Med' commuters = advice please

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PCUK

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I'm expecting to have a small lottery win shortly, probably only around the 1 million mark so not enough for a complete life change. How many keep a boat down there and use it as a holiday home and how many have a villa/apartment as well. I'm talking about commuters not permanent residents. Should I get an older boat (about 45ft and around £250,000) and use that as the home abroad, or go for a smaller boat (still comfortable accommodation) and an apartment. Spain or France would be fine. Just can't decide on what is the best bet both economically and pleasure-wise. Any views? Cheers, Peter:rolleyes:
 
Depends on how you like your boating, if you are going frequently you need something bigger and probably flybridge as you will be spending a lot of time on board and tied up. My preference is good size sports boat and an apartment so you get comfort whatever you are doing! Makes your lottery win go further too as per sq foot apartment and smaller boat will make a better investment...
 
Apartment plus relatively small (25foot) boat for us.

Works fine for me, but obviously the distance I can cover on the boat is relatively small compared to owning say a 40 footer.

Pros

Lower boat running costs
Lower boat depreciation
Apartment appreciates in value
Can have the boat lifted /worked on mid holiday without being kicked out of my home

Cons

Limited cruising range/stuck in one location/area
Can't overnight on it for any significant period of time.
Higher initial outlay maybe
 
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PCUK said:
I'm expecting to have a small lottery win shortly, probably only around the 1 million mark so not enough for a complete life change.
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Half that would be a fantastic change to my life!

Congrats though, a huge number of possibilities with that budget.
 
Apartment in Antibes old town -boat 48 ftr open Itama not purchased new -based in La Napoule 1/2 hour down the A8 .
Boat has aircon so we "Summer " on that , weeks at a time. Big enough to go all over the Med if we want to - Corsica, Elba, Italy , as well as SoF coast
Apartment ,s nice at the edge or out of season .Also stick guest in it when we want the boat to ourselves :sleeping:
Man mathematically speaking for every Euro spent - and Euro,s depreciating on the boat its covered in the long term by bricks and mortor appreciating investment. Well that's the theory ?
Also factor in a potential mooring sites and -research lease expire dates ,ours was expiring 2024 ,but we have been granted another 5 years taking it 2029
(TBA at our AGM Sept ) for working closely with the Mayor with a little development plan .
Initially you will need to visit as many site as poss -factor transport in , look at property prices etc .
Buy the boat the mooring later ?
 
PCUK said:
I'm expecting to have a small lottery win shortly, probably only around the 1 million mark so not enough for a complete life change. How many keep a boat down there and use it as a holiday home and how many have a villa/apartment as well. I'm talking about commuters not permanent residents. Should I get an older boat (about 45ft and around £250,000) and use that as the home abroad, or go for a smaller boat (still comfortable accommodation) and an apartment. Spain or France would be fine. Just can't decide on what is the best bet both economically and pleasure-wise. Any views? Cheers, Peter:rolleyes:
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Am I the only one to spot this? :rolleyes:
 
Assuming this post is semi serious, here's my take. The SWMBO and I have considered buying a property in the Med many times but we have always concluded that we wouldn't want to be tied to just one location. There are so many beautiful areas in the Med, many of which are best visited by boat, that for us owning a boat only which we can move around at will works much better than a property + boat. As to what type of boat works best as both a home away from home and a cruising boat, it has to be a flybridge boat rather than a sports boat because the interior accomodation and exterior deck spaces are so much larger. For reasonable comfort I would say also that it has to be 40ft+ and have 3 sleeping cabins rather than 2 because inevitably you will have guests on board unless you're a real billy no mates
 
Thanks for all the replies so far. Well spotted Pinnacle! But it is still a serious question as It's something we want to do eventually. The point about appreciating property and depreciating boat are worth consideration. I am currently rebuilding my 8m sports cruiser so depreciation won't really come into it as she will be a one-off and not likely to fetch a huge return anyway but will be fitted out to be comfortable for longer trips for two.:cool:
 
PCUK said:
Well spotted Pinnacle! But it is still a serious question as It's something we want to do eventually.
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Guess winning 1Mil on the lottery is something most of us want to do. When you decide its "your week to win" please pm me the numbers.....
 
