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Heavily considering boating, but i dont know if im ready.


Minimal

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1 hour ago, pete.i said:

I was also getting annoyed at the apparent lack of any attention that the Canal and River Trust seemed to be giving to boaters who, regardless of what others may think, is the reason CRT and BW before them exists.

 

This is happening to more and more boaters (us included). It is not the boating that we give up, just getting off C&RT waters because of their poor management & maintenance of the canals. It used to be fun, its now becoming just 'hard work'.

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16 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

This is happening to more and more boaters (us included). It is not the boating that we give up, just getting off C&RT waters because of their poor management & maintenance of the canals. It used to be fun, its now becoming just 'hard work'.

..yes we have certainly noticed a difference in the relatively short time we have been boating, from initially hiring boats to buying into one a few years ago.

Particulalrly as age takes it toll and SWMBO was really struggling with some of the locks. (..never able to get the hang of steering the thing otherwise I would have done them instead..)

..may also be worth the OP checking out some of the (many) Youtube vids by those people who are actually doing it for real, my current favourite is "Country House gent"..

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On 21/01/2022 at 15:19, LadyG said:

 

 

I could not live long term on a forty foot boat.

 

yeah but ...............  you seem to consider it necessary to have a 6' x 6' bathroom and 8' x 6' galley.   You really need to find a cottage or flat where such things make sense.

 

 

 

when I was a kid we (family of 4) lived in a 22' x 8' caravan for 7 years while Dad built a house.   Bath was a galvanised tub on the kitchen floor, filled from the kettle, and the loo was an outside privy.

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18 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

when I was a kid we (family of 4) lived in a 22' x 8' caravan for 7 years while Dad built a house.   Bath was a galvanised tub on the kitchen floor, filled from the kettle, and the loo was an outside privy.

 

Tell that to the kids of today ...........................

 

Luxury !

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18 minutes ago, Murflynn said:

yeah but ...............  you seem to consider it necessary to have a 6' x 6' bathroom and 8' x 6' galley.   You really need to find a cottage or flat where such things make sense.

 

 

 

when I was a kid we (family of 4) lived in a 22' x 8' caravan for 7 years while Dad built a house.   Bath was a galvanised tub on the kitchen floor, filled from the kettle, and the loo was an outside privy.

Sure, anything is possible... though not necessarily desirable.  In the early eighties I knew a tramp who was in his late 50's and had lived under a hedge all his adult life, drank cider all week and only ate on Saturdays when he stuffed himself with meat. He was strong and healthy and worked on farms, following the work around Kent.

I have a 10ft galley and a 6ft bathroom too. Wouldn't be without the galley, I like cooking. :)

 

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1 hour ago, Donkey said:

As above, you really need to hire for a week or more, (and ideally during a "cold" season?)

We used to rent and ended up buying into a boat as we really wanted to spend "serious" time on a narrow boat once we retired. However we actually found our "natural limit" was only about 2 weeks! (We had dreams of spending 6 months aboard!) For us Winter on a narrow boat would not be an option.

 

 

The problem with winter I find (if there is one at all), is the dark and the mud. The cold is not a problem.

 

Trudging across a waterlogged field, then a muddy, slippery towpath for 1/4 mile in the pitch dark is a major disincentive to living on the boat in winter, I find. Totally different if you moor in a marina! 

 

 

Edited by MtB
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33 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

The problem with winter I find (if there is one at all), is the dark and the mud. The cold is not a problem.

 

Trudging across a waterlogged field, then a muddy, slippery towpath for 1/4 mile in the pitch dark is a major disincentive to living on the boat in winter, I find. Totally different if you moor in a marina! 

 

 

..very much. When you are "casual/holiday cruising your days are (weather permiting), normally filled with "moving / going somewhere", ie always something to do. Probably a different kettel of fish when you are essentially moored up for days on end during inclement weather.....but I fully accept each to their own..

Edited by Donkey
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Yeah so i seem to fit more to the hobbyist / weekender sorta lifestyle, basically a calm place why i sort my future out, I realize that i dont need to just keep it in the marina for however long as ill use it of course, it gets me out and doing things in one way or the other, but its if i felt that i needed to ill probably put it in for the odd month and im just keeping that in mind, And im good at doing my own work with stuff, i do feel that is kinda required anyway to consider owning one.

