Boat and house ownership - a wealthy person's game?

[Philip]

Just interested to know people's opinions about owning both a boat and a property (be it a flat, house, whatever), particularly from those who have both. The narrowboat I have bought is 25ft long, so the running costs won't be as high of course.  I don't own a house as you can probably guess.

 

I work in railway, in the retail side or things, so not earning anywhere near what a driver earns! I'm single and don't have children. Just based on this, is even owning a short boat really affordable in addition to a house?

 

I'm not looking to either live onboard or buy a house at this point, I'm just interested to hear people's opinions on owning both and whether I might have to consider the short narrowboat as a potential liveaboard boat if the time comes when I want to own 'my own place', and assuming job and personal circumstances are the same.

Edited February 9, 2021 by Philip

[ditchcrawler]

1 minute ago, Philip said:

Just interested to know people's opinions about owning both a boat and a property (be it a flat, house, whatever), particularly from those who have both. The narrowboat I have bought is 25ft long, so the running costs won't be as high of course.  I don't own a house as you can probably guess.

 

I work in railway, in the retail side or things, so not earning anywhere near what a driver earns! I'm single and don't have children. Just based on this, is even owning a short boat really affordable in addition to a house?

 

I'm not looking to either live onboard or buy a house at this point, I'm just interested to hear people's opinions on owning both and whether I might have to consider the short narrowboat as a potential liveaboard boat if the time comes when I want to own 'my own place', and assuming job and personal circumstances are the same.

When you become an old fart like most of us you will look at things differently

[David Mack]

Most of us on here are of more mature years, and so the ability to own a house and a boat is likely to have arisen from a combination of getting into bricks and mortar when houses were more affordable, along with reduced outgoings once the children have left home and the mortgage is paid off, together perhaps with an inheritance from our own parents.

Even those of us who owned houses and boats when we were young did so against a background of lower house prices and generally more secure employment.

It is all very different for today's youngsters!

 

[mrsmelly]

Everyone is different. for many years we owned a house in Cornwall we used for holidays and days away and lived on our narrowboat. We used the house less and less and eventualy in 2007 sold it and its never been missed. Now my health is in decline I am looking at probably moving back into a house but its not by choice merely by necessity. Living aboard is so much nicer than in any house. However thats not everyones opinion and firstly you need a missus like mine who prefers boats to houses or be single. We may buy another house but times change and we are thinking now of renting thus leaving plenty of money to spend on enjoyment rather than stuck in one property when the boat is gone. Its so much harder for youngsters now though so it will be your decision. If we mention leaving any money to any of our kids they give us a bloocking and tell us to spend it so we do have their permission  If your the kind of person that thinks life is all about posessions and buying property then forget the freedom of the boat and keep your nose to the grindstone and talk like many of what you are going to do when you retire and hope you actualy get there.

[BEngo]

All boat ownership is an expensive game.  It is well known to be an acronym for Bring Out Another Thousand.  If you have the time, the skills and real commitment much narrow boat upkeep work can be done by you.  This can reduce the costs a lot, but licences, mooring, insurance and operating costs don't go away. Many longer term boaters started on the DIY route, because there was no other. Many would like to these days, and the cut is littered with green mouldy grey primer project boats which were started in a burst of enthusiasm, but will never be finished by the first owner.

 

Property ownership is another expensive game. Granted it is, overall, cheaper than renting, but only if you can raise enough money to get over the start line.  Property you live in is also a very average investment.  Yes, it goes up in value, mostly, but so do the alternative properties you might want to live in, so the only way to realise you investment gains is to live somewhere less desirable, or die.

You also need to work out your escape route from boat dwelling.  When you break a leg and cannot get on or off, or when you are old and some bits have gone cold, and there is no longer any attraction to humping gas, coal and toilets around, a home with lots of running water and infinite electric at low prices compared with making it yourself  begins to look like a good deal.

