Sausalito Houseboat Prices: An $800,000 Cut and the Real Math

A restored 1912 tugboat on Sausalito's South 40 Dock listed at $1.8 million in October 2025 and dropped to $1,000,000 on August 30, 2026, an $800,000 cut. That same $1 million buys roughly 86 percent of a median Marin City house on dry land a mile away, and the house comes with a lot underneath it. Sausalito houseboat prices only make sense once you add the berth lease, the loan terms, and the way Marin County actually taxes a floating home. Do that math and the discount shrinks fast.

What the Mirene's price history actually shows

This was not a soft market grinding a price down. It was two adjustments, and the second was enormous. Listing records for 13 S 40 Dock (MLS 325084773) show $1,800,000 on October 8, 2025, $1,700,000 on July 2, 2026, then $1,000,000 on August 30, 2026. Contingent as of September 11.

The Mirene is an unusual asset. Brand and Ryan Phelan bought the 1912 hull in 1982 and spent four decades turning it into 583 square feet of varnished wood with a working 500-horsepower diesel and an unusually wide berth at the end of the dock. The San Francisco Chronicle covered the original listing. None of that history made the first two prices work.

Here is the segment, priced against land. Sausalito's citywide median was about $2.03M in August 2026, and Marin City, the Sausalito neighborhood just up Donahue Street from the docks, has sat at about $1.16M across the same 12 months.

Floating homes here run from the high $600,000s to just under $1.9M. This is not a cheap alternative to Marin. It is the same money, arranged differently.

Can you get a mortgage on a floating home, and what does a South 40 berth actually cost?

Yes, but not from your usual lender, and the berth runs roughly $1,000 to $1,500 a month on top of the loan. Those two facts do more to set Sausalito houseboat prices than any view does.

Conventional lenders mostly decline, because there is no permanent foundation and no title to the land underneath. What exists instead is a small bench of portfolio, marine and chattel lenders. Bank of Marin writes floating home loans up to $1,000,000 on eligible one-unit homes with a concrete hull, which quietly explains why a wooden 1912 tugboat is a harder loan than a 1980s float. Specialty lenders in 2026 quote roughly 7 to 8.5 percent, about 0.5 to 1.5 points above conventional, with score minimums near 680 to 700. Freddie Mac put the average 30-year fixed at 6.76 percent for the week of September 10, 2026. Banner Bank publishes its floating home terms outright: 20 percent down minimum, 20 or 30-year fixed, owner-occupied only.

The berth is a lease. You own the structure and rent the water space, the way a mobile home owner rents a pad. Waldo Point Harbor runs 282 berths across the South 40, Issaquah, Liberty, Main and Pier docks, and says they have been 100 percent occupied since the 1970s. So the answer to "how do I get on the waitlist" is that there mostly is not one. The berth transfers with the home, which is the only realistic way in.

What does it cover? The Floating Homes Association puts typical berthage near $1,000 a month covering water, garbage, sewage, parking and common area maintenance, and Yellow Ferry Harbor averages closer to $1,500. Under California's Floating Home Residency Law, annual increases are capped at the lesser of 5 percent or CPI plus 3, and AB 252 blocks a marina from raising the rent just because the home sold. Read the lease anyway. Fee disputes over sublet charges and pass-throughs are an active fight here.

Run it all the way through and the $800,000 cut buys less than it looks like.

That gap is the berth lease and the rate premium. And a buyer capped near the $1,000,000 lending ceiling is quietly locked out of most of the Liberty Dock inventory.

Marin taxes floating homes as homes, and the sources disagree about it

The Marin County Assessor is unambiguous: "We assess floating homes the same way we assess real property in Marin County," and "If you live in a floating home, you are taxed as a homeowner, not as a boat owner." That means roughly 1 percent plus local bonds, a Prop 13 basis reset at purchase, and the homeowner's exemption.

Plenty of guides still say floating homes are personal property on the unsecured roll. The Floating Homes Association's own FAQ says exactly that. Between a trade FAQ and the county that writes the bill, believe the county. The water is a separate matter. You never own it, and the possessory interest rules that tax private use of public land are worth reading before you build a 40-year plan around a lease you do not control.

Insurance is the line item buyers underestimate. A floating home policy blends homeowner and marine coverage, fewer carriers write it, and a lender in a FEMA flood zone may want NFIP coverage too. Get a real quote before you write the offer.

The anchor-out chapter is basically closed

Buyers still ask about the anchored boats in Richardson Bay. In 2026 that situation has almost entirely resolved. The Richardson's Bay Regional Agency reported in April 2026 that the last vessel in the eelgrass protection zone had been moved, leaving two boats in the designated anchorage, one permitted through October 26, 2026. Fifty-one people have been housed off the anchorage since 2022.

Worth saying plainly: an anchor-out was never the same thing as a permitted floating home on a leased berth, and most people living on them were priced out of Marin rather than romanticizing it. The mooring field fight that shaped this waterfront for a decade is mostly over.

What we would check before writing the offer

Three things, in order: the berth lease terms and transfer rules, a written pre-approval from a lender who has actually closed a floating home, and a marine survey of the hull or float. The second kills more deals than the third.

And do the land comparison honestly. Looking at Sausalito's nine ranked neighborhoods at Houseberry, Marinship, the waterfront district the docks sit in, scores 4.1 out of 5 overall and 4.5 for public spaces. Marin City next door scores 3.8 overall on the same 4.2 school score, at a median about 43 percent below citywide. If the draw is the water, buy the boat with your eyes open about the berth. If the draw is Marin at a discount, we wrote up the most affordable neighborhoods in Marin earlier this summer, and none of them charge you rent for the ground.

Sources

San Francisco Chronicle, Stewart Brand lists his Sausalito houseboat

Listing and price history, 13 S 40 Dock, MLS 325084773

Sausalito floating homes for sale, current listings and days on market

County of Marin Assessor-Recorder, Floating Homes

County of Marin Assessor-Recorder, Possessory Interests

Waldo Point Harbor

Floating Homes Association FAQs

Bank of Marin, Floating Home Loans

Banner Bank, Floating Home Loans

Freddie Mac Primary Mortgage Market Survey

Latitude 38, Rent Control Comes to Bay Area Floating-Home Marinas

Richardson's Bay Regional Agency, final vessel moved off eelgrass protection zone

Houseberry, Sausalito city data

Houseberry, Sausalito neighborhood rankings