Between September 1, 2025 and August 31, 2026, thirteen single-family homes with a private or deeded boat slip closed in Long Beach. All thirteen sold below their original asking price. The typical one took 55 days to find a buyer and gave up 7.6% of its opening number to do it.
I have been paying unusual attention to this corner of the market. As I wrote last month, I'm representing the sale of dear friends' parents' waterfront home — the one with the boat slip, the Duffy parked outside, the patriarch who called it paradise. Before I put a number on a house I've spent decades inside, I wanted to know exactly what the water is worth this year rather than what it was worth in 2022.
What a Boat Slip Is Actually Doing to a Sale
Every one of those thirteen sales happened in the same pocket — Naples, Belmont Shore, Bay Harbour, Spinnaker Bay, the canals. In that same pocket, 111 single-family homes without a slip also closed. Setting the two side by side is the clearest look I've had at this market in years.
| Last 12 months, Naples / Belmont Shore / Spinnaker Bay | With a slip | Without |
|---|---|---|
| Homes sold | 13 | 111 |
| Median sale price | $2,200,000 | $1,750,000 |
| Median price per square foot | $918 | $937 |
| Median days on market | 55 | 18 |
| Sold below original asking price | 13 of 13 | 62 of 111 |
| Typical reduction from first ask | 7.6% | 1.4% |
Read that price-per-square-foot line twice. The slip homes are bigger and cost more in total, but the buyer is paying less per foot for the house than the neighbor across the street with no dock. And they are taking three times as long to get there.
The dock is no longer a premium the market pays for automatically. It is a feature that has to be sold.
The Four-Year Slide
This did not happen suddenly. Looking at the same twelve-month window each year for Long Beach homes with a slip:
- Sept 2022 – Aug 2023: 13 sales, $1,360 per square foot, median 24 days on market
- Sept 2023 – Aug 2024: 12 sales, $1,325 per square foot, median 9 days
- Sept 2024 – Aug 2025: 12 sales, $1,102 per square foot, median 69 days
- Sept 2025 – Aug 2026: 13 sales, $918 per square foot, median 55 days
The number of sales barely moves — twelve or thirteen a year, like clockwork. What moves is the price per foot, down 32% from the 2023 peak, and the patience required.
What Is Sitting Right Now
Six waterfront homes with a dock are on the market today, from $2,795,000 to $8,500,000. Another seven slip listings came off the market unsold during the same twelve months — expired, canceled, or withdrawn. One canal house has now been brought to market four separate times since February, walking down from $3,599,000 to $3,199,000 to $2,999,999 to today's $2,795,000, and it still hasn't sold.
That is the whole argument for pricing correctly the first time, written out in public. Chasing a market down costs more than starting where the market already is.
What This Means If You Own One
Slip length is priced like square footage down here, and buyers know the difference between 28 feet and 40. Of the sales I looked at, the deeded slips ranged from 28 to 40 feet, and the ones that moved fastest led with that number rather than burying it.
If you own a dock home and you're thinking about a move: this is a market where preparation and an honest opening price are doing all the work. Twelve or thirteen buyers a year exist for what you have. They are not in a hurry, they are extremely well informed, and they will wait you out. But they are real, and every year they show up.
If you're on the other side and you've wanted a boat at your own back door, this is the first year in four that the math has moved in your direction. My current listings and recent sales are the fastest way to see what I'm working on.
I'd be glad to walk the canals with you either way — reach out any time.