Buying a private mooring

[VicS]

I may have the opportunity to buy a private drying mooring in mooring in a solent Harbour.

It dies by over 1 metre, but the actual drying height varies according to how the mud builds up or is swept away each year, and is suitable for boats up to about 30 ft

There would be an annual ground rental fee of about £120 payable to the harbour authority. (This has been paid for this year) I would of course be responsible for having an annual survey carried out and for all maintenance. I believe it has been inspected and is currently fit for service but I have not yet had the opportunity to look at it myself to make an assessment of when the next chain renewal will be necessary I don't know how old the present chain is ( 3/8" I think) but I expect I can find out.

I was wondering what the forum thinks would be fair price to pay.

 

[KAL]

They're like hens' teeth around here and becoming more rare. No idea of price, but if you can go for it, I would do. You should always be able to recoup your original price as a minimum.

Good luck!

 

[Tranona]

I was wondering what the forum thinks would be fair price to pay.

Fair to whom? What exactly are you buying? Is it a defined lease or is it effectively freehold? Do you have a right to sublet and sell at some point in the future?

From your point of view assess it against the alternative of renting for, say 10 years, taking into account the maintenance costs. Of course if it can be sold at the end you need to consider that, but recognise your money is tied up while you own it.

You can do all sorts of fancy investment appraisals but the price you arrive at depends on the assumptions you make. so you might just make it simple and calculate your annual savings and then decide how much of your capital you are prepared to give up to achieve those savings. Perhaps better, though to ask the seller how much he wants to give up the right to the mooring and then decide if it is worth it.

 

[Seajet]

If it's the harbour I think it is, a fair few £ hundred would seem fair for a drying mooring as long as it becomes yours.

Remember you may well need a drysuit unless it's mid summer and a serious inspection right down to the sinker is vital; unless a moorings raft and team is handy I find the best way is to tie the boat to the mooring, then while there is still some water pull the tender right forward, with a spade and gardening gloves handy along with a bottle of mineral water - also seizing wire and pliers, in case what you find is OK but unsecured, it would be a shame to have to revisit for that.

Do try to avoid any mud work alone, at the very least have a waterproof handheld or mobile in a tupperware box - but don't do it alone, such work can involve a lot of exertion.

 

[Daydream believer]

I admit that I do not know this area but i would suggest that you check the rules first. In our area moorings are not transferable and we only rent sites not tackle. The position of the site can be changed at our discretion.
New holders have to make a new application. We need to know who they are. This is to prevent queue jumping which is unfair to those waiting for a mooring
We also insist that unless the mooring is in good condition & we have inspected it ourselves then the new owner has to have a new one. This is because some owners try to sell on what is really just a necklace & the new owner finds his boat adrift & doing damage to others in no time.

The point I am making is that the current owner may not be empowered to sell

So if you are buying a mooring tackle rather than a lease for a site then it is just the value of that tackle.
For a guide you might like to look at www.stlawrencefairway.com scroll down under the tab "about us" which outlines the cost of our mooring tackle etc. Of course this may be totally irrelevant & I would apologise for that. But it may be a guide to cost

As for taking on a lease - then as i said - no idea
isn't it good how forumites start by saying that they do not know then write speals about it proving just that!!!!! oh dear

 

[bedouin]

I would thought as a ball park you should be looking at about 10x the annual cost of renting a similar mooring.

 

[maby]

I would thought as a ball park you should be looking at about 10x the annual cost of renting a similar mooring.

Probably right. We were looking at marina moorings for sale in the Southampton area early this year and they were certainly going at that sort of ratio. I assume that the OP is not considering moving house? There are several very nice houses and flats in Ocean Village on the market now with 30 foot berths included. We came very close to buying one, but the marina management would not allow us to put our boat on the berth because we would have stuck out too far!

 

[Tranona]

Probably right. We were looking at marina moorings for sale in the Southampton area early this year and they were certainly going at that sort of ratio. I assume that the OP is not considering moving house? There are several very nice houses and flats in Ocean Village on the market now with 30 foot berths included. We came very close to buying one, but the marina management would not allow us to put our boat on the berth because we would have stuck out too far!

Prices vary according to the terms of the lease. Some are on 99 year leases, others on shorter terms. This is common in the med where leases tend to be fixed term. So the price will depend on how much of the lease is left.

Vic needs to know exactly what right he is buying before he decides what to pay.

 

[dom]

Vic needs to know exactly what right he is buying before he decides what to pay.

Definitely the key point here. If say a 99 yr fully transferable lease with a known current annual income; then the formula Inc/(r-g) would provide a reasonable approximation:

Inc: ann income less maint + other cost
r: comparable risk adjusted rate for similar cashflows. 8% is the stock markets' average discount rate so prob a good starting point
g: growth. For this one would probably use the BoE's inflation target of 2%​

So you'd get: Inc/(0.08 - 0.02) = Inc/0.06, or about 16x annual rental. But again without the dets a hard number is not possible.

