Dockominiums

Hole in the Water
Is Owning a Dockominium Right for You?

A few years ago, if you admitted you’d paid the same amount for a marina slip as you did for your boat, your fellow boat owners would think you were crazy. That was before the recent dockominium trend. Although a 40-foot slip at Baltimore’s Inner Harbor is a relative bargain at $45,000, it’s common to find six-figure slips for sale in coastal regions throughout the Southeast and the rates tend to rise the farther south you go. A 46-foot slip at Coquina Harbor in Myrtle Beach is listed for $147,900 for example. In Key West, where marina rates are among the highest in Florida, a wet-slip dockominium in a new yacht harbor with luxury services and amenities can cost as much as $10,000 per linear foot–meaning a berth for a 35-foot boat can set you back $350,000.

How did the marina industry, which not so long ago was populated by venerable family-owned facilities leasing dock space for a few dollars per foot per month, turn into such a high-ticket enterprise? Basically, “mom and pop” got priced out of the market by the rising cost of doing business or grabbed the opportunity to cash in on their property and retire. In the past decade, marina insurance rates in the Southeast have skyrocketed in the wake of hurricanes and property taxes have soared along with waterfront real estate values. “You could not afford to operate a traditional marina here with the property taxes going the way they were,” said Ed Spaeth, president of Turtle Cove Marina in Tarpon Springs, Florida.

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