Exclusive | Billionaires cant find parking for their megayachts and developers are cashing in
Billionaires have the boats.Now they need somewhere to put them.The world’s wealthiest are hunting for homes that come with a spot for their floating palaces, and developers are tripping over themselves to oblige, turning the marina into luxury real estate’s hottest new amenity.“People want it all now.
They don’t want a waterfront home in one place and their boat somewhere else,” Nick Pérez, president of Related Group’s condominium division, told The Post.The superyacht fleet has exploded since the pandemic.More than 6,000 vessels longer than 98 feet now cruise the globe, with roughly 200 more launched every year, according to SuperYacht Times.
Florida alone now counts about 1 million registered recreational boats.The catch is those boats keep getting bigger, and there aren’t nearly enough berths to go around.“South Florida has changed faster over the past five years than anyone expected, and the number of yachts has grown with it.Marinas haven’t kept pace, especially ones built for the size of yachts we see today,” Pérez said.Jennifer Leong, managing director of developments for Broward County at ONE Sotheby’s International Realty, put it even more bluntly.“For owners of yachts over 100 feet, securing a suitable slip can be harder than finding an off-market penthouse,” Leong told The Post.And even those with plenty of shoreline are paying up for parking elsewhere.“Many of these owners have plenty of water frontage, but they prefer not to obstruct their views and choose to dock at a private marina or purchase a separate property just to park their yacht,” she said.Wall Street smells money.
Blackstone forked over $5.6 billion for Safe Harbor Marinas last year, and Safe Harbor promptly went on its own shopping spree, dropping $1.5 billion in August to scoop up 65 marinas and storage sites from MarineMax.Across the Atlantic, European private equity players are gobbling up Mediterranean harbors to plug the same gap.Nowhere is the fren...