 

[doug748]

In my experience, which is in another place but may be useful.
As above, find out the cost of a similar mooring and weigh the costs. The 10X thing only works for fully serviced moorings, you will want to pay a lot less because of the outgoings you will have for maintenance, inspection, certification and rental. For 30 footer mooring you really need a work boat to fettle it in view of the lifting and general mess. It is cold, wet, hard work and, because you will need to have it inspected anyways, few individuals. will want to DIY it.
In my area a fully serviced swinging mooring can be rented for £1500pa. When I took on my mooring the owner asked £1000, as it needed work we settled on £500. This is for the chain and gear, I actually own nothing else though in practice the Harbourmaster would not find it easy to evict.
Getting a good reliable company to inspect and certify is a key matter and may not be easy. I pay c£150 for this, new chain every 3 or 4 years is a 500 quidder and just this morning I had the happy new that I need a new Hippo another 500 pound job. Thus it probably averages 400 a year, plus your rent but my figures are for a 12m mooring.

 

[alahol2]

I've bought and sold a couple of moorings over the years. This is ONLY for the mooring equipment. It really depends what is down there but for a selection of anchors/blocks/ground chain/risers etc the going rate has been in the £200 - £400 range. Whenever I have bought a mooring I probably spend another couple of hundred on replacements. I have free (drinks/favours returned) access to a mooring barge and helpers and do all the work myself.
If you are also buying the rights to use the spot then I could imagine that being the 'expensive' part of the transaction.

 

[VicS]

Thanks for the reponses.

All details will have to be confirmed in writing but as I understand it the price will include all the current hardware from the sinker to the pickup buoy.

AND the mooring site licence from the harbour authority. This is probably the most attractive/ valuable part of the offer.

I'd not be interested ( or capable) of doing any maintenance myself so an annual inspection and occasional chain replacement will be a regular expense. In the longer term of course the sinker and cast in heavy chain will have to be renewed but I don't think that will be necessary in my lifetime.

 

[Seajet]

VicS,

have you got absolute confirmation as to what the sinker consists of ?

At my club, being near a railway line knobbled by Beeching, when I first joined in the mid-late 1970's the mooring sinkers consisted of two crossed railway sleepers, which were inadequate even for the smaller boats of those days !

Long since we have standardised on concrete discs, 1 metre diameter by 18-24" ( I forget right now ) deep, with a big steel eye cast in; these are dug in around 3'.

We now have big permanently floating buoys ( which clonk on the forefoot and eventually collect barnacles ) and the riser chain inbetween is truly massive ' destroyer ' stuff; then a swivel on top of the buoy and chain - or rope if ignorant re chafe - with the pickup buoy.

My father laid one of these concrete discs by slinging it under a stout bit of wood across his Centaur pulpit; aiming for the dug hole is by two pairs of bamboo canes set in the mud to form a transit 90 degrees to each other.

Pulling a sinker up to replace it or the chain is a whole different ball game though, requiring a purpose made raft.

One does sometimes hear of old car engine blocks used as sinkers, an idea which doesn't turn me on.

 

[chinita]

Moving away from chain, sinkers et al. Where do you park your car and leave your dinghy? I looked at a mooring at Starcross and the nearest place was about 58 miles away.

 

[VicS]

VicS,

have you got absolute confirmation as to what the sinker consists of ?

We now have big permanently floating buoys ( which clonk on the forefoot a.

Its a concrete sinker with a length of heavy chain cast in. No floating buoy , just the pick up buoy

Moving away from chain, sinkers et al. Where do you park your car and leave your dinghy? I looked at a mooring at Starcross and the nearest place was about 58 miles away.

I have car parking and dinghy storage available nearby

 

[Moonbeam]

Regarding what is a reasonable price... we saw an advert posted in the local sailing club for a swinging (drying) mooring for sale at Dell Quay, Chi Harbour. I think it was £2500 if my memory serves. This was 2009. As we were based in Chi Harbour back then, we were very interested... I phoned the seller, but it had already been sold.

 

[oldharry]

Value is dropping round Chi Harbour at least, as most mooring contractors now have vacancies. I own a B3 in a less popular part of the harbour, valued when i bought it at £1500, I would expect to get around £1000 for it in todays depressed market - not that its for sale. The DQ mooring in 2009 was reckoned to be overprived - but it sold anyway, probably because they so rarely come up. The higher value reflected the fact that it was not easy to get any mooring in the Harbour in those days, most places were full and had waiting lists, though the Harbour Board would always fit you in somewhere.

Chi Harbour arrangements are that you own the ground tackle, and buy a 'mooring licence' each year from the Harbour Conservancy. No pay, you lose the licence and the mooring site is reclaimed by the HM. Not sure whether you could pesuade them to sell it back to you later on, but I understand it is unlikely, as they can rent it out in my case for around £750pa after replacing the ground tackle. Legally I own the tackle including the sinker, and am licensed to lay it in that one specific location until March 31st each year. I have security of tenure until I either relinquish the licence either to the HM or to another buyer, or fail to pay up. I would have to have permission from the HM to transfer my Site Licence, but AFAIK that is a formality.

I am able to do all my own maintenance, but CHC will check out and do any necessary maintenance for a private mooiring on request - though i dont know how much they charge nowadays.