Houseboat
Since my return Stateside, I've been spending a lot of time contemplating my present lot in life. Frankly, I've got a real job, it's probably time to stop renting. This thought turned me to an informal review of the condominium classifieds here in the national capital area - and gave me a rather severe case of sticker shock. One bedroom condos in this town are absurdly expensive: think $300,000 for a halfway decent area. (Check out what Warren Buffett and Charles Munger of Berskire Hathaway, Inc. have to say about the "real asset-price bubble in places like parts of California and the suburbs of Washington, D.C.")
Unfortunately, I made a rather silly decision some years back to go to a private law school (a tirade on why GW will never get a penny from me will be saved for another day), which has left me saddled with a riduculous monthly payment to my creditors. With condo fees hovering around $300 per month as well, perhaps it isn't the proper time for me to become a homeowner.
Then my friend Horace and I were on the telephone recently, virtually thumbing through the housing listings at craigslist.com (along with eBay, the most useful and intelligent use of the world wide web) and saw this.
I can afford a houseboat.
I'm spending the next week doing my h0mework on all of this, and trying to decide just how cold it would be in the winter. But how cool would it be to live on a boat?
Unfortunately, I made a rather silly decision some years back to go to a private law school (a tirade on why GW will never get a penny from me will be saved for another day), which has left me saddled with a riduculous monthly payment to my creditors. With condo fees hovering around $300 per month as well, perhaps it isn't the proper time for me to become a homeowner.
Then my friend Horace and I were on the telephone recently, virtually thumbing through the housing listings at craigslist.com (along with eBay, the most useful and intelligent use of the world wide web) and saw this.
I can afford a houseboat.
I'm spending the next week doing my h0mework on all of this, and trying to decide just how cold it would be in the winter. But how cool would it be to live on a boat?
posted by Jason at 10:11
15 Comments:
I'm totally doing that after I get my PHD. The prices don't fluctuate much based on where you are, and you'll be the most popular guy in creation during the Summer. There is one small problem about where I am now: hurricanes. I'd have to sail 300-400 miles up the coast every Summer and dock somewhere else, and that's probably a hassle, and assumes I wouldn't have to teach Summers.
32 feet is kind of small for living, but manageable. I would continue to research external costs, and check out how hard it is to keep a generator running and the place warm in Winter. But it sounds like a very interesting idea, and one-tenth the cost of a condo which might not be that much bigger. And you can't take your condo anywhere.
Now this would get you some mad play my brother.
Houseboats are definitely cool. The 60 footer is a great idea, but I'd be interested to know what the final bid is.
I predict that housing prices will fall, if for no other reasons than an increased supply. As the baby boomers age and go into retirement communities, or just die off, more and more homes will become available. We are not reproducing sufficiently to replace them, thus... more homes for everyone!
Nice to meet you Jason...
Keep up the good work!
The marina is fully wired for electricity, phone, cable, etc., so the truth is I'd probably never have to use the boat engine unless I was moving it (a dock full of idling motor boat engines wouldn't be a very pleasant place to spend the winter.) I just got an email from a friend of mine who knows someone who lives on a boat here, along with an offer to get me in touch with him - blogging is brilliant.
Nicghtcrawler, thanks for stopping by!
The more I look into this, the cooler an idea it seems. Once you get over 40 feet, your looking at interior spaces as big as a lot of one-bedroom apartments anyway, you have a patio, and your back yard is a freakin' harbor. Bachelor life could not possibly get any sweeter. Hell, married life, for that matter.
Important questions, both legally and actually: does one have to pay annual property taxes on these things, and about what is a typical monthly docking fee?
At the Marina I'm looking at, slip fees are about $500-600/month. As for property taxes, my inclination is "no" - typically those are taxes on "real property", and legally, a boat is not real estate. However, I'm pulling that out of my arse, and that's one of those things I need to find out.
Hey! Houseboat would be cool...although you could have a four bedroom house here in the Cleve for less than $90,000. Ha!
Reading white writing on a black background makes my eyes hurt.
My friend Stewart started living on his boat last fall with his Jack Russell Terrier, and this summer he's taking a leave of absence and driving the boat to NC / OBX to live. Nice and portable. Although, he did have to grow a beard for the wintertime to keep warm. His parents also live on a boat. I doubt your parents ever will though.
Also, remember that boats are considered personal property in Virginia and taxed for their value. I think it would be wise to buy it/ register it in Maryland or the District if you want to avoid that.
While I realize Buffet is a world renowned business man he is not exactly and expert in residential real estate. 1) He lives in Omaha where land is pretty cheap and people are moving away from and not to Omaha. Land is a commodity = less of it the more it costs. 2) Where are there large tracts of land to build large subdivisions inside the Beltway? There are very few on the NOVA side and most are in PG county, which is catching up to the rest of the city. 3) I don't agree there is a bubble but pricing will rise slowly or remain constant but will likely not drop. Of course, this is all my thinking and I could be wrong.
I'm sure Bershire Hathaway has plenty of property that is affected by the residential real estate market: I mean, c'mon, Warren's had his hands in just about every type of business over the years, I somehow doubt that he's ignorant of residential real estate, which is a whole lot simpler than many other economies. In any case, "the land sold for something like $60 million an acre" - I know he's talking about Northern California, but that reasoning applies here as well (obviously he owns homes in places other than Omaha, as the quotation suggests.)
Any marina I would be at would be in the District, so I don't know how the taxes would work out, or the tax ramifications (i.e., is personal property tax - rather than real estate tax - tax-deductible if you reside in the personal property?) But I am a tax lawyer, I can find out.
Oh no! If you live in the District you'll lose your representation. A tax attorney being taxed without representation? Oh the irony.
My contact has actually turned up success - my friend's friend's father does live on a boat in the floating neighborhood I'm looking at, and hopefully will be able to stop by there sometime this week.
Residents of DC have representation in the national government, they just don't have voting legislative representation. Actually, there is a bill being floated by some Republicans (and Dems) to expand the House to 437 members - only until the next redistricting - giving Utah another (presumably Republican) seat (they lost out on an additional seat by something like 6,000 residents last redistricting) as well as letting DC's (almost certainly Democratic) delegate vote.
On the other hand, like the average citizen in the People's Republic of China, if my lifestyle is getting better, I'm not all that concerned about something as arcane as "democracy."
Five o'clcok meeting today with my contact that lives on his boat: hopefully this will lead to some progress!
Yes, Buffet must have some real estate properties within his portfolio but that does not make him an expert to opine on the legitmacy of pricing in areas like DC or N. Cal. Like I said I doubt he has to battle traffic everyday to get to and from work rather he sits in his limo in Omaha.
I think pricing has gone up but the argument of a bubble is probably over stated given the lack of space within the beltway. When people are deciding to live in W. Va and commute to downtown certainly gives the impression that land is scarce.
Methinks Anonymous is a DC-area homeowner whose a litte concerned about his outrageous mortage...in any case, I'm confident that certain places in the DC area are overpriced, and I'm sure there are some that will just level off at current rates. I hope you are in the latter class, Anonymous (note: you don't need to get a blogger profile to leave an alias). But I still don't see the relevance of Warren Buffet's chosen place of residence - he, himself, sold a home for around $6 million an acre in NoCal - clearly he's got some first-hand knowledge on this issue. In any case, if your realtor rents in Baltimore, does that prove that she's ignorant of the housing market in DC? His residence is simply a red herring with respect to his ability to judge the market (of course, he might just be wrong, and that's certainly a possibility).
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