You’ve seen the price of used and new houseboats, let’s not kid ourselves – it’s expensive. However, making your own houseboat, while daunting might be cheaper AND a great life experience you might never have the chance to do again. Of course building a homemade houseboat is not exactly the easiest thing to do. So we’ve come up with a few questions that will help you decide whether or not you should build yourself a homemake a houseboat.

Time Enjoyed making a homemade houseboat vs. Time Spent sailing a houseboat

Most people would never even consider building a houseboat for the simple thing: it’s complicated and it generally takes a bit of time to complete (depending on the size). What we want you to decide is, is the time spent building it worth the time you’re missing out sailing it (if you buy it used or brand new). Sometimes, if you tackle something that you’re not 100% certain of how to complete it, it could take months to actually build your own houseboat. Decide which one is more important to you, the experience of building it, or the actual experience of using a houseboat. If you can’t wait, then building a homemade houseboat is not for you.

Where am I going to store the houseboat in the meantime?

Depending on the size of your houseboat, you will need a significantly large area to keep the work-in-progress until it is finished. Equate that into renting a place, or keeping it in your garage or outside. You need to decide whether the price of keeping it in hiatus will be worth it in the long run. Take a look at cheap renting options or decide if you can keep it in your own back garden. But will the inconvenience be too much?

What are the pro’s of building your own houseboat?

While it might seem daunting at first, we just want to make sure you have all the facts but there are pro’s to building your own houseboat. You create a boat that fits your personality completely. You can build it for a couple, or a family, even a large amount of people. You can put whatever you want in the houseboat, giving it a totally personalized feel. There is a sense of accomplishment to building your own homemade houseboat. And lastly, and possibly most importantly, if built by yourself and done properly it can be cheaper then buying a brand new one.

The truth is, in the end it is up to you and how determined you are to get your own houseboat and how much effort you actually want to put into it in the end. However, if you’ve got the time, the space and the determination, then we suggest you do it! There are plenty of places, like here where you can get more information on actually doing the PHYSICAL building of the houseboats. So get into it!