Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

Check out www.marinasforsale.com/ and you can get a feel for waht's available, revenue, and what people think they are worth.

It's a thankless job and customer can be merciless. Having said that marina owners in general all seem to go to the same school and have an interesting customer attitude.

Good Luck

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

cool website :cool:

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

Just a word to the wise-the bathrooms are one of the most important things to keep up on. The women will grouse about the place all day long if the bathroom isn't nice. My marina just redid them this season and my wife has had zero complaints about the rest of the place since then. If you can find one with a restaurant/bar then rent the unit to someone in the business. It is very difficult being in 2 completely different lines of work and doing both well. Either be a marina operator or a restauranteur, not both.

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

We are on Lake Michigan (short season here also). We store our boat on our trailer, locked in a building with about 10 other boats. The building has water and electric, gravel floor and some lighting. It's just a pole barn. Our seasonal fee also includes ramp fee. We pay about 1/3 the price of a slip. In the winter the marine has the building full of winter storage boats. He has 2 seasons of income.
Several of us in the "barn" have bought some cheap indoor/outdoor carpet that we park the boat on so that it makes washdown a lot cleaner, no mud. It works out very well. the is a gas station less than a 1/4 mile away, so we don't have to pay marina prices for fuel.

Good luck.

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

TRUE TRUE TRUE!

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

We just had a discussion on this issue over on a local board; the consensus was that if you're going to do it, do it in the south. The northern season is too short to really make money unless you put down a healthy chunk of the prinicipal.

Still something I'd like to do someday...

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

Be careful what you wish for. The first 5 years of ownership involved NO boating for me other than test runs of new boats and service issues. Additionally, with what is happening to the price of waterfront real estate it is very hard to justify spending X-millions on a property that will only cash flow a fraction of it's highest and best use.

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

Thanks for the input. I see alot of you feel the same way we do in terms of ameneties, do's/dont's, etc. We still have alot of research to do on this as will not be jumping in blindly. I just feel we could offer a better product than we see...at least here in CNY. Keep them coming, if you would. I value everyone's opinion on the board..well almost everyone!!

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

Friend of mine bought one here in NJ, little money down. Slips pay 100% of the note on the marina, service is 100% profit. He is doing really well, the marina is rather small. His wife runs the office/store he does all the service. Has 1 mechanic part time. He is also a Merc dealer, that helps a lot when it comes to the service end of the biz.

Re: Buying A Marina - Opinions Appreciated
 

Being your own boss constitutes the following.

1. You get up earlier
2. You go to bed later
3. You end up with half of the money
4. You get all of the headache
5. You also get all of the perks

After that if you are still justifiably insane. I believe the perfect marina is not just a marina it's a full service weekend or vacation getaway. You need slips that are dedicated to monthly rentals on a yearly basis as well as some on a month to month basis. I believe you need a good restaraunt and bar to attract the weekend boaters and have plenty of transient docking to accomodate them. I also think that you should have full dock service with dock boys to attend to everyones whims. You should also have a ships store that you can buy stuff at most importantly a large supply of ice. You should also offer the things that you always forget at home when going boating. I know of lots of things that I think a proper marina should be. PM me a number and I would be happy to chat with you about it.

First and foremost remember that for the most part you should keep the loud boats to an area that for the most part wont disturb the liveaboard or weekend party people because it is a fact that it does irritate some people and you will be faced with that problem at some point.

Sean