That said there is much fun to be had in owning, looking after and using a narrow boat.  This can offset much of the pain.  Your choice really is all that matters.

N

[Bee]

Yes, very possible otherwise some of us would never own a boat / house / car or much else. It is harder now than possibly ever before because of house prices and ridiculous mooring and licence fees along with boat safety scheme and insurance costs but if you never, ever hand over money for anything that you can do yourself and spend time sourcing every last nut and bolt you can achieve an awful lot. Its almost like living in the third world, skips often have good timber, car spares are in breakers yards and believe it or not when I first moved onto a boat I used to find great lumps of bad quality stony coal lying at the bottom of railway embankments, too big to go in loco's firebox doors and too hard to break up. Kept me warm through the first winter on the dole. Oh, don't smoke, brew your own beer and accumulate tools.

[Arthur Marshall]

I was lucky enough to buy my first house back when you could get a cracker for fifteen grand. After that, I bought and sold as I felt like it. When I was broke, I sold it and bought a smaller one. Got the boat thirty years ago and did it up, lived on it every now and then for a few years.

I worked mostly part time and also as a jobbing musician, playing virtually anything anyone would pay me for in the folk world, so I don't think my annual income ever went over twelve grand, but I kept warm, fed, occasionally married and had a hell of a lot of fun.

With prices as they are now, probably couldn't do it these days.

[ditchcrawler]

34 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:

I was lucky enough to buy my first house back when you could get a cracker for fifteen grand. After that, I bought and sold as I felt like it. When I was broke, I sold it and bought a smaller one. Got the boat thirty years ago and did it up, lived on it every now and then for a few years.

I worked mostly part time and also as a jobbing musician, playing virtually anything anyone would pay me for in the folk world, so I don't think my annual income ever went over twelve grand, but I kept warm, fed, occasionally married and had a hell of a lot of fun.

With prices as they are now, probably couldn't do it these days.

My first was £3,300 and was less than the previous owner paid 2 years before

[Philip]

Thanks for the feedback. 

 

One thing that has always concerned me a bit about the concept of living aboard is how much does it take away the 'novelty' factor of a canal holiday or the canal life? Always found one of the joys of canal boating is making that journey down to the boat from home or work, loading all the gear onboard, engine checks, kettle on/beers opened, untie and off you go.. Do you still get this same pleasure when you live on the boat permanently?

Edited February 9, 2021 by Philip

[Guest]

Just my take.

 

Owning and maintaining a house is expensive.

 

Owning and maintaining a boat is expensive.

 

If you can afford to do both, great.

 

If you cant and need to choose whether to live on/in either you need to decide which its to be.

 

 

[nicknorman]

22 minutes ago, Philip said:

Thanks for the feedback. 

 

One thing that has always concerned me a bit about the concept of living aboard is how much does it take away the 'novelty' factor of a canal holiday or the canal life? Always found one of the joys of canal boating is making that journey down to the boat from home or work, loading all the gear onboard, engine checks, kettle on/beers opened, untie and off you go.. Do you still get this same pleasure when you live on the boat permanently?

I think this is a really incisive point. I have had two great hobbies, both of which I turned into a job and both of which thus lost their shine - until I gave them up and resumed them as hobbies.

 

We have a house and a holiday boat so we do still get the excitement when we travel to the boat, and if you are a live aboard then no doubt it would become mundane. But probably not as mundane as living in a house!

 

If you live on a boat, you are allowed to take holidays elsewhere, you are not obliged to spend all your holidays on the boat!

[cuthound]

In 1972 had my first canal holiday and loved it. Hired from then until 1991.

 

Bought my first house in 1976. Mortgage free from 2001.

 

From 1992 until 2013 we had a share in a shared ownership boat,  and had 2-3 holidays on it per year.

