Learning Center
How buying a floating home works
It is not a house purchase that happens to be on water. Different classification, different lenders, different inspections, different insurance — and a moorage arrangement that can matter more than the home itself. Here is the whole process, honestly.
Almost everything you know about buying a house stops being true at the end of the dock. There is no deed and no certificate of title. Conventional mortgage desks are not permitted to lend on it. Federal flood insurance does not apply. The city regulates four separate categories of floating residence and calls none of them a houseboat. None of this makes buying on the water a bad idea — Linda lived aboard for nearly fifteen years and has represented these docks for decades — but it does mean the sequence matters, and the order below is not the order a land purchase follows.
Five things that are not true on land
Four legal categories hide behind one word
Seattle says 'houseboat' and means any of four different things. A floating home is a dwelling on a float, permanently moored, permanently connected to utilities — and by statute it is not a vessel. A float on water residence (FOWR) is a floating structure with detachable utilities whose owner held marina space before July 1, 2014. A house barge had to be moored at a Seattle recreational marina before July 1990. A vessel containing a dwelling unit is something else again. Each has its own section of the Seattle Municipal Code, its own eligibility date, and its own consequences for lending, insurance, and moorage rights. Before anything else, get the property's SDCI verification or registration number and find out which one you are actually buying.
Nobody is building more of them
State rules prohibit new over-water residences, and Seattle only permits a floating home where it replaces one that was already legally established on a legally established moorage. A narrow exception lets a marina add sites to rehouse homes displaced under the Equity Ordinance — that makes room for existing homes, not new ones. Practically, the stock is fixed. The Floating Homes Association counts 507 floating homes across 70 docks. That scarcity is why these hold value, and why the buyer pool is patient.
There is no deed and no certificate of title
This is the fact that surprises people most. King County assesses Seattle floating homes as personal property, not real property — each carries a metal placard with a King County Assessor number. There is no certificate of title the way a car or a boat has one, and the home transfers by bill of sale. The Assessor is careful to say its records show who owes personal property tax, not who owns the home. Ownership rests substantially on possession and on documents that are often neither notarized nor recorded, which is exactly why the paperwork trail deserves real scrutiny before closing.
The moorage is half the purchase
You are buying a house and a place to keep it, and the second half can matter more than the first. Moorage comes as an owned slip, a co-op share, a condominium interest, or a lease — and if it is a co-op or condominium, that portion may genuinely be real property with governing documents, reserves, and assessments to review. Most floating homes sit on owned or co-op slips; most FOWRs rent. Two identical-looking homes on the same dock can carry completely different risk depending on what sits underneath them.
A conventional mortgage is not on the table
Fannie Mae's Selling Guide is explicit that it buys loans secured by real estate and names houseboats among the property types that are not eligible. Since a Seattle floating home is personal property with no title, it fails that test at the threshold. Financing comes from portfolio lenders — banks that keep the loan on their own books and underwrite the float, the moorage, and the borrower on judgment. That is a smaller field with its own rules, so the lender conversation belongs at the very start of your search, not after you find the home.
The process, in the order it actually happens
- 01
Talk to a portfolio lender before you tour anything
On land you get pre-approved and shop. Here the lender decides what you are even allowed to consider. Banner Bank publishes floating home loans with a 20 percent minimum down payment on a purchase, fixed 20- or 30-year fully amortized terms, and an owner-occupancy requirement — and it explicitly will not lend on a boathouse, barge, or liveaboard boat. Sound Community Bank writes floating home loans on Lake Union, Portage Bay, and Lake Washington and says it funds houseboats and jumbo amounts. Those are two different eligibility maps, which is the point: your category determines your lender list.
Watch for: Down payment, term, and rate here are lender-by-lender rather than market-standard. Get a written quote early, and ask directly whether the float survey result affects the term they will offer.
- 02
Confirm the category on paper
Ask for the SDCI verification or registration number and confirm whether the property is a floating home, a FOWR, a house barge, or a vessel with a dwelling unit. This single answer drives the lending, the insurance market, the tax treatment, the sewer obligation, and — critically — whether Seattle's moorage tenant protections apply to you at all.
Watch for: A listing that calls something a houseboat tells you nothing legally. Sellers and even some agents use the word loosely. Get the number.
- 03
Read the moorage documents like they are the deal
Find out whether the slip is owned, a co-op share, a condominium interest, or a lease, and get the actual documents. On a co-op or condominium, read the governing documents, the reserve study, and the assessment history the same way a careful condo buyer would. On a lease, read the whole lease — including who the moorage owner is, when the term ends, and what the fee history looks like.
