This was a first for me! My clients and I viewed a float home for sale in the Queensgate Marina in New West. I’ll share my viewing notes with you in this post in case you’re curious about float homes.
You literally live on the waterfront in a quiet, secluded community at a fraction of the price. Whereas it would cost you millions for a house near Vancouver’s waterfront — think Point Grey or Kitsilano ($4 to $5 million minimum in 2023), you can score a New West float home for under $1 million.
For starters, they’re a rare find; there’s only around 800 float homes in southern BC. The Queensgate Marina has just 15. Some like Coal Harbour have just 3 spaces for float homes, so years can go by before you see one up for sale.
You still pay property tax to your local municipality like you would with a home on land. Services like water and gas are connected to the float homes, though Queensgate is one of the only marinas to have a gas line, which is advantageous for heating and cooking. And make your energy bills cheaper!
Your home will rise with the high tide in the spring thaw when the snow melts in the mountains and runs off. The tide in the Fraser River can rise to 14ft. The changing tide can make it harder for older or fragile folks to walk up to the ramp where from home to land.
Float homes come with water lots. This marks that little piece of body of water which belongs to you. For the home we saw, it was 142sq m. The house is considered a “chattel,” a term we use in real estate to refer to a moveable item.
Property Transfer Tax only applies just on the water lot and not on the house. So if the water lot is valued at $400,000, the PTT equals $6K for the purchase.
Float homes are custom built. Because it’s such a niche market, there’s few builders to approach. My understanding is that there’s only two in the lower mainland. The first is IMF which builds float homes in Seattle, Portland, and Vancouver. The other is a local builder called Lansen Homes.
The listing agent shared that Lansen will only build float homes that are a minimum of 1500sq. ft. If I understood her correctly, the cost of a home today can run up to $650,000. Though, I imagine it could cost more if you’re building a larger home.
Float homes are a great lifestyle choice if you want that quiet, secluded feel and you love being on the water. You’ll have a boat slip beside your home to park your boat.
You also have a car parking space outside the marina reserved for your use. Because Queensgate is far from shopping, you’ll need to do a lot of big box store shopping runs to load up on groceries.
When it comes to financing, options are limited. I understand that there’s only two lenders that will offer loans, TD Bank and Envision Financing. With just two lenders, you’ll have a harder time negotiating a better rate.
Insurance will be higher than your average condo or townhouse, since your entire home could be at risk. We were told that rates are $2500 to $3000 per year, though insurance rates are always changing, so the numbers I share here could be out-of-date by the time you read this.
If you want more information, you can find it by checking out the Floating Home Association of BC. Here’s a link to their Did you know? tab: https://www.floatinghomesbc.ca/did-you-know
Thanks for reading. Best.