 

Right now ill keep my eyes on just getting on one for a day, Im not in a rush :)

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I notice a lot of comments that a boat is not much cheaper than a house or flat 

 

To rent a flat in Frome, where I live, is likely to be £600+ plus bills - council tax, leccy etc (the rentals never seem to have gas cooking or heating) is likely to push this towards the £900 a month mark. In all my years of having boats they've never cost me getting on for £900 a month. 

I recall similar comments when i first bought my first boat Ripple, they were made by people who had paid off their mortgages, or at least taken them out years earlier when house prices had one less nought on.

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5 minutes ago, magpie patrick said:

I notice a lot of comments that a boat is not much cheaper than a house or flat 

 

To rent a flat in Frome, where I live, is likely to be £600+ plus bills - council tax, leccy etc (the rentals never seem to have gas cooking or heating) is likely to push this towards the £900 a month mark. In all my years of having boats they've never cost me getting on for £900 a month. 

I recall similar comments when i first bought my first boat Ripple, they were made by people who had paid off their mortgages, or at least taken them out years earlier when house prices had one less nought on.

 

To compare like with like, you have to add in the cost of renting the money to pay for the boat. 

 

Let's say a personal loan of £50k to get a boat broadly equivalent to the cheapest flats on the market, at an interest rate of say 8%. That's £333 a month straight away on interest alone, and on the flat the rent covers all maintenance costs which the landlord pays. Boater pays the cost of fixing the boat when it needs it. 

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11 minutes ago, MtB said:

 

To compare like with like, you have to add in the cost of renting the money to pay for the boat. 

 

Let's say a personal loan of £50k to get a boat broadly equivalent to the cheapest flats on the market, at an interest rate of say 8%. That's £333 a month straight away on interest alone, and on the flat the rent covers all maintenance costs which the landlord pays. Boater pays the cost of fixing the boat when it needs it. 

Yes, but it's a secured loan so a current interest rate somewhere below 2%.

 

Alec

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7 minutes ago, agg221 said:

Yes, but it's a secured loan so a current interest rate somewhere below 2%.

 

Alec

 

You have a loan secured against your boat ?

 

That's a very rare thing to find these days - I assume you managed to get MCA Part 1 registered (normally a requirement of lending against a boat)

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5 minutes ago, Alan de Enfield said:

 

You have a loan secured against your boat ?

 

That's a very rare thing to find these days - I assume you managed to get MCA Part 1 registered (normally a requirement of lending against a boat)

I don't (I bought it for cash) but a friend in London does. I was not involved in the paperwork. The LTV was pretty low.

 

Alec

Edited by agg221
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8 hours ago, MtB said:

 

To compare like with like, you have to add in the cost of renting the money to pay for the boat. 

 

Let's say a personal loan of £50k to get a boat broadly equivalent to the cheapest flats on the market, at an interest rate of say 8%. That's £333 a month straight away on interest alone, and on the flat the rent covers all maintenance costs which the landlord pays. Boater pays the cost of fixing the boat when it needs it. 

Only in the world of accountants - in practice if you have, say £50k to hand, and you're moderately handy, then you can buy a boat and your monthly outgoings are considerably lower. Using capital to reduce outgoings is common practice much as some sectors of big business would like us to rent everything. The alternative scenario is you use your capital to prop up your cash flow, and if you have capital you ain't gonna get an 8% return on it.

 

I'd generally reckon from my own experience that people who say boats are as expensive as houses have low mortgages and assume the boat is either rented or bought with borrowed money. 

 

 

 

 

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On 20/01/2022 at 10:15, Minimal said:

The situation im in is basically Im not going to buy a house anytime soon at this rate, Renting is just silly and dumping money into a pit and If i did i want to be in a small house in the country anyway, I would rather save towards that in that regard

 

A house in the country is the end goal, not the start. To get there you need to use your earned income wisely. Financially secure people who earnt their weath didn't start with a house in the country they start with an ex-local authority house in need of update in some dump.  I was next to the M6, we only had peace and quiet when there was a crash on the motorway. Every town has an affordable area, buy one, do it up a bit, bank your mortgage payments, 3 years move and repeat. In 10 years you'll have a decent place in a reasonable area. Then you can refine your goals, and make those all important life choices without being poor, I.e. rent the house and live on a boat.

