Over the last 10 years, around 1,200 marinas and boatyards around the world have changed hands, with almost 300 being sold and bought last year alone. The global fever for waterfront real estate is hot and the pace of transformation is fast.

Safe Harbor acquired Monaco Marine in 2025 in their first venture into the European market. Wyatt Simpson / Unsplash

What a difference a decade makes. It has been nearly 10 years since the United States’ Internal Revenue Service (IRS) approved changes that clarified the definition of marine related property for purposes of the real estate investment trust (REIT) provisions of the Internal Revenue Code. 

By way of an excerpt of their own provided example, “boat slips and end ties are water space superjacent to land and therefore are real property”. 

There have also been a number of other favourable pre- and post-2016 IRS determinations and private letter rulings relating to the sector, including indoor and outdoor dry dock storage facilities, cabins available for short-term rental on marina grounds, and income attributable to specific services within marinas.

The overall, fundamental modification was that real property was determined to include fixed docks and floating docks, regardless of how they were secured to the seabed or submerged land bottom. The IRS now considered income generated from customer boat slips as REIT qualifiable income from real property for the purposes of the relevant income tests.

Furthermore, under a REIT structure, current and future marina portfolio owners could potentially create a tax-advantageous stock offering, a unit-based currency per se, to provide to sellers to facilitate a sale or contribution of their marina asset.

At the time, there were initially oscillating opinions from those working within the commercial real estate sector as to if or when marinas may directly follow other asset classes that had been consolidated into privately owned or publicly traded REIT portfolios. The broader implications could potentially affect the marina industry in a similar way that already had happened with other individual commercial asset classes tied to the healthcare, hospitality, industrial, infrastructure, multifamily, office, retail and self-storage sectors. 

My personal expectation was that it would indeed follow suit, and most similarly to what had transpired within the RV and holiday park sector, a very customer service-driven business that relies on nightly, transient, weekly, monthly, and sometimes annual rentals, typically passes on some level of utility charges via the use of power pedestals, and often includes similar amenities such as laundry, restroom and showering facilities. There is also a small portion of the recreational vehicle park sector dedicated to the fee-simple sale of pad sites, similar to the sale of individual dry and wet slips within a portion of the marina sector. The biggest difference that exists is that marinas have substantially higher capital expenditure requirements and expenses, mainly tied to operational matters, considerable geographical differences and direct exposure to a broader range of weather.

The financial effort to acquire individual marinas and boatyards to create a portfolio of scale would likely require some heavy lifting, somewhat comparable to the other asset classes that had already historically been consolidated. It would require capital alternatives well beyond the use of traditional measures via local or regional banking relationships, fundraising through high-net-worth friends and family or working through smaller scale investment firms.

Total marina acquisitions from 2016-2026. Data from Jason Spalding

Growth cycle

Enter the alternative asset managers, boutique financial service firms, global investment bankers and infrastructure partners all with some form of opportunistic funds or private equity placement. The opportunity to invest into a fragmented, niche asset class with extremely high barriers to entry and limited number of properties on a global scale all pointed to the sector being ripe for consolidation.

Such consolidation would require alignment with experienced and knowledgeable ownership and operating partners who fully understand the customer service side of the business, can oversee operational efficiencies and in many instances manage the skilled workforce capable of providing quality refit and maintenance services. As a result, the initial growth and expansion in the sector was limited to a handful of entities that already had these measurable and quantifiable factors in place.

Fast forward to today and there are now 42 portfolio owners or operators that I am tracking in the United States, and another 23 entities internationally.

From my internal tracking database, on an individual asset basis dating back to the beginning of 2016 through to the end of Q1 2026, a total of 1,183 marinas and boatyards have exchanged hands.

From a much larger scale consolidation viewpoint, including two currently pending deals, there will have been a total of 40 international portfolio transactions involving the outright sale or merger and acquisition of existing portfolios since the beginning of 2016.

The 40 international portfolio transactions include the resale of a handful of portfolios or expanded portfolios, and will cumulatively total just over 600 marinas and boatyards.

Outside of my own consulting and transactional experience with a number of portfolios, both nationally and internationally, some potential sellers have used a more targeted approach via “quiet offerings” through such firms as Goldman Sachs, Jefferies, Lazard and Moelis.

