According to the U.S. Census Bureau, in 1999 there were 8,200 U.S. marinas. The National Marine Manufacturers Association (NMMA) estimated that in 2002 there were 12,000 marinas, boatyards, yacht clubs, dockominiums, parks, and related facilities (note that this higher number includes properties that are technically not marinas, although they are maritime related). No new studies appear to the available, but we feel the 12,000 number is a credible number.
Today, I did a search on Loopnet (A commercial listing site) and found 412 listings. Last year at this time there were 80. Loopnet is only one of the resources for listing a marina for sale. There is no one place to do it. Just this one source has 3.4% of the maritime related facilities in this Country and 5% of the marinas on the market. Adding in all the local MLS systems, private sites etc., I wonder what the real percentage is?
That is a very high number given that many of the marinas are government owned and are not ever available for sale to the public (generally).
To investors out there. There is money to be made in these marinas, just purchase smart and using current income streams.
We’ll keep an eye on the number of listings out there. It is an indication of the health of the industry.
Eileen Simpson
4 responses so far ↓
1 Alan Bernier // Sep 9, 2008 at 6:29 pm
Eileen -
This is very interesting. We are a commercial real estate search engine for small business in the San Francisco Bay Area http://www.rofo.com and emphasize most of the traditional product types (office, retail, industrial). One area we don’t track are the marina spaces (we actually have a decent amount here). I’d be curious to know where else you research listing data. I look forward to expanding to your market in the future.
Alan
2 John // Sep 10, 2008 at 2:44 pm
Eileen,
This is indeed very interesting information. I found 144 marinas for sale at GlobalBX
http://www.globalbx.com/results.asp?keywordStr=marina&pg=1
This site is free for business / commercial buyers, sellers and brokers.
3 Shelly Terry // Oct 15, 2008 at 1:26 pm
I work for DSDC Venture LLC and we have investors looking for distress or foreclosed Marinas to purchase, anywhere in the US.
Please contact Danny Cortado or Shelly Terry@
757 271-1576 office or Cellular 757 739-0774
4 Tom Delotto, CMM // Nov 13, 2008 at 7:19 pm
IGY is in the business of managing and owning marinas and we are available to help owners and lenders with distressed assets located anywhere in the world - either as a manager, JV or outright purchase. Contact Tom Delotto,CMM at 646 465 2150 or tdelotto@igymarinas.com.
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