 

If you use all your savings to buy a boat you will be curtailing your life choices, everything you own will be in a depreciating asset, there will be no way back and you will be poor. When you are fit and active this may not be so bad, but when you get that little bit older, or have some health issues you will be screwed.

 

The one bit I do agree with, avoid renting when working.

Edited by Cas446
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5 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

Only in the world of accountants - in practice if you have, say £50k to hand, and you're moderately handy, then you can buy a boat and your monthly outgoings are considerably lower. Using capital to reduce outgoings is common practice much as some sectors of big business would like us to rent everything. The alternative scenario is you use your capital to prop up your cash flow, and if you have capital you ain't gonna get an 8% return on it.

 

I'd generally reckon from my own experience that people who say boats are as expensive as houses have low mortgages and assume the boat is either rented or bought with borrowed money. 

If you have ~50k to hand you can also still buy property in the UK, provided you are happy with something which isn't spacious or close to where well paid jobs are (like most boats...). That property will come with lower bills than an equivalent boat, and more chance of significant price appreciation (though it may be harder to sell too)

 

Obviously there are areas where housing can't get close to boat costs (continuously cruising London, getting a mooring in a desirable village or buying an old cruiser) but the basic "cheap living" gap isn't nearly as big as people tend to think, or even necessarily in favour of boats if you can work remotely and don't actually see moving around as a benefit

Edited by enigmatic
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It's true that the cheap living is a day to day thing and does rely on you forking out £50k or whatever on a boat. I'm not sure where you can buy a house for £50k but accepting that you can, there is a reason for that - house price inflation is virtually non-existent, in fact in the present market you might even makes a better return on a boat!

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1 hour ago, enigmatic said:

If you have ~50k to hand you can also still buy property in the UK, provided you are happy with something which isn't spacious or close to where well paid jobs are (like most boats...). That property will come with lower bills than an equivalent boat, and more chance of significant price appreciation (though it may be harder to sell too)

 

Obviously there are areas where housing can't get close to boat costs (continuously cruising London, getting a mooring in a desirable village or buying an old cruiser) but the basic "cheap living" gap isn't nearly as big as people tend to think, or even necessarily in favour of boats if you can work remotely and don't actually see moving around as a benefit


This is exactly how I would look at the calculation. No doubt living on a boat is cheaper than renting a place. However all I read about is 20 somethings buying a boat because they think they can't afford property. Yet they nearly always scrape together £10k-£20k to put towards a 1980's springer. £20k is a decent deposit for a mortgage.


They could buy a flat and in time become asset rich....they don't even have to pay off the mortgage completely. With house price inflation and the mortgage being gradually paid off, by the time these 20 somethings get into their mid 40s they'll be sitting on a considerable sum in equity.

I fear the penny will drop with a lot of these 20 somethings, but perhaps not until they're in their 40's when it is harder to contemplate taking on a 30 year mortgage. 

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46 minutes ago, booke23 said:


This is exactly how I would look at the calculation. No doubt living on a boat is cheaper than renting a place. However all I read about is 20 somethings buying a boat because they think they can't afford property. Yet they nearly always scrape together £10k-£20k to put towards a 1980's springer. £20k is a decent deposit for a mortgage.


They could buy a flat and in time become asset rich....they don't even have to pay off the mortgage completely. With house price inflation and the mortgage being gradually paid off, by the time these 20 somethings get into their mid 40s they'll be sitting on a considerable sum in equity.

I fear the penny will drop with a lot of these 20 somethings, but perhaps not until they're in their 40's when it is harder to contemplate taking on a 30 year mortgage. 

I don't think you realise just how expensive property can be in some areas.  £20k is a reasonable deposit, but if you're still left with a £200,000+ mortgage (a conservative estimate, see below), meeting those payments is a problem.  Or rather it isn't because nobody will lend you that much if you're on a salary of £20-30k a year.  Of course, many internal are on far lower salaries or nothing at all and are making ends meet by working in hospitality in the evenings.  Remember also that loads of younger people are in insecure work (short contracts or zero hours) which also means getting a mortgage is nigh on impossible.  So the option isn't boat or mortgage, it's boat or private renting.  Have a look at average apartment prices in London if you don't believe me https://www.statista.com/statistics/1029409/average-price-of-flats-in-london-by-borough/

And remember this will include place which need full renovation.  The very cheapest London borough is now averaging £250 a month for apartments.  A poor borough like Newham is now heading for an average apartment cost of £400k.

