Quote Originally Posted by Julie Moriarty View Post
The question I posed came from seeing so many houses on ocean access canals that had no boat at their dock/seawall. I'd guess anywhere between 1/2 to 2/3 of the houses had no boat. Anyone who has ever been to a marina knows boats sit in their slip or at their mooring most of the time, so you can't say the boats were probably out on the water when they took the satellite picture. Maybe 5% were, tops. Those home owners wanted a home on the water and paid a premium price for that. From what I've seen, that premium could be 25% or more.

The view isn't all that great. Some look at mangroves. Most look at the house on the other side of the canal. It's not like living on the ocean or a lake, where you get changing sea states, sunrises and sunsets, and an expansive view. It's the same view all the time and the water is usually brown or green. If you don't own a boat, why pay the premium price? I don't get it.

Now if some of those homeowners could understand the insanity of owning one of these homes without owning a boat, maybe they might want to sell it...

to me.
Another issue with some of those canals - They can be improperly designed so that they don't flush out as the tide comes in and goes out and the water can get somewhat foul (caused by a number of things but fertilizer runoff is one cause. It causes algae growth and that removes the oxygen, then you get dead fish. I'm sure there are other causes). This is mostly true for dead end canals. It's likely that any canals built in the last 30 years or so are properly designed, but many of those places were put in during the 50's when regulations were not as stringent. If you think you might want a house on a canal, talk to the neighbors and see what their experience is with the canal.

You may have to pay a share to have the canal dredged every so many years because they tend to silt up, especially dead end canals.

Mike