Houseboat adventure
Tuesday, January 16, 2018
So since my lease was about to be up for my current apartment, I took a few road trips across Florida looking at potential boats to buy - ones that would be great to live on around Fort Myers, Fl and be close enough to drive to work. All of them I looked at were "fixer uppers," from 47' completely gutted sailboats, to 39' house boats in need of some TLC. Sometimes I wanted something I could later do charters on in a few years if I ever wanted to go back, and sometimes I wanted something I could never do charters on and just keep as something for fun.
It wasn't long after I started my search that I fell in love with the idea of a house boat and even went as far as putting one design into sketchup to see if could all my favorite furniture and bicycles aboard... and it did fit,.... even had a 4' high x 14' wide x 39' long bilge that would take me years to fill up with stuff.... so I did the only logical thing to do... put in a lowball offer on one about 2 hours away ....it was perfect...I could fix it up in 3 weeks,.... and it'd save me money on rent while giving me my much missed sunrise views in the morning....
After my offer was submitted, I did the waiting game. The owners had 4 days to either accept my offer, decline, or come back with a counter offer. During this time I searched for open slips in marinas, lined up insurance, loans, etc you name it.... until I realized there is a huge reason why not many people have houseboats around here, it is extremely difficult to find a marina that will accept them. When my offer was counter offered for just $2,000 more that I offered, I politely walked away. It was so hard, this was going to be perfect - except I didn't want to be limited to only 3 marinas in a 60 mile radius of work. Since then, I have renewed my lease and will continue looking, but most likely for a sailboat and a year or two down the line, not settling for anything less than what I want. The search was fun and met a ton of interesting people - some amazing brokers, and some not so much. Cooper even came to check out a few with me. His favorites tended to be the Gulfstars.
Scroll down to see pictures of the vessels we looked at: the first is of a sailboat that needed to much work, and the 2nd is of the houseboat that we loved!
It wasn't long after I started my search that I fell in love with the idea of a house boat and even went as far as putting one design into sketchup to see if could all my favorite furniture and bicycles aboard... and it did fit,.... even had a 4' high x 14' wide x 39' long bilge that would take me years to fill up with stuff.... so I did the only logical thing to do... put in a lowball offer on one about 2 hours away ....it was perfect...I could fix it up in 3 weeks,.... and it'd save me money on rent while giving me my much missed sunrise views in the morning....
After my offer was submitted, I did the waiting game. The owners had 4 days to either accept my offer, decline, or come back with a counter offer. During this time I searched for open slips in marinas, lined up insurance, loans, etc you name it.... until I realized there is a huge reason why not many people have houseboats around here, it is extremely difficult to find a marina that will accept them. When my offer was counter offered for just $2,000 more that I offered, I politely walked away. It was so hard, this was going to be perfect - except I didn't want to be limited to only 3 marinas in a 60 mile radius of work. Since then, I have renewed my lease and will continue looking, but most likely for a sailboat and a year or two down the line, not settling for anything less than what I want. The search was fun and met a ton of interesting people - some amazing brokers, and some not so much. Cooper even came to check out a few with me. His favorites tended to be the Gulfstars.
Scroll down to see pictures of the vessels we looked at: the first is of a sailboat that needed to much work, and the 2nd is of the houseboat that we loved!
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