as the boat became a vacation home for us that allowed us to move around to various favorite places on the Great Lakes. Association fees and taxes on condosin Northern Michigan are more than boat ownership costs, even for a nice boat, so whatever floats your boat.
 
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I've had both. A second home on the water is a LOT of work and expense. I would rather have the house on the water, but has my primary and only home and a boat out back. Our lake house was 1.5hrs away, we used it a good amount year around, but when our daughter went to college the usage dropped off -- I can't count the number of Saturday's I drove to the lake for the day only to fix something or cut the grass and come home.
 
mrsrobinson said:
Agreed to waterfront property with a small boat to run around in.

Regarding maintenance cost, I'm not sure a boat is less or more expensive than a house. I'd have to see the numbers, which will be difficult unless you do both and compare.
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Love this question, since I’m “semi” retired I only work M-W-F so Tuesday and Thursday are my boat work days. I never have to convince the Queen to go out on the weekends. With the full canvas/GenSet=Cool and Heat/and NC weather it’s fantastic. My house/pool/hot tub/10 minutes from our marina gets a bit neglected especially since all the kids are grown and either working life or finishing college but it’s nice to come home. We love our long 3-4 day overnights on the boat better than the house when it’s just us. Very cozy and we have everything we need. Our friends moved to waterfront and have a pontoon boat with their own pier. So very convenient but they love the GirlyGirl showing up with A/C and Heat plus full head for a cruise and food at a local watering hole. So to try and answer the question, right now the boat has eaten more money than the house only because the PO didn’t do his job. I think next year it will be flipped. But you can’t beat this!!!

3466FB12-6105-409E-9A66-C711DC504C33.jpeg
 
GirlyGirl1999 said:
Love this question, since I’m “semi” retired I only work M-W-F so Tuesday and Thursday are my boat work days. I never have to convince the Queen to go out on the weekends. With the full canvas/GenSet=Cool and Heat/and NC weather it’s fantastic. My house/pool/hot tub/10 minutes from our marina gets a bit neglected especially since all the kids are grown and either working life or finishing college but it’s nice to come home. We love our long 3-4 day overnights on the boat better than the house when it’s just us. Very cozy and we have everything we need. Our friends moved to waterfront and have a pontoon boat with their own pier. So very convenient but they love the GirlyGirl showing up with A/C and Heat plus full head for a cruise and food at a local watering hole. So to try and answer the question, right now the boat has eaten more money than the house only because the PO didn’t do his job. I think next year it will be flipped. But you can’t beat this!!!

View attachment 114539
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T-W-T…. How did you miss that memo ? :)
 
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