The Working Waterfront Series #3

Working Waterfront Report — Marina Operations & Management

The Hidden Revenue Streams Most Marina Operators Are Missing

Most marina owners can recite their slip rates from memory. Fewer can tell you, without pulling out a calculator, what percentage of their gross revenue comes from anything other than slips and fuel. That gap is where a lot of value quietly leaks out of an otherwise well-run marina.

Slip fees and fuel margins are the visible economics of a marina, and the numbers everyone benchmarks against. But in property after property, the ancillary lines are where the real upside sits. They’re also the lines most operators under-manage simply because they’re not the first thing anyone looks at.

Here’s where that upside tends to…

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own Meeting Minute Issue #14: Decision Season — The Verdicts Are Starting to Land

Town Meeting Minute • Issue #14

Decision Season: The Verdicts Are Starting to Land

For months we have tracked towns writing frameworks, drafting plans, and scheduling hearings. Now the region is entering decision season. Stonington's ten-year plan goes back to public hearing August 18. Waterford is weighing whether to adopt its own rezoning of the former airport property. Groton just denied a follow-up amendment. Tiverton set a September special meeting on its most contested commercial project. What towns decide over the next thirty days will echo through land value for the next decade.

Issue #13 was about municipal control — towns taking…

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Connecticut 50% Rule: Substantial Improvement Explained

Connecticut · Flood Zone Renovations

The 50% Rule Isn’t One Rule. That’s Why So Many Renovations Go Sideways.

Three separate rules share the same number. Almost nobody separates them — and in Connecticut, the one that decides your project is written by your town, not the state.

A few days ago a group of us got into it over the 50% rule — the one that says you can only renovate a house in a flood zone so far before the whole building has to come up to current code. Everyone in the room knew the rule. Everyone in the room had a different version of it.

That’s not a knowledge problem. It’s that three separate rules share the same number, and almost nobody…

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Town Meeting Minute Issue #12: The Rules Are Starting to Move in Southeastern Connecticut

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The Rules Are Starting to Move

Over the past two weeks, Southeastern Connecticut towns have moved from planning language into real regulatory consequences: Groton approved a major open-space development framework, Waterford rejected a large housing rezoning request, Stonington advanced its POCD review, East Lyme continued housing-growth implementation, Norwich processed incremental infill, and Ledyard studied whether its land-use governance structure needs to change.

Real estate value is often shaped before a property ever hits the market. It changes when a text amendment passes, when a rezoning fails, when a subdivision hearing is scheduled, when a POCD moves to public review, or when a town…

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The Working Waterfront Series #2

Working Waterfront Report — Market & Investment Insights

What Makes Marinas Strong Commercial Investments in 2026?

Tight boat spacing maximizes revenue potential.

Waterfront real estate has always carried a certain mystique. But beyond the scenic appeal, marinas represent a distinct and often underestimated category of commercial investment, backed by real data behind its durability.

If you’re a commercial real estate investor, developer, or marina operator trying to understand why capital continues to flow toward working waterfronts, here’s what the numbers and the fundamentals actually show.

A Supply-Constrained Asset Class

One of the most compelling characteristics of marina properties is simple: you can’t build more coastline.

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2026 Connecticut Property Tax & Mill Rate Report

2026 Property Tax Report · Connecticut

The list price tells you what a home costs to buy. It says nothing about what it costs to own — and in 2026, that second number is where Connecticut buyers get surprised. The same home, one town line apart, can carry a tax bill that differs by well over a thousand dollars a month.

The number most buyers never check

Everyone shopping for a home watches the price. Far fewer ask the question that actually sets the monthly payment: what’s the property tax? In Connecticut, the answer comes from the town’s mill rate — the dollars…

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Town Meeting Minute • Issue #11: Infrastructure, Infill, and the Repricing of Land

Town Meeting Minute • Issue #11

Housing Pressure Moves From Policy to Parcels

Across Southeastern Connecticut, local boards are moving from discussion to action — studying rezoning requests, updating subdivision rules, reviewing utility costs, and implementing state housing mandates that could reshape land values and development feasibility.

Real estate value does not usually change all at once. It changes first in meeting packets, public hearing notices, water-rate studies, subdivision regulations, zoning referrals, and long-range planning documents. By the time a shovel hits the ground, the value shift may have already started.

Top Story

Waterford’s 140 Waterford Parkway South rezoning request places a large industrial…

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I Was Wrong About Housing Bubbles. Here's What Changed.

Market Analysis • A Correction

Why I Changed My Mind About Housing Bubbles

Revisiting an old theory in light of what the pandemic — and our own local data — taught us about prices, value, and the dollar itself.

By Tim Bray  •  Broker / Owner  •  Seaport Real Estate Services

This article revisits and corrects an earlier piece published on this blog — “Housing Bubbles & Market Crashes: The Holy Grail,” originally written by Barry Neilsen and modified by Tim Bray. The years since have tested its central claim, and I’d rather correct the record openly than let an old argument stand unchallenged.

Years ago, I published a piece on this blog about housing bubbles, market crashes, and the idea of mean reversion —…

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Changing Markets – Issue #8: The Market Isn’t Falling Apart… It’s Pulling Apart

Changing Markets – Issue #8

The Market Isn’t Falling Apart… It’s Pulling Apart

Why Connecticut’s housing market is splitting by price, product type, and future supply

There is a growing disconnect in the housing market.

Some buyers are still competing aggressively for homes. Others are pulling back. Some sellers are still getting strong attention. Others are sitting, adjusting price, and wondering why the energy feels different than it did even a year ago.

So what is actually happening?

The answer is not that the market is simply rising or falling. It is not that everything is strong, and it is not that everything is weak.

It’s splitting.

The closer you get to the core price bands where real household demand…

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Seaport Multifamily Brief — Issue #4 Two Weeks, Two Stories: Rhode Island Accelerates While Connecticut Pauses

Seaport Multifamily Brief — Issue #4

Two Weeks, Two Stories

Rhode Island Accelerates While Connecticut Pauses

Powered by CoStar Data and Seaport Due Diligence

In just the past two weeks, coastal multifamily activity told two very different stories. While New London and Middlesex Counties remained relatively quiet, Newport and Washington Counties showed noticeably stronger velocity, deeper buyer confidence, and far more visible transaction movement.

Executive Summary

Sometimes the market speaks loudly. Sometimes it whispers. Over this two-week period, Rhode Island’s coastal multifamily markets spoke clearly. Connecticut’s coastal markets, by comparison, were quieter and more cautious.

That does not mean…

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