 

It really isn't as simple as you think. 

 

In many cases, that £20k boat comes from about £5k in savings plus a 15k unsecured loan (with parents as guarantor).  Repayments on that loan can be under £300 a month on a 5 year term.  Even adding licence costs etc, that's cheaper in London than paying towards £1000 a month for a room in an HMO.  And of course, after 5 years those repayments stop. Also there's the intangible benefit of being more in control of your own home.  If you've lived in an HMO you'll understand just how attractive that can be.

 

In parts of the country where property is cheaper, there aren't queues of 20somethings buying old springers to live on.  The problem is in London, Oxford, Bath etc.

 

I'm west mids based, where property is still just about affordable (until HS2 opens).  I bought my boat outright with all my savings.  I could have used that money for a very good deposit.  But I didn't for two reasons: 

 

1.  I wanted to live on a boat, by choice.

2.  I was working on a fixed term contract at the time (a few months at a time), so the only mortgage deal I could have got was terrible.

 

Now I'm permanently employed and my boat has gone up in value so I could quite easily sell it and hop onto the property ladder.  I might just do that one day, but not today.

Edited by doratheexplorer
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I think a lot of people scraping together £10 and £20k for a Springer don't have the sort of employment history that makes lenders rush to offer them a mortgage. But if you have the funds for a mid range boat at the £50-£60k they're changing hands now there are bricks and mortar in unfashionable parts of the UK within the range of cash purchases (not many, but there aren't many decent boats either). Ultimately its about whether you want the lifestyle of a boat compared to a small flat in a less appealing part of Birmingham or a two-bed mid terraced house in an ex-mining town. I did, and I probably won't lose money on it (different story if I was planning on keeping it another 20 years...) but the other options are a better fit for getting on "property ladders" and minimising monthly expenditure.

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12 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

I don't think you realise just how expensive property can be in some areas.  £20k is a reasonable deposit, but if you're still left with a £200,000+ mortgage (a conservative estimate, see below), meeting those payments is a problem.  Or rather it isn't because nobody will lend you that much if you're on a salary of £20-30k a year.  Of course, many internal are on far lower salaries or nothing at all and are making ends meet by working in hospitality in the evenings.  Remember also that loads of younger people are in insecure work (short contracts or zero hours) which also means getting a mortgage is nigh on impossible.  So the option isn't boat or mortgage, it's boat or private renting.  Have a look at average apartment prices in London if you don't believe me https://www.statista.com/statistics/1029409/average-price-of-flats-in-london-by-borough/

And remember this will include place which need full renovation.  The very cheapest London borough is now averaging £250 a month for apartments.  A poor borough like Newham is now heading for an average apartment cost of £400k.

 

It really isn't as simple as you think. 

 

In many cases, that £20k boat comes from about £5k in savings plus a 15k unsecured loan (with parents as guarantor).  Repayments on that loan can be under £300 a month on a 5 year term.  Even adding licence costs etc, that's cheaper in London than paying towards £1000 a month for a room in an HMO.  And of course, after 5 years those repayments stop. Also there's the intangible benefit of being more in control of your own home.  If you've lived in an HMO you'll understand just how attractive that can be.

 

 I could have used that money for a very good deposit.  But I didn't for two reasons: 

 

1.  I wanted to live on a boat, by choice.

2.  I was working on a fixed term contract at the time (a few months at a time), so the only mortgage deal I could have got was terrible.

Very good points, with which I agree, having lived in a HMO (owned by a heroin addict who lived in Thailand and went cold turkey when he visited the UK, leading to police intervention but that’s another story).

 

Just to extend slightly, when parents are involved in guaranteeing the finance, they are often homeowners with a property that has gone up in value and can extend the mortgage as the guarantee, bringing the monthly cost owed to Mum and Dad below £100 if you accept the extended repayment timeframe.

 

Alec

 

 

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As an investment, there is property and property. I bought a house for 80K, did nothing much to it that would increase value, sold it 20 years later for just shy £1/2M

The same £80k at the same time on a house where I now live would have sold for just £150K after those 20 years. The mortgage and running costs would have been the same. Pure luck in my case. I wish I still had the house TBH, house price increases over the past 5-6 years since divorce forced sale have been potty.

