Priceless Miami Waterfront Real Estate
1987 Chris-Craft 500 Constellation — $146,300
If you want a 3-bedroom waterfront apartment anywhere near South Beach or Coconut Grove, you need a multi-million dollar trust fund. The median price for a luxury waterfront condo in Miami is hovering around $1.5 million, saddling you with a soul-crushing monthly mortgage payment, insane HOA fees, and property taxes.
Or, you need to know how to read between the lines of a yacht broker’s listing to find the ultimate real estate loophole.
Currently sitting in Dinner Key Marina in Miami, Florida, there is a 50-foot floating apartment listed for $146,300. Built by the legendary American craftsmen at Chris-Craft, this 1987 Constellation is famous for its cavernous interior. Because it has a massive 15-foot beam, it doesn’t just feature one living room—it has two. You get an enclosed upper “on-deck” salon and a lower salon with a built-in dining table.
But the real magic is the remote-work layout. The previous owner converted the third bedroom into a dedicated office with a custom stand-up desk and installed a brand-new Starlink satellite internet system. You get a master suite, a VIP guest suite, three full bathrooms, and the ultimate remote-worker’s Miami hack where you can take Zoom meetings with a waterfront view.
The Smart Money “Slip Hack” Buying the boat is the easy part. The hardest part of living on a boat in Miami is finding a marina that allows it. Miami has essentially run out of water. The waitlist for a 50-foot liveaboard slip in a premium location like Dinner Key is measured in years, not months. If you buy a boat in Fort Lauderdale and try to bring it down to Miami, you will have nowhere to park it.
But this specific broker description drops a massive, rare green flag: “Special arrangements are in place for the slip at her current location.” This is the holy grail of South Florida boating. It means the dockmaster has agreed to allow the buyer to inherit the seller’s slip upon closing, completely bypassing the multi-year waitlist. You aren’t just buying a boat; you are inheriting the location.
But before you pack your bags and move to Coconut Grove, you need to know the reality of what it takes to pull this off. You need to understand the true cost of those Miami slip fees, the brutal reality of insuring a 1987 boat in a hurricane zone, and the specific contingency clause you must put in your purchase contract so you don’t end up homeless.
