Buying a Marina
Waterfront Real Estate That Bills Monthly
A marina is recurring revenue attached to a shoreline nobody is making more of: slips rent like apartments, dry storage renews annually, and the fuel dock, service yard, and store sell to a captive membership of boat owners. That mix is why the trade prices richly for its size and why institutional consolidators moved in years ago. What the listings understate is how much of the deal is paperwork about water: submerged land leases, dredging permits, environmental compliance on fuel systems. The prize is an occupied marina with a waitlist, owned bottomland or a long lease, and honest metal in the docks; the trap is deferred dredging and a lease that reprices at closing.
What Marinas Trade For
Marinas trade around 8x to 14x EBITDA, richer than most service businesses of equal earnings, because slip revenue recurs and the waterfront cannot be replicated; well-located coastal properties clear the top of that band. On the real-estate lens, capitalization rates run roughly 6% to 10%, with waitlisted coastal marinas at 6% to 7% and value-add or secondary-market properties at 8% to 10%. The real estate itself typically carries 40% to 60% of total value, which is why most sales run as combined property-and-business transactions. Occupancy is the market's tell: the median marina runs about 92% full, and more than half report above 95%, so an emptier property is explaining itself.
Slips, Storage, and the Revenue Around Them
Read the revenue in layers. Slip income first: count, size mix, rate card, occupancy, waitlist depth, and the contracts' terms, since annual agreements with utilities billed separately behave differently from month-to-month ties. Dry storage second, with its rack capacity, lift equipment, and labor. Then the ancillary layer that separates marinas of equal slip count: fuel margin and volume, the service yard's real earnings and its technicians, the ship's store, and any restaurant or boat-sales operation, each a business inside the business with its own margins and risks. A marina living on slips alone is simpler and slower; one heavy on service and fuel carries more operation and more upside.
Water, Depth, and the Regulatory File
The distinctive diligence is below the waterline. Who owns the bottomland, and if leased, on what term and reset schedule. What the controlling depth is at the entrance and in the fairways, when dredging was last done, what it cost, and what the permits allow next time, because silt is a recurring capital event with a regulator attached. What the fuel system's tanks, lines, and monitoring show, since a leak is an environmental liability that attaches to owners. What the storm and flood insurance really costs after recent seasons, and what the docks' age and materials imply for the replacement schedule. None of this appears in a listing's EBITDA, and all of it prices the deal.
What to Verify in Diligence
The record to assemble before the offer holds:
- Bottomland ownership or the submerged land lease: term, resets, transfer, and expiry
- Slip inventory, rate card, occupancy, waitlist, and the contracts' actual terms
- Dredging history, current depths, permit status, and the next cycle's cost
- Fuel system condition and compliance: tanks, lines, monitoring, and any incident history
- Dock and rack condition with a replacement schedule, plus lifts and service equipment
- Each ancillary business's own P&L: fuel, service, store, food, boat sales
- Insurance quotes at closing, storm and flood included, not the seller's legacy rates
Financeability Notes
Marinas finance as combined real-estate and operating deals: SBA 504 and 7(a) structures work at the owner-operator scale, and every underwriter reads the file this guide does, the bottomland's tenure, the dredging cycle, the fuel system's compliance, and the insurance line after recent storm seasons. A submerged land lease shorter than the loan is the classic structural objection, and environmental diligence on the fuel infrastructure is standard rather than exceptional. Model debt service net of the harbormaster and service labor the operation needs, with the dredging reserve treated as scheduled capex, and let occupancy and the waitlist carry the growth story only as far as the rate card proves.
What the Data Says
Marinas trade around 8x to 14x EBITDA, with high-quality coastal properties clearing well above 10x, and capitalization rates run roughly 6% to 10%, tightest for waitlisted coastal marinas and widest for value-add and secondary markets.
Most marina sales are combined real-estate and operating-business transactions, with the underlying property typically representing 40% to 60% of total value, and the valuation drivers running from slip count and occupancy through dry storage, fuel and service revenue, and the ancillary businesses on site.
Occupancy is the market's tell in this trade: the median marina runs about 92% occupancy and 56% of marinas report above 95%, so a property materially below those marks is explaining either its market or its management.
Holding a live deal in this industry? Underwrite it with the comps, cited band, and charge-off rate pre-loaded.
Compare bands across industries in the cited multiple bands by industry.
Who Else Is Buying in This Industry
No consolidator is confirmed in this trade from a primary source. Silence means unverified, not uncontested: check the current list before assuming a quiet market.
The Buyers profiles every confirmed firm across all trades.
The Numbers That Run This Business
- Slip occupancy and waitlist depth
- Bottomland tenure: owned or leased, and the lease's term
- Dredging cycle: last done, depths, next cost
- Ancillary revenue: fuel, service yard, store, food
- Dock and rack replacement schedule