South Shore Marina Dockominium community offers real estate on the water

The South Shore Marina at Indian River Inlet was acquired by South Shore Moorings LLC this past December. The marina is in a private housing community at the west end of Delaware Seashore State Park, South Inlet. It currently offers a “dockominium” community, which is a waterfront condo with private mooring, and it has been in existence for 50 years. The marina formerly included a boatyard and trailer park community, but in the early 1980s was redeveloped and altered to include single-family homes and condominiums. 

The current owner, Joel Sens, grew up in Sandusky, Ohio, on Lake Erie. He owned his first boat when he was 16 years old, and has always liked being around the water. He’s currently a real estate developer in lower Delaware where he develops housing subdivisions, and his familiarity with the area piqued his interest. It was a lifelong dream of his to own a marina, and when the opportunity arose he took it.

Now Sens is able to manage his own property with the South Shore Marina. The marina offers 92 boat slips for seasonal purchase, both fixed and floating. The main appeal is that these boat slips are purchased as opposed to renting, Sens said. Ownership of a slip as opposed to rental helps to build equity in a person’s investment, and slips can be owned for life. 

Sens plans to sell all the boat slips in the marina. They are in high demand and he expects the value of them to increase over time just like any other piece of real estate. “It’s no different than buying a house or buying a condominium, except you’re buying a house for your boat, [and] you’re buying a home for yourself,” Sens explained. Sens said that customers are basically buying a piece of the Atlantic Ocean, and that the marina’s proximity to the water is an especially attractive feature.

The South Shore Marina is currently open to purchase boat slips. The marina office is located on 45 Marina View Court in Bethany Beach. The email is SouthShoreMarinaDE@gmail.com, and the phone number is 443-614-2442.