Business At A Glance
Startup Costs: $2,000 – $10,000
Part Time: Can be operated part-time.
Online Operation? No
Business Overview
There are numerous options available to youin terms of starting a houseboat rental service. The first option is topurchase the houseboats ($20,000 to $30,000 each secondhand). Thesecond, and more viable option is to locate houseboat owners and see ifthey are prepared to enter their boats into a rental pool that ismanaged and operated by your service.
Houseboat rental rates are in therange of $750 to $1,000 per week and the person who is renting the boatmust pay for additional operating costs such as gas and insurance. Inexchange for the boat owner allowing their houseboat to be used in therental pool, they would receive 50 percent of the rental revenue andpay no moorage or maintenance fees for their boats. You would keep 50percent of the rental fee and maintain the houseboat for the owner.Including operating overheads, boat maintenance, and moorage, a pretaxnet of 20 percent of the total rental fees per year should be theprofit. Providing you have at least ten houseboats in the rental poolthat were rented for an average of 25 weeks each per year, this examplewould leave you a profit of $50,000. The business can be started forless than $10,000 providing you are not intending to purchase thehouseboats.