Can I liveaboard off my rental property?

[arcticmonkey]

yuh.... I once met an old sailor who had a ritual...he always secured his bow line with a new line...he would once the decision was reached to leave... chop the line.. nice ritual. leaving is sometimes harder than staying

[HopCar]

I also own a couple of condos that I rent out. I seem to get a phone call every couple of months concerning something that needs fixing. (The last call was about parrots nesting in a vent!) How will you handle these problems?

[Flagfish]

Yes, you can definitely do this. Embrace the mantra "Go small, go cheap, go now".

When you're in the tropics, the boat size is much less important than in a cold climate. You'll spend most of the time with the boat at anchor and enjoying yourself either on deck or onshore.

My advice? Choose a small (under 30') bluewater-capable boat for under $20k, practice for a bit, then go. You can comfortably learn to sail bluewater in a year having never stepped aboard a sailboat if you throw yourself into it. I did, and then sailed to Hawaii with a friend, stayed for awhile and singlehanded back.

Doing it cheaply will make it easy to pivot. Moving on from a $15-20k boat is a lot easier than $100-200k. I have a 27' Albin Vega on Vancouver Island that's done many thousands of bluewater miles and could do many more if you're interested. Check out my Hawaii voyage blog at flagfish1.blogspot.com

[Cubro0204]

Hi Avi
While I can't comment on the your expenses and boat plans, I do have something to offer on the question "Can I live off my rental property" I too am Canadian in a large city and I have been a landlord for 20 years. We have had all kinds of tenants over the years, but fortunately no Grow Ops, or complete trashing of the properties as some of my friends have experienced. That said on Monday next week we are having a new furnace installed in one property because of cracked heat exchangers, that's a $4k bill right there, and there is no option, you need to provide heat when you rent a property.

It has been my experience, no matter what the CRA says, renting properties is not a passive income. There are constant issues, repairs, maintenance and numerous other things that invariably come up, like police showing up to arrest a tenant's ex who wont take go away for an answer. We wont go away on vacation without having a responsible person in charge available to the tenants to call when there is a problem. That saves a fortune in just avoiding emergency call out of an electrician just because a tenant doesn't know/want/feel like they should check the breaker box. To go away for an extended period of time you will want a property manager or your profit will completely disappear over time. We finally found a reliable reasonably priced one and you can expect to pay 10% of collected rent while occupied, half a months rent for finding a tenant and getting it leased, and always allow for at least 5% vacancy when doing your calculations.

In short until the properties are or nearly paid off, I always described being a landlord as bigger numbers coming in and bigger numbers going out, with very little improvement to my monthly cash flow. We are in the process of over time converting the property investment into other forms of investments that will provide the same kind of return but will require less active involvement on our part to create the opportunity to take off for months at a time without the constant pull on time and money that rental properties require.

I hope this helps you with your planning and calculations and I wish you the best in whatever you decide to do
Curtis

[Bill Streever]

That sounds like a pretty tight budget. You have to consider things like boat insurance as well as an annual maintenance budget of roughly 10% of the value of the boat, but possibly a bit less if you do the work yourself (or if you pay too much for the boat I suppose). There are lots of boat budgets available on line so you can judge for yourself. Also worth remembering that a boat is a depreciating asset so not a way to accumulate equity. On the other hand it is possible as a livaboard to work in some parts of the world. And it is a fantastic live style. Good luck with your decision. This forum is a great place for information and opinions, so check back in with more questions at any time.

[DefinitelyMe]

Yes, you can definitely do that. That's more than our budget and we are pretty comfortable in perpetuity.

[captlloyd]

Originally Posted by MVDarlin

Try cruising the Sea of Cortez. Very economical. Many reasonably priced boats in Mexico. Folks live the dream for a few years and don't want to hassel with taking boat back to the US. Anticipate you need $1,000 per week after you buy the boat. I found a nice 34ft C&C in Alaska for $18,000 with new Yanmar engine.

What is cheap to one person is not cheap to someone else. There are many successful liveaboards spending much less than $1000 a week.

[DefinitelyMe]

Originally Posted by captlloyd

What is cheap to one person is not cheap to someone else. There are many successful liveaboards spending much less than $1000 a week.

Ha ha ha ha ha! $1000 a WEEK! I don't even know how I could spend that much if I wanted to!

[Tanqueray]

Did I miss the where you have the funds to purchase a live-aboard boat?

Sounds like you can live cheaply enough to make things work, barring any serious cost-hogging issues...but you have to have the $$ to buy the boat in the first place.

Greg

[SV MAKAI]

[QUOTE=avi_normal;2918005]I've got this idea on my mind and it would be great to get some input from anyone with experience.

Totally doable. Go for it.

Check out sailing Kitty wake on YouTube. They are a young couple sailing and working on about $700 a month. They're in the med.

one thing to remember is that while you are out there life will happen to you. That means both the good and the bad. you will find opportunities that you can't even imagine right now. Just go for it and see what happens. If you don't you're always going to wonder what could have been.

If you're expecting it to be some kind of dreamy leisurely life then your expectations need to be readjusted.

For some people it's worth it. you just need to figure out what kind of person you are.

The only sure way to find out is to just do it

[TheRailRoader]

Mortgage payments = equity...

Equity can be used to cover major expenses.

Rental surplus covers living and minor issues.

Save up for 5 years and go