Recently, my friend James was thinking about selling one of his two boat slips in Wilmington, NC. It is a 35 foot wet slip in a local marina with great access to the Intracoastal Waterway (ICWW) and the ocean. A highly desirable marina, in fact. He wanted to strike while the iron was hot.
How much should I list my boat slip for?
This, of course, is the $64,000 question. Prices for boat slips have varied widely over the last decade. The height of the boat slip frenzy was in 2005 and 2006. This coincided, not surprisingly, with the huge upswing in the real estate market. Lately, prices have come close to their former glory in some of the areas in town. That is why James started to think about selling.
James’ biggest question was, “what is the most value I can get from my boat slip?” So many factors come into play here. The biggest is probably location. Location is always the biggest factor in any type of real estate deal. It’s why House Hunters and other shows on HGTV all focus on location, location, location. Second is a simple bit of economics: What is the current supply vs. demand for a boat slip in this area? Luckily for him, the supply was fairly low and the demand is pretty high since the marina is in midtown and you can be through the ICWW inlet within 5-10 minutes.
Market research for the slip brought him to a value of $92,500. Location, demand, amenities, and a few other factors helped out his decision.
Once he figured out for how much to sell the boat slip, his follow up question went something along the lines of, “OK. Great. Now, how do I sell my boat slip?”
There are a few key factors in finding the best way to sell a boat slip:
- Limit or get rid of brokerage fees and commissions. Why give away more of your money?
- Get maximum value from your slip. You want to keep as much money as possible.
- Reach a targeted audience. You want actual, real buyers to find your listing. Get rid of the looky-loos and don’t waste time posting your ad listing on generic/free listing sites.
- Get better exposure for your boat slip. You want as many eyes to see your boat slip listing as humanly possible.
MoorForLess.com helps with all of the above points. We don’t charge any brokerage fees. There’s a 6-8% brokerage fee commission that you can keep. For James, that means he’ll keep an extra $5,550 – $7,400. That is a lot of money! This guarantees that you will get the maximum value when trying to sell your boat slip. MoorForLess.com is a marketplace for boaters. It is only used for boat slips. Not boats, not a house, not jet skis. Just boat slips. On top of that, our affiliate network gives great exposure to a listing in many different geographic markets and complementary businesses (e.g. fishing websites).
Can a buyer afford to buy a boat slip at this price?
Yet another great question. We’ll follow up in another post on this topic along with creative ways to finance a boat slip. Stay tuned and check out https://www.moorforless.com to sell your boat slip or rent your boat slip quickly and easily!