Moving a floating house – … is done rarely.
A question people ask us fairly often is whether they can buy a floating house and move it. As you can see from the video, it is possible to move a floating home. There are some major things to consider and criteria you must meet to move an existing home to a new moorage, which causes it to be done rarely. In short, moving a floating house is done rarely, and it is pricey.
A checklist for moving a floating house:
- It is expensive to physically move a floating home. To hire a tug, it can cost $5,000 – $10,000 to move the home, depending on the size of the home and distance it is being moved.
- You must be able to secure a slip to move it into. There are no new floating home moorages (marinas) being built. Available slips are scarce and the cost of moving a floating home into an empty slip reflects that. You must either find a moorage with an available slip to rent or a slip to purchase. Floating home slips range in purchase price from about $100,000 to over $400,000 (or $20,000 – $75,000 to move into a rental slip) depending on the moorage, the location of the slip within the moorage, and the size of the slip. At the time of this blog post, there were only about 15 floating homes slips available.
- Your floating home must be able to fit into the available slip. Sizes of available slips vary. The house of your dreams may be 5 feet too wide to fit into the slip you can afford in the moorage location you want.
- Your home and the float must be in good enough condition to withstand the pressures and load of being pushed through a waterway. If your home is relatively new and your float is in good shape, you may not need any float work at all in order to be moved. But, if you need float work prior to moving it, most float replacements cost between $50,000 – $75,000, but it could cost as much as $120,000.
Summary – moving a floating house
In summary, the cost of moving a floating home into a rental slip can range from $25,000 to $200,000, or into an owned slip from $100,000 to $500,000+. Therefore, moving a floating home into a different moorage is just not something that is done very often.
Having a new custom, floating home built for you can oftentimes be a less expensive and less risky venture as compared to moving an existing home.
This video shows a new custom floating home built by Marc Even being moved up river on the Multnomah Channel from his building site in St Helens, OR towards Portland, OR.
If you are interested in building a new floating home, or purchasing an existing home and then moving it into an available slip for purchase or rent, contact us and we can help you with the process.