 

Edit - just researched - it sold again after 4 years (and an extension added) for £720K and now valued at £770K. I know what work was done, we could have done same for about £100k. A tidy profit. :)

 

Edited by Slow and Steady
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42 minutes ago, doratheexplorer said:

I don't think you realise just how expensive property can be in some areas.  £20k is a reasonable deposit, but if you're still left with a £200,000+ mortgage (a conservative estimate, see below), meeting those payments is a problem.  Or rather it isn't because nobody will lend you that much if you're on a salary of £20-30k a year.  Of course, many internal are on far lower salaries or nothing at all and are making ends meet by working in hospitality in the evenings.  Remember also that loads of younger people are in insecure work (short contracts or zero hours) which also means getting a mortgage is nigh on impossible.  So the option isn't boat or mortgage, it's boat or private renting.  Have a look at average apartment prices in London if you don't believe me https://www.statista.com/statistics/1029409/average-price-of-flats-in-london-by-borough/

And remember this will include place which need full renovation.  The very cheapest London borough is now averaging £250 a month for apartments.  A poor borough like Newham is now heading for an average apartment cost of £400k.

 

It really isn't as simple as you think. 

 

In many cases, that £20k boat comes from about £5k in savings plus a 15k unsecured loan (with parents as guarantor).  Repayments on that loan can be under £300 a month on a 5 year term.  Even adding licence costs etc, that's cheaper in London than paying towards £1000 a month for a room in an HMO.  And of course, after 5 years those repayments stop. Also there's the intangible benefit of being more in control of your own home.  If you've lived in an HMO you'll understand just how attractive that can be.

 

In parts of the country where property is cheaper, there aren't queues of 20somethings buying old springers to live on.  The problem is in London, Oxford, Bath etc.

 

I'm west mids based, where property is still just about affordable (until HS2 opens).  I bought my boat outright with all my savings.  I could have used that money for a very good deposit.  But I didn't for two reasons: 

 

1.  I wanted to live on a boat, by choice.

2.  I was working on a fixed term contract at the time (a few months at a time), so the only mortgage deal I could have got was terrible.

 

Now I'm permanently employed and my boat has gone up in value so I could quite easily sell it and hop onto the property ladder.  I might just do that one day, but not today.


Indeed. If you can scrape £20k for a boat I'm just suggesting there are other options......commuting for one. 

Of course if you want the boating lifestyle that's a different matter. 

 

 

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19 hours ago, magpie patrick said:

I notice a lot of comments that a boat is not much cheaper than a house or flat 

 

To rent a flat in Frome, where I live, is likely to be £600+ plus bills - council tax, leccy etc (the rentals never seem to have gas cooking or heating) is likely to push this towards the £900 a month mark. In all my years of having boats they've never cost me getting on for £900 a month. 

I recall similar comments when i first bought my first boat Ripple, they were made by people who had paid off their mortgages, or at least taken them out years earlier when house prices had one less nought on.


I can confirm those figures, as they are exactly what my son found there. He couldn't afford bills like that at the time, so instead he moved into a caravan in the woods near Farleigh Castle. 

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On 21/01/2022 at 14:08, doratheexplorer said:

So much truth here.  Probably 80% or more of all boats sit festering away on their moorings, barely used or never used.  If their owners actually calculated how much it was costing them per hour they spend on the boat I bet they'd find it would be considerably cheaper to hire a boat now and then when they fancy going boating. If I wasn't a liveaboard there would be next to zero chance I'd own a boat.  I might consider joining a boat share though if I was retired.

 

Precisely why we sold.

 

We found that the money we were spending in the latter days on just owning the thing was better spent on other things like zipping across the channel to spend time in France.

 

I had snide comments on here saying we 'underestimated the cost of boat ownership' which was incorrect, we didnt we just decided we prefered to spend money on other things. Of course if we were wealthy we could do both but we are not wealthy enough to engage in two relatively costly leisure pursuits.

 

As I say 'we fell out with boat ownership not boating' hence we are going river boating (not canal boating) in April. We are hiring obviously but if the thing breaks down or the cooker stops working its sombody elses problem to sort it not mine.

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