Watch for: Seattle's Equity Ordinance can be waived — voluntarily, knowingly, in a written lease, for that lease term. A buyer taking assignment of a lease containing a waiver may have none of the protections described below. Look for it specifically.
- 04
Ask whether the moorage sits on state aquatic land
Much of the bed under Lake Union and Portage Bay is state-owned aquatic land leased from the Department of Natural Resources. Under state rule, a site is grandfathered into the lower water-dependent rent rate only if a floating house was moored there under a DNR lease on October 1, 1984, or for the three years before that date. Non-grandfathered sites pay the substantially higher nonwater-dependent rate. Grandfathered status is fragile: if a home leaves and is not replaced within thirty days, the site can lose it.
Watch for: Increased state land lease fees pass through to you outside the ordinance's inflation cap, and the cap itself is prorated to exclude government-leased square footage. Ask what fraction of the moorage sits on DNR land, whether it is grandfathered, and when the lease comes up for renewal.
- 05
Hire the water inspection and the house inspection separately
The trade association for home inspectors is blunt about this: home inspectors are often not qualified to evaluate log floats and barges, marine surveyors frequently give the float only a cursory look that skips the underwater portion, and divers hired for the underwater work know little about houses. The workable answer is two engagements — a diver qualified to inspect floats, plus a home inspector for the structure above the waterline. Float construction varies widely: cedar logs, log and foam, concrete hull, barge, and older hybrid assemblies all age differently and fail differently. Concrete and log floats tend to fail slowly and visibly; some materials fail without warning.
Watch for: Freeboard — the distance from the waterline to the lowest part of the house — is the cheapest early warning you get. Declining freeboard or a persistent list means the float is losing buoyancy or carrying more house than it was built for.
- 06
Line up specialty insurance, and do not count on the NFIP
A standard homeowners policy does not cover a floating home. What you need is a floating property policy on a marine form. Carriers in this market typically reserve their broader form for owner-occupied floating homes thirty years old or newer, with a basic form covering older homes, boathouses, and rentals that most companies decline outright. Applications ask for the flotation type and condition, the state of the lines and cleats, and the number and condition of bilge pumps — which is to say your float survey feeds directly into what you can insure and for how much.
Watch for: Federal flood insurance is not available. The NFIP excludes buildings entirely in, on, or over water. Flood coverage, where you get it, comes through the marine policy — so read what the form actually covers, including whether sinking is covered only when a named peril caused it.
- 07
Close, and get the disclosure the code requires
Seattle makes it unlawful to sell a floating home or moorage facility without advising the purchaser in writing that the Equity Ordinance exists. Confirm you receive it. Confirm the utility situation too: floating homes must be lawfully connected to sewer for all wastewater, black and grey, while FOWRs run on detachable utilities and face containment or connection requirements once a remodel adds 120 square feet or more.
Watch for: Because the home transfers by bill of sale rather than by deed, the closing paperwork is less standardized than a land purchase. Confirm the transfer-tax treatment with escrow rather than assuming the usual real estate excise tax rules apply.
Questions buyers actually ask
Can I get a normal mortgage on a Seattle floating home?
No. Fannie Mae's Selling Guide states that it acquires loans secured by real estate and lists houseboats among the property types that are not eligible for delivery. A Seattle floating home is carried by King County as personal property, has no certificate of title, and transfers by bill of sale — so it does not clear that bar. Financing comes from portfolio lenders who hold the loan themselves. There are fewer of them, they underwrite the float and the moorage as well as you, and their terms vary, so start there rather than treating it as a formality.
Where is the title, and how does ownership of a floating home transfer?
A Seattle Floating on Water Residence (FOWR) is transferred as personal property, not titled real estate. There is no real-property deed, no preliminary title report, and no real-estate title insurance policy. Instead the FOWR carries a King County Personal Property Account Number for personal-property tax purposes, and ownership moves through the applicable purchase, sale, and closing documents. The residence and its moorage are separate questions — one set of documents transfers the home, another governs the right to keep it at its slip — so review both as part of due diligence. Because this works differently from conventional real estate, work with professionals experienced in these transactions. The full explainer is linked in the resources below.
What is the difference between a floating home and a houseboat?
In Seattle, 'houseboat' has no legal meaning — it is what everyone says and nothing the code recognizes. A floating home is a dwelling built on a float, permanently moored, permanently connected to utilities, and by statute not a vessel. What people usually mean when they say houseboat is a float on water residence: a floating structure with detachable utilities whose owner held marina space before July 1, 2014. The difference is not cosmetic. It changes which lenders will talk to you, what insurance you can buy, your sewer obligations, and whether Seattle's moorage protections cover you.
Can my moorage evict me or raise the fee whenever it wants?