In all seriousness, we will be selling up in the UK and buying in Beaulieu Sur Mer or the immediate surrounds in 2017. We currently have our 10m yacht there and spend 2 x two week breaks a year as well as 6 other 4-5 day long weekends. We are planning on buying an apartment for around 6-700000€ and changing from sail to power in the 40's. Why - well we won't be living down there permanently so we can rent the apartment for holiday lets, stay on the boat and expand our cruising area. In all we figure the rent will pay for the boat annual running and berthing costs. Do that till we retire and then swap to a smaller boat when we then live in Beaulieu Sur Mer permanently.

Heaven help anyone who gets in our road. Now if our secret numbers come up it might happen sooner and slightly more extravagantly.
 
We avoided looking at Med property and instead kept our home in Jersey.
We have a 10meter 33foot Aquastar motor boat that we live on in the Med during the summer,
plenty big enough for the two of us and gets a bit tight but still room for a couple of short term guests.
 
Apartment in the south of Spain and a 22ft sportsboat. Initially I wanted to just buy a 40-50ft flybridge but then other considerations kicked in: female family members less keen on boating, potential appreciation of apartment etc.
I have no regrets: boat maintenance is much cheaper, fun factor of blasting around close to 40kts,...
 
"fun factor" - yup the weather helps makes that more of a given in the Med
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PCUK said:
Moving on, it appears that we now fancy Italy, the Amalfi coast specifically, wherever that is! Any thoughts on that area?
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Its stunningly beautiful but its near Naples which IMHO is the shittiest city in Italy
 
PCUK said:
Moving on, it appears that we now fancy Italy, the Amalfi coast specifically, wherever that is! Any thoughts on that area?
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On the Amalfi coast just now (3 hour drive south of Rome, southern side of the Sorrentine peninsula), half way through our holiday. Have to agree with Deleted User, Naples is dirty, crowded and suffers from a chaotic infrastructure. But so are many places on the peninsula (and presumably many places in southern Italy). The Amalfi coastline is amazing, but only nice to visit where tourism brings money in. All other places are incredibly miserable (and some of the nice places too if you look behind the scenes). Loads of rubbish everywhere, plenty of people hanging around, full time doing nothing, and a general attitude of getting the most while giving the least in return. The word 'maintenance' must have been removed from the Italian dictionary decades ago, especially regarding houses and buildings. Mind you, if you Google pictures from the area you always find distant views of great beauty - not closer views of streets etc.
Streetview might give you an idea.

Italy certainly has room for improvement. And need.

The area has some given attractions like Pompei, but before long I fear tourists get fed up with waiting in line for hours in burning sun just because some geek have decided that only one ticket sale is open. Oh, and of course parking is sparse and eye watering as (avg. 5 EUR per hour) and the site takes at least three hours to see. And yes, if you happen to run out of parking time they have a rapid tow away service.

BTW there is no information whatsoever inside the site because it is considered an archeological site, not a museum.

Plenty of huge and smaller boats along the coast but crews seems to stay onboard.

All IMO and while sitting in the midst of it.
 
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PCUK said:
Oh, Anywhere else in Italy that might be nicer and affordable for moorings. If not it's back to Spain again.
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Well its bleedin' obvious isn't it:D:D Haven't you being reading this thread http://www.ybw.com/forums/showthread.php?421307-Sardinia-Summer-2015

Beautiful coastline. Cheap property. Flights all year round. Cheap moorings

There are 2 other areas you might look at it. SW Majorca which has some lovely properties (although quite expensive), excellent boating and year round flights. Alternatively how about Tuscany which is stunning. Keep your boat near Pisa although that coastline isn't very interesting
 
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