Marina Analysis

Not sure of books on the matter but have found some excel templates online after Googling.. personally underwritten two different marina projects while in brokerage and now work at a developer that is accessing whether or not one would be accretive to a waterfront project of ours. Main things to look out for are streams of income- obv slips, but any storage? Full year or winter-only? How about concessions (bait-and-tackle? Club house?) Re-fueling and repairs? Operating a full-blown marina is no joke and seems to be a headache to maintain but returns are generally good (7-8% cap) and haven’t compressed over the last few years as much as other property types. Navigating the obvious seasonality is also a big component along w insurance coverage/cost

Multifamily….but for boats!

Use an adapted Multifamily model of self storage model same concept

Cf are Cf

Not sure exactly how I found it, definitely took some digging. But as someone above said treat it like multifamily but for boats, top line revenue is rent from slips and other income is storage, concessions, membership fees, etc. There should be market studies you can find that point you in the right direction. Difficult part is determining “lease up” schedule, I.e. how meant boats per month will you be able to rent and for how much? How does seasonality impact this? Are there demand drivers nearby that impact this? These are the questions you’ll need to answer. I’d suggest talking to a marina owner or broker in your area who’s closed a marina deal to hone in on your assumptions

FYI just googled “marina pro forma” and a number of examples came up..

Not the side of the industry I'm in but I have some in depth knowledge from a close friend that owns and operates a marina. Extremely location dependent, but they have a waiting list for dry stack and wet slips that is 2+ years. You will ownership setups that mirror multi family or condo type setups. Winter storage is often a pretty big top line driver in seasonal markets (typically secure warehouses also carries a waiting list for non dry stack customers). Goes without saying but being coastal hurricanes are not an if but a when and how bad. I could go on for a while but most of your typical operational cost are present just with tweaks for the product. On the acquisition side it can be a total crap shoot with a lot of family owned assets that are severely under maintained. Property tax just like any property are a factor with marinas being on land with very valuable water access. As far as models, best bet would be to adjust a multi model to fit.

Meant to add to my above post but transient docking can be very material as well as marine fuel with a dollar per gallon markup not being uncommon.

You can evaluate with Revenue Per Available Slip, kinda like RevPAR for hotels. Apply a daily rate and occupancy to arrive at this figure.

Daily rate aka pricing is based on length of the slip. 30 foot slip x $5 per linear foot as an example.

Depending on the market, some slips may be reserved for seasonal rentals where the marina charges a premium per foot for a shorter term rental period, such as a few days or even the entire season.

Cap rate is highly dependent on the market. Florida Keys gonna be a much lower cap rate than Chesapeake Bay.