Passive Income - yachts?

[Allison Karrels]

Small back ground: My husband and I own 8 SFH that we use for monthly passive income streams. My husband is in the Air Force and plans to retire in 8 more years. Between his pensions and our rental income we will have great monthly income flow. We both love water and boats and plan on sailing once retired and eventually sailing around the world.

Plan:  We originally thought we would get to 10 houses and then pay them off so our cash flow is increased in retirement.  But now we are seriously considering buying a yacht from "The Moorings", allowing them to use it as a charter boat for 5 years and then taking ownership of that boat and using it as our main sailing boat/house.    During those 5 years they are using the boat they take care of every expense and pay you a guaranteed monthly income above what the boat mortgage payment is.  In most cases a few hundred dollars more than the mortgage.   You also get to use your boat 12 weeks out of the year (mix of high and low season weeks) with only a small turnover fee.

Question - Are we crazy?   Does anyone here have experience with owning a Moorings boat or doing a charter vacation with them?   We plan on doing a charter with them next year and if we did buy a boat with them it would be 2-3 years down the road so it lines up with my husband's retirement.   We just thought it was kinda cool we could own a boat, get it paid down over the first 5 years, get to vacation on the boat, etc before taking ownership back.  It would be a 15 year mortgage and if we applied the extra money each month to the payment we would have about 7 years remaining on the mortgage when we took it over. 

Thanks for any input.

[Rosston Smith]

That sounds really snazzy! I've never heard of that before. How much will it cost out of pocket? What are the numbers? 

[Allison Karrels]

Its similar to buying a house.  You put 20-25% down and its a 15 year mortgage.  The boats range greatly in size and features but new yachts range from $400,000 to over a million.   We are looking at a 40foot Leopard catamaran which is about $450,000 after all the features are added to the base price of $380,000.  

So its not super cheap but we would vacation on it during the 5 years and then once its ours and we are retired we would live on it so it will be our house.

[Rosston Smith]

I think that's a fantastic idea! I love it! It would also be great to vacation on as well. Do you have any pictures of the yacht for me to see?

[Scott Scharl]

A cash-flowing yacht, eh? Cool!