 

Retired in 2013, sold our modest house in Surrey and bought a canalside house in Staffordshire which was bigger, but a lot cheaper. With the change from the sale i bought my present boat, which doing as much work on it myself as I can, costs about half as much again to run as my twelfth share of the shareboats. Having an end of garden mooring is the biggest help. I save about £2000 per annum over marina mooring fees.

 

As Nick says above, living full time on the boat must make it less "special", so I consider my self lucky in having the best of both worlds.

 

 

Edited February 10, 2021 by cuthound
Clarification

[eightacre]

13 hours ago, Philip said:

I work in railway, in the retail side or things, so not earning anywhere near what a driver earns! I'm single and don't have children. Just based on this, is even owning a short boat really affordable in addition to a house?

 

I'm also a railwayman - engineering, so the pay is not bad. We couldn't contemplate owning a boat until the mortgage was paid off and our daughter had left home. Then the other obstacle appears - that is free time. I could see little sense in owning a boat that spends most of its time in a marina, so we bought a share in a boat, giving us 4 weeks of boating per year. Once I had moved to part-time working, we were able to buy a boat and now divide our year between house and boat.

[restlessnomad]

Depends on you age and how much money you got now, and where you want to live.

I think for most people with average income, its possible to have a house and a boat in cheaper part of uk.

You should consider buying a house, now that mortgage is cheap, and house price will be stable for some time. Get help from govt for deposit.

If nothing else, it will give you mental peace/stability.

[ditchcrawler]

I have been canal boating for over 35 years, started hiring, then shared ownership and now our own boat. We spend quite a bit of time on it but we both couldn't live full time on it. We do boat summer and winter so its not a weather thing.

[robtheplod]

When I bought my 3 bed semi it was cheaper than my boat 18 months ago.....

[Athy]

1 hour ago, robtheplod said:

When I bought my 3 bed semi it was cheaper than my boat 18 months ago.....

Your post got me thinking. We bought our first house (Victorian end-of-terrace in Sussex) in 1989. Just sixteen years later we had 'Trojan' built, and she cost ten grand more than the house had!

 

To answer Philip's question, if you're single it could be a struggle to own both a house and a narrowboat. If you're married (as we already were when we bought that first house) it's a lot easier, because the costs are shared between two people with two incomes.

 

What is "working for the railways in retail"? Ticket clerk? Running the station snack bar? 

Edited February 10, 2021 by Athy

[NB Alnwick]

Owning a boat is expensive - very expensive if you bring depreciation and loss of income from capital employed into the calculation.

The other disadvantage is that although you may own the boat you may never own the space that it occupies on the water (unless it sits in your private pond) so, in terms of long term security, a boat owner is no better than most caravan dwellers and may always be required to pay someone else for licences and mooring rights. Boat maintenance costs can also be disproportionately high when compared to bricks and mortar. Modern houses require little maintenance and are often energy efficient. Boats are often just the opposite. On the other hand owning a boat and living on board is always an adventure . . .

[Philip]

1 hour ago, Athy said:

Your post got me thinking. We bought our first house (Victorian end-of-terrace in Sussex) in 1989. Just sixteen years later we had 'Trojan' built, and she cost ten grand more than the house had!

 

To answer Philip's question, if you're single it could be a struggle to own both a house and a narrowboat. If you're married (as we already were when we bought that first house) it's a lot easier, because the costs are shared between two people with two incomes.

 

What is "working for the railways in retail"? Ticket clerk? Running the station snack bar? 

 

Booking office ticket clerk, certainly not underpayed by any means but a little uncertain right now given the big drop-off in rail travel and the likely slow recovery!

Edited February 10, 2021 by Athy
To correct typo in quoted passage.

[doratheexplorer]

You've hit on a valid but rarely talked about point.

 

On balance, a liveaboard is likely to be poorer than average.

On balance, a boatowner who also owns a house is likely to be richer than average.

