House Boats and Overnight Yacht Rentals

[Joseph Gambino]

There is a man in my area who has a collection of yachts and smaller vessels parked in various marinas (most don’t run, have mechanical issues or no motor at all, just a hull), most well known location he has some parked at would be the Floribama Yacht Club. I think he has 7 boats there (slip fees, insurance, yada yada..) and he has been selling them off one by one over the past couple of years to get out of the business. Most bring in well over $70k a year depending on weather and he is selling some for as low as $60k. I conversed with him once and he says he has other marinas bidding for him to bring his business to their location. He rents them nightly as vacation rentals via AirBnB, Craigslist, and has a personal website. What I’m getting to is, if you had the opportunity to buy a yacht for a vacation rental, would you? How much of a hassle is it to constantly clean, book, repair vacation rentals? And can you outsource an AirBnB rental to a property management company? Keep in mind most of the vessels do not run, so if there was a falling out with the marina you had it in you would need to have it hauled elsewhere($$$) or repair the engines and get it in running condition($$$$$).