Floating homes - in pictures

Home: New Quay Lane, Woodbridge, Suffolk
This converted trawler is a budget way to acquire river and views. You’ll have to make your own entertainment courtesy of the electronic keyboard, the projector and the pull-down screen, currently connected to Sky TV. Sofas and beds are ready fitted and a woodburning stove helps warm the saloon. Across from the towpath is a garden hosting a pumped water supply, a generator and solar panels, but a neighbour has a right of way over your plot. £225,000.

Neals

Home: Cheyne Walk, London SW10
In a postcode where three bedrooms with river views fetch well over £1m, this £660,000 houseboat counts as a cheap foothold on the Chelsea property market. The sting is the £16,000 a year mooring and maintenance fee, including utilities. This is stylish and surprisingly capacious living, so long as you’re not squeezed into one of the two subsidiary bedrooms. The 26ft living room opens onto the deck with views of the City skyline. The kitchen is large enough to host a dinner party and a dressing room. It’s a short walk to Kings Road.

Portico London Estate Agents

Away: Broad Channel, New York, US
A 300ft boardwalk takes you across the water to this row of 1940s bungalows built on stilts in Queens, 13 miles from Manhattan, and you can moor your boat beneath your home. It’s small – only two bedrooms – and it needs renovation but priceless are the sunsets over the water and the lofty perch will be a comfort when tides rise in hurricane season. The quaint island town of Broad Channel is surrounded by a wildlife reserve and scored with canals. Further land with a shed is available for an extra £76,580. £268,000.

Coach Realtors, 00 1 631 427 1200

Home: Old Bridge St, Hampton Wick, Surrey
When all the best riverside land is taken, it makes lucrative sense to build on the water, especially since houseboats are exempt from stamp duty. Yacht-houses are what the developer called three homes moored to specially constructed piles beside Kingston bridge. Although it’s afloat, this three-double-bedroom craft is designed to feel like a house with high ceilings, picture windows and bi-fold glass doors merging the wooden-floored living room with the deck. It’s five minutes to the station. £525,000.

Featherstone Leigh, 020 8549 9449

Away: Heart of Europe, Dubai
The clue is not in the name. The heart is the shape of the new artificial island of St Petersburg, one of six islands to be added to an archipelago called The World. The master bedroom is underwater with glass walls surrounded by coral reefs so you can watch fish swimming past your pillows. Reliable swimwear is essential for the glass-bottom Jacuzzi on the top deck – it doubles as a skylight for the living room below. You can’t sail these immobile structures – nor can you live in them. Your £1.89m outlay is for holidays only.

Stirling Ackroyd, 0207 559 5118

Photograph: Stirling Ackroyd