A boat on the river?

Happy moorings: Sheba Cassini

5 April 2012

As prices for bricks and mortar continue to rise by up to 25 per cent a year, more and more people are buying houseboats, narrow boats and even old barges in a bid to bag a cheap home.

People who lived in boats were once labelled as hippies, but today 15,000 own them, from stockbrokers to pensioners.

And celebrities like them, too. Richard Branson built his Virgin empire from a houseboat and the artist Damien Hirst and film producer Lord Puttnam have boats as pied-a-terres in central London.

As boats can be moored anywhere (including town and city centres) and make unusual and innovative homes, the demand for moorings is outstripping supply. Bargains are disappearing as vessels and mooring licences become scarcer.

In London, where houseboats became chic in the Eighties, moorings can cost £7,000 a year.

But it can be much cheaper elsewhere. For example, in Birmingham, it's about £2,000. Many councils are keen to encourage boatdwellers and prices can drop to a few hundred pounds in more far-flung moorings.

British Waterways, the national canal and river regulatory organisation, advises you not to buy a boat to live in until you have secured a mooring. By law, you need a licence just to chug around.

But while some owners spend the whole year on their boat (known as ' liveaboards') others go for the softer option and spend the winter as landlubbers in a rented house or flat. Val and Michael Lee, retired liveaboard narrowboat owners who cruise the canals of the Midlands between April and November, recommend that you test out different sized boats before you buy.

Their boat, Thistle, is 70ft long and although it's more spacious than standard 50 or 60-footers, it means they can't travel on northern canals where the locks cannot accommodate longer boats.

The couple often take friends who are considering living on a houseboat on extended cruises - there is a huge difference between a two-week holiday and life on the canal.

'The camaraderie among boat owners is great and so is being close to nature, plus it's great being able to escape day-to-day pressures such as annoying neighbours,' says Michael.

But he warns that buying or building a narrowboat can be expensive and maintaining one properly isn't cheap.

A used 30ft to 40ft narrowboatcosts between £25,000 and £40,000, depending on condition. To build one costs approximately £1,200 a foot.

Every two years, a narrowboat needs to be dry-docked and 'blacked' (or bitumen coated), costing approximately £600.

You won't pay council tax but if you winter in a marina then, for example in Birmingham, it's 41p a foot per week. A British Waterways boat licence costs between £500 and £638 a year depending on the length, plus there's insurance, which will be several hundred pounds.

A Dutch barge is slightly wider than a narrowboat at just over 16ft but much longer at 98ft. They are seaworthy, should you wish to pop across to France or Belgium.

Sheba Cassini, 37, an illustrator, lives on a 100-year-old Dutch barge in Battersea, South London.

She has three bedrooms (one en suite with a fourposter bed), a corner bath and a 20ft living room. Sheba paid £27,000 for her barge six years ago and has spent £40,000 doing it up. It is now worth about £150,000.

Deluxe conversions with all mod cons sell for more than £300,000.

'I always dreamed of living on a boat and, after I lived on someone's else's for six months, I knew I couldn't go back to living on land - but it took a year to find mine,' she says.

'It can be freezing in the winter, so you've got to be hardy to live in one.'

Her mooring costs £667 a month, and fuel is £150 every six weeks. Her barge has to have a six-yearly 'MoT' (Boat Safety Certificate) which takes six weeks and involves being towed to a dry dock.

'In the summer, we have barbecues on deck and my friends feel like they're on holiday. It's like an oasis in central London,' says Sheba.

Another option is a houseboat - a floating home rather than a boat.

The Skeen family own a five-bedroom houseboat in Burnham on Crouch, Essex.

Unable to afford anything more than a two-bedroom home in the area, 43-year-old media consultant Nick, his wife Leda and their three teenage sons built a steel deckhouse on top of a concrete hull used for the Normandy landings to make a two-storey houseboat.

Anchored by eight chains, it sits alongside four other boats, which each pay £1,700 a year in rent to the council.

'Bad weather can be nerveracking, but the electric storms that criss-cross the mudflats are stunning. The view is continually changing,' says Nick.

'We have so much space - four times what we could afford on land - and we are in a far better location.'

One drawback is that you may not be able to get a mortgage because boats are considered chattels. You will have to go to a specialist finance provider and may need a large cash deposit.

And it is essential to get a survey as boats can throw up as many horrors as houses.

For more details, contact the Dutch Barge Association on 01634 362788 British Waterways on 01923 201120.

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