Robert Stephens and Paul Waring, of Stephens Waring Design in Belfast, Maine, do much more than design beautiful, fast and innovative boats. Now they’ve done a comparison of real estate and boat prices in Portland, Maine, to see if it costs more to live near the water or on the water. Their answer: In a side-by-side comparison of actual living space, floating residences (including houseboats, floating homes and live-aboard boats) come out ahead; it’s considerably cheaper to live on a boat. And they have maps and charts to prove their point.
Stephens and Waring looked at upscale neighborhoods near the water in Portland, where Trulia reports that the average asking price of a home is $450,000. They chose two new developments six or eight blocks up the hill from the downtown waterfront, where new condos are selling for $650,000 to $1 million. Then they looked at the architects’ designs to determine how the living space was being used in these units, as compared to the living space on a larger boat.
What surprised them, they say, is “how little the average dweller would give up in amenities and space by living on a well-designed floating home, houseboat or live-aboard vessel.” And, they said, living on the water in a floating residence would cost 30 percent less than living in one of these units on land. Read more: https://stephenswaring.com/boats-now-cheaper-homes/