 

Before the forum starts attacking me for this, I realise this is a broad brush and there are many exceptions, but I stand by what I've said and I think it's at the root of a lot of the division between boaters on the cut. The discrimination towards both 'shiny boaters' and 'canal pikeys'.  Certainly there are forum regulars who are clearly wealthy and often make uninformed comments because they simply can't grasp how the 'other half' live.

[Athy]

8 minutes ago, NB Alnwick said:

although you may own the boat you may never own the space that it occupies on the water.

This is true for canals but not for rivers. Our front garden adjoins the Old River Nene, and we own the river bed up to the middle of the river. I think this is fairly common with riparian riverside properties.

[Mike Todd]

1 hour ago, doratheexplorer said:

You've hit on a valid but rarely talked about point.

 

On balance, a liveaboard is likely to be poorer than average.

On balance, a boatowner who also owns a house is likely to be richer than average.

 

Before the forum starts attacking me for this, I realise this is a broad brush and there are many exceptions, but I stand by what I've said and I think it's at the root of a lot of the division between boaters on the cut. The discrimination towards both 'shiny boaters' and 'canal pikeys'.  Certainly there are forum regulars who are clearly wealthy and often make uninformed comments because they simply can't grasp how the 'other half' live.

Whilst your way of expressing it may cause some folk to comment, the idea is still valid in a way. One of the things that has long been - to me - attractive about time  on the canal is that it is a great leveller - with the possible exception of strange waters such as the lower Thames - however shiny, or not, you boat, you still have to join the same queue for the locks. Some of the more interesting conversations are with people on the more unusual of boats - in any sense of the term. And those who come to your aid, whether in distress or not, can be the most unexpected folk - as in life generally, but more so in the case of canal life as there are no gated communities or their equivalents, or at least when not in a marina. Even then, communities seem to ignore the shininess of your abode much more so than on land.

 

Actually, I am not so sure about the 'division' you mention. Those who try to take advantage of their shininess seem to me to come out rather badly from the effort!

[Ex Brummie]

There are houses, from £70,000 to infinity; there are boats, from £5,000 to stupid £K.

As with everything in life, you make a choice on how you wish to live and distribute the available means accordingly. We have a house and a boat, and have had for over 40 years. Our house may be scorned on by many, and our boat, at 30 yrs old, whilst comfortable and proficient, does not have bespoke carpentry or all electric appliances that some people cannot do without. It is capable of being lived on, and is used thus during a lot of the year, but we are able to return to bricks and mortar for the less comfortable times, or those times when health makes different demands. I have never contemplated living on the boat full time as much of the enjoyment is the anticipation of a cruise, extended or otherwise, and the demands of work precluding movement, would make it constricting and frustrating. 

All in all, decidehow you want to live and cut your cloth according to the width.

[Thomas C King]

That there are less well-off people on boats does not indicate that boating is cheap, but rather seems symptomatic of homes in general (floating or not) now being prohibitively expensive to more than they used to be. Hence, people on lower incomes have bought boats, which seem to be in bad condition; whilst well maintained boats are out of reach for many people.

 

I suppose there is a lesson for those that sneer at those whom move onto boats as a 'floating cottage'. It is a wealthy person's game, and that's just part of a wider trend making people move onto boats who wouldn't have otherwise.

[Laurie Booth]

On 09/02/2021 at 20:01, Philip said:

Just interested to know people's opinions about owning both a boat and a property (be it a flat, house, whatever), particularly from those who have both. The narrowboat I have bought is 25ft long, so the running costs won't be as high of course.  I don't own a house as you can probably guess.

 

I work in railway, in the retail side or things, so not earning anywhere near what a driver earns! I'm single and don't have children. Just based on this, is even owning a short boat really affordable in addition to a house?

 

I'm not looking to either live onboard or buy a house at this point, I'm just interested to hear people's opinions on owning both and whether I might have to consider the short narrowboat as a potential liveaboard boat if the time comes when I want to own 'my own place', and assuming job and personal circumstances are the same.

Buy a house. Boat later on.