Anyone w Experience buying Marinas?

I do see where you are coming from and i agree. I see your point of few. If of course I had financial freedom and money wasn't an issue then yea sure why not I would buy one to mess around with. Like you said I have seen people lose a lot of money on the stock market. It is just a matter of what one prefers. I'm glad you have done well with the stock market. I have been doing real estate wholesaling and have been successful at a young age. What really matters if you do your due diligence. You eliminate risk when you know what you are doing and real estate is something you can control. I don't trust my money being in a stock that I can't see or touch. With stock market you are speculating while with real estate it's an actual investment that you can control.

To a point. I knew a few people that were invested in the Houston real estate market in the early 90's. Except for the ones that bought when there was "blood in the street" they were not happy campers for quite a few years. And, I don't own "a" stock. I own ALL of them. I am counting on the fact that the economy will continue to grow, as it has done for hundreds of years. If it doesn't we're BOTH SOL. But again, that's a different story and beyond the scope of this forum.

Yup true true. For the sake of both of us the economy better keep rising but if it doesn't oh well. History will always repeat itself.

Be careful buying anything : } Timeshares, Vacation Clubs, Cigars, Jewelry, Fishing trips.
Let the buyer beware!

And most important be more than carefull with franchise contracts. Suicide in rates. We have a big thing going around in Europe with for example Subway franchise contracts.

What strikes me as so difficult about that is the fact that there is no question we can have a better sandwich shop than Subway. The trouble is, no one will go there because of the formula that McDonalds then Subway then Starbucks have perfected. Create familiarity, absolute consistency and easily accessible. Done.

Now apply that to Marinas and one could conceivably create a formula an apply it to major ports and they may have a chance.

I will start another thread regarding franchising as it applies to the marine industry.

Brewers had done it in the Mid Atlantic and NE, Loggerhead has done it in the SE. Loggerhead even had a thing where if you had a annual slip at one marina, you could stay at any of the others for up to 60 days a year for free. I haven't seen it make a difference in their occupation numbers. People want yachts because half of them want the freedom to move from marina to marina on a whim. Loggerhead marinas are always nice, but always trapped deep inside neighborhoods and really crappy for transients (no restaurant, no grocery store within walking distance.)