Although some with enduring connections to the sector have mixed feelings, the increased number of individual acquisitions, combined with the consolidation of portfolios, is actually a positive for the industry. From a banking, lending and investment standpoint the industry as a whole has lacked a true data set of historical transactions and the financial performances of marine related assets. As more marinas and boatyards exchange ownership at a faster pace it has allowed for a better and broader understanding of the geographical differences and variety of associated revenue streams such as food and beverage, hospitality, marine related retail, maintenance and refit services and fuel. 

This better and broader understanding has translated into additional funding opportunities, more investment as well as subsequent facility expansions and reconfigurations. At one point in time there was only limited outsider knowledge of the operations, services and capital expenditures required to keep even an individual facility optimally performing. In general, additional transactions equate to a higher level of financial performance and metric transparency from new parties evaluating the sector.

CEO of Safe Harbor Marinas, Baxter Underwood, speaking at the ICOMIA World Marinas Conference 2025 in Venice. ICOMA World Marinas Conference

Sustainable transition and capital interest

From a local and regional level to a larger global perspective, the industry still remains fairly fragmented and a shift in generational mindsets is propelling the industry to a higher level of onsite experiential activities, increased convenience and improved customer service. Such matters are currently being addressed in a variety of ways through selected branding, tenant partnerships, improved employee training and integrated technology, all of which lead to an enhanced boater experience. 

The marina industry is now simultaneously growing, evolving and adapting at a record pace within a sector that had notoriously and oftentimes stubbornly been very slow to grow, evolve and adapt.

Continued institutional capital interest in the marina industry will assist in progressing through many of these changes. Most larger investment firms have existing experience and expertise in a variety of other commercial real estate asset classes. In some form or fashion, the lessons learned from these other asset classes in operational improvements, scaling and consolidation can be applied to marinas and boatyards.

As I have had high-level industry discussions with many of these firms I can attest that the majority of them have a proven, thematic investing mindset. Their proficiency in real estate fundamentals and value-added approach has allowed them and their industry partners to build portfolios that strive to cater to the needs of all customers at all levels. They ultimately identify and align with compatible operational companies and transform them into market leaders, and often grow them into international property portfolios worth hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.

Suntex Marinas launched a new boat club at Saguaro Lake Marina in Arizona in July 2025. Suntex Marinas

What does the future hold?

So where is the industry heading over the next 10 years?

I anticipate that most of the larger entities in the US will continue to selectively pursue specific merger and acquisition targets nationally while continuing their push to enter international markets in a selective manner. Similarly, some of the larger entities internationally will continue to consolidate and look into other markets for expansion opportunities, potentially including the US, Latin America and Caribbean markets where properties can often be built and owned fee-simple rather than relying on long-term government leases or concessions.

In addition, for a number of the newer entities that have entered into the sector, they will continue to acquire smaller to medium-sized assets to eventually scale up to a portfolio of size based on their total slip count.

The entities that have the proper backing and funding will likely look into:

  • Maximising their existing overall location and current real estate footprint as well as facility expansion through adjacent property acquisitions.
  • Full rebuilds of dated facilities where slips can be reconfigured or expanded, which can save substantial time versus attempting to start with a brand new development location when done in conjunction with new or improved boater amenities. 
  • Infill properties for automated drystack facilities. The cost of going vertical on a smaller parcel can equalise development costs in markets that can command higher dry slip rates, regardless of if it is developed on raw land or a tear-down scenario with an existing, unused building.
  • New development in certain markets with transitioning waterfront uses and older ports, repurposing locations in which historic infrastructure was originally designed for manufacturing or shipping and developing them into recreational marinas.

Outside of this there is currently a large push for industry growth in certain parts of the world, including the Asia-Pacific, the Middle East as well as emerging parts of the Caribbean and Latin America. A number of new development marina projects are either in the initial planning stages or being constructed. As more governments and their respective tourism boards focus on waterfront infrastructure they are beginning to realise the true value of incorporating recreational boating and yachting facilities into their short-term plans to achieve their long-term goals. 

For a substantial period of time it seemed as though the positive financial impacts that the marina industry could have on a local economy were often both overlooked and understated. Although there have been a number of historical initiatives implemented, including those tied to grant programmes and blue economy pursuits, I believe that the industry as a whole really needs to continue to push for more strategic programmes and policies to continue growing the sector.