Not if you have a floating home in a Seattle floating home moorage and have not waived the protection. The Equity Ordinance limits eviction to eight enumerated grounds, and everything beyond nonpayment, rule violations, repeat violations, and nuisance requires six months' written notice plus permits and a demonstrated commitment. On fees, the moorage owner must give thirty days' notice with financial computations showing the need, and if at least half the affected lessees think an increase is unreasonable they can petition the Hearing Examiner within fifteen days — a contested increase does not take effect until the Examiner approves it. Increases up to inflation, or to pass through state lease and permit fee increases and certain amortized infrastructure repairs, can be taken without that fact-finding. Two important limits: these protections cover floating homes, not FOWRs or house barges in rented marina slips, and they can be waived in a written lease.
What happens if the moorage lease is not renewed?
Honestly, this depends on the specific lease and it is the right question for a real estate attorney rather than a web page. What we can tell you is what the law does not do: Washington courts struck down the requirement that a moorage owner find a displaced floating home owner a replacement slip, in Kennedy v. City of Seattle and again in Granat v. Keasler. Nobody is obligated to rehouse your home. Seattle does allow a limited number of new moorage sites specifically to accommodate homes displaced under the ordinance, but that is a narrow allowance, not a guarantee. Read the lease term and renewal terms before you buy, not after.
How much should I budget for inspections?
Expect to pay for two people rather than one, since the diver and the home inspector are separate engagements. Published figures from the inspection trade put dive or survey fees in the several-hundred-dollar range and combined costs around a thousand, but those are national ballpark numbers rather than current Seattle quotes — get real quotes. Compared to the cost of a float problem discovered after closing, this is the least expensive part of the purchase.
Are floating homes taxed like houses?
Not exactly. King County assesses them as personal property rather than real property, so you receive a personal property tax bill on the home. If you also own the slip through a condominium or co-op, you may pay real property tax on that interest as well. Roughly sixty-five floating homes on converted condominium moorages have had their assessed value shown on the real property record since 2014, so the treatment is not uniform across docks. Confirm the specifics for your property, and confirm with escrow how transfer tax is handled at sale.
Keep going
- Does a floating home have a title? Where is the title? A FOWR transfers as personal property — no deed, no title insurance — and the moorage is a separate question.
- Floating home vs houseboat vs land house The side-by-side, across classification, financing, insurance, and resale.
- Moorage & float atlas Owned, co-op, and leased moorage — plus how floats are actually built.
- Lake Union Living The whole on-water specialty: docks, communities, and represented sales.
- Floating-home glossary Moorage to freeboard, in plain language.
- Floating-home FAQs Shorter answers to the questions that come up on first calls.
- Search current listings Linda's free NWMLS app — every listing, direct line to her.
About this guide
Legal and lending details checked August 2026. Washington’s common-interest ownership and shoreline rules both changed in 2026 and change again in 2027, so treat anything you read elsewhere without a date on it with suspicion — including older versions of this page. This is general information to help you ask better questions, not legal, tax, or lending advice. For your specific purchase, talk to Linda, your lender, and where the money justifies it, a real estate attorney.
Run the numbers
What would a floating home or houseboat actually cost per month?
Portfolio-lender terms, a 20% minimum down payment, marine insurance, and moorage set dock by dock — the four things a standard mortgage calculator gets wrong. Rather than guess at them, send the home you are looking at and Linda will get you the real figures.
Floating homes and houseboats are the one type these numbers cannot model — here is why.
Nobody can price a floating home or houseboat from a slider.
A payment calculator works by assuming your costs behave like everyone else’s. On the water they do not. Most of what you pay each month sits in charges a mortgage has no equivalent for, and every one of them is set by the individual marina rather than by the market:
- Moorage or co-op dues are set dock by dock. They are routinely the largest line after the loan, and two homes a few slips apart can be hundreds of dollars a month apart.
- Whether the slip is owned, held through a co-op share, or leased changes both what you are buying and what you owe every month.
- Insurance is written on a marine policy, not a homeowners policy, and is priced on the hull and the moorage rather than on a street address.
- The loan is not a conventional mortgage. Fannie Mae will not buy a loan on a houseboat, so it comes from a portfolio lender on that lender's own terms — Banner Bank, for one, publishes a 20% minimum down payment and fixed 20- or 30-year terms.
Put a number on that without knowing the dock and you get a figure no lender would recognize. So the honest answer is a conversation. Send the home you are looking at and Linda will come back with that dock’s actual dues, the fees that come with it, and the lenders who will write the loan.
Special Agents Realty is a real estate brokerage, not a lender. Nothing here is a loan offer, quote, or pre-approval.
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