Comment from digitalnomad
Time: February 21, 2008, 7:04 am

You have to pay real estate taxes on these?

Comment from Kristi
Time: February 21, 2008, 8:19 am

Oh my, sign me up!!

Comment from Dave Nofmeister
Time: February 21, 2008, 8:34 am

I love the old trailer that’s used as a houseboat. The caption says “Trailer Cruises Lake Under Own Power”. Could that be an outboard motor? hmmm.

Comment from Ben
Time: February 21, 2008, 8:52 am

The second to last photo is not a houseboat but City Pier in Canandaigua, NY. Several of these cottages on poles collapsed a few yeas ago.

Comment from Rose
Time: February 21, 2008, 9:00 am

A rock that floats … I love the idea and imagine it’s a real headturner.

Comment from The StratDigist
Time: February 21, 2008, 9:02 am

The picutre of the sinking houseboat shows EXACTLY the list position of my houseboat when I was a newbie on the river during my first snow. I thought I lived in Heaven that night as the big flakes fell on the water. I broiled a steak and sat down to watch the Johnny Carson show. With a snifter of Grand Marnier and a roaring fire in the fireplace I reasoned there was no better place to be in a snowstorm. Unfortunatley, as I slept through the night, the rest of the owners in the moorage where outside raking the snowpacks off their roofs. Even the walkways were getting seriously close getting overlapped at one point so I was told. When I awoke in the morning and looked out my bedroom window I thought: How did the river level get so high in just on night? Little did I realize that the weight of my waterbed, and the weight of the hot tub - both on the same quarter section of the float - plus the weight of the snowload on the roof, would sink that quarter section. Just half-awake, my first moment of panic was immediately replaced with a second moment of panic as I jumped out of bed into about fifteen inches of water, my first thought being: I’m going to get electrocuted! (I didn’t realize that the breaker had switched at the first sign of malfunction.) After climbing up to dry carpet and getting dressed, I made my way outside (sheepishly) to greet my neighbors who were high (and dry) and looking forward to getting into their own beds to catch up on some well deserved sleep. Me? I drained both the hot tub and waterbed (which restored the float to normal) and called my insurance agent. This was the first of several experiences I had to go through before I felt I was really getting my “sea legs.”

Comment from The StratDigist
Time: February 21, 2008, 9:19 am

@ digitalnomad: Not in the USA. Houseboat marinas are either publicly or privately owned and the earth underwater is governed by various federal and state regulations. The houseboats themselves are classified as personal property and may be subject to personal property taxes (depending on where you live), not real estate taxes. The moorage owner (if private) will have some real estate tax liability which, of course, would be apportioned and passed on as part of the moorage fee that each float owner pays. Some private moorage owners “sell” their “slips” to float owners but it’s not a real estate transaction in the traditional sense; it’s simply a “right to moore” that can be, in turn, sold at a profit if it’s value increases, etc. In fact, houseboat moorage slips (and related fees) have been appreciating over the years in the US as environmentalism has continued to punitively hammer at those who prefer living on the water (fish first), making it near impossible for new moorages to open, or existing moorages to expand.

Comment from Feckineejit
Time: February 21, 2008, 10:14 am

if you have a waterbed and a hot tub in a house boat you are a very brave man.

Comment from fernando Johann
Time: February 21, 2008, 10:18 am

I’d like my house to be a boat if I’ll be going someweere. If not….
It doesn’t have to fast or anything.
The german one is my favorite

Comment from taximen
Time: February 21, 2008, 11:07 am

Now I know what I want to do when I retire!

Comment from Elaptic
Time: February 21, 2008, 11:09 am

‘observation deck with 365-degree views of the surrounding underwater environment’

WOW! it must be really impressive to give you a whole extra 5 degrees of geometry.

Comment from The StratDigist
Time: February 21, 2008, 1:20 pm

Living on a houseboat (kudos to these designers) is wonderful lifestyle. Getting to the parking lot is a bit of an upleasant hike in inclement weather, but you make up for it in nice weather. You don’t really have to go anywhere to vacation because you are already there. Just open the door.

And it’s quiet. Moorages sit below land level and the noises of traffic and life on the soil amplify out an up; not over and down.

Another sea-leggy-kind of story that comes to mind is the night I awakend about 1:00 a.m to this seemingly muted, distant yelling for “help.” After a few seconds I realized it wasn’t a dream. Someone, somewhere was in distress.

I jumped into a pair of shorts and flip-flops and went outside, only to discover the lady who lived next door was in the water, nearly exhausted and hypothermic. In her sixties and retired, she and her husband liked to make the rounds of the establishments on the island. Only this night she was coming home alone, inebreiated.

There were two problems: first, it was winter and there was ice on the walkways; second, she was wearing a full-length mink coat. When she slipped on the ice and hit the water that coat just about quintupled her bodyweight and she didn’t have the muscle strenght to pull herself out.

It’s funny now, but at the time she swearingly refused to shed the coat so I could pull her to safety. It didn’t take long to realize it was a futile situation for both of us so I began yelling “help” at the top of my lungs, hoping to wake up some muscle to come to our rescue.

Help arrived, including her husband. We got her up and out. He took her inside and I went back to bed, only then realizing that I was colder than ice from being outside in freezing weather with nothing more on than a pair of bermuda shorts.

Ahh. The memories. I think I want to go back for retirement.

Comment from Capt John
Time: February 25, 2008, 5:09 am

I’m not sure about the 2nd to last one but hell I’d take the last.

Great post!

Comment from Besplatne Stvari Samo najbolje
Time: March 1, 2008, 4:16 am

Now I know what I want to do when I retire!

Comment from Perra
Time: March 6, 2008, 2:21 am

Hey, the picture in the bottom is ours =) Take a look at our webpage…sorry for the swedish. For you who don´t understand the language we started in Mälaren, a lake not far from Stockholm and drove it to Göteborg. A trip that took us 5 weeks and it was about 600 kilometers.
/Perra ( http://www.husvagnsbryggbaten.tk )

Comment from LDH
Time: March 12, 2008, 5:00 pm

I am considering developing a houseboat community on some property that I own in Humboldt Bay, on the coast of Northern California, and would like to talk to interested investors.