Lake Powell houseboat timeshare: what a share costs to own

Quick answer

These 6 operators publish enough on their own sites to compare, as of September 2026. A dash means the figure was not on the page — several quote by phone, and listings change.

Operator	Marina	What it publishes	Annual cost named on site
Lake Powell Boat Rentals	Not stated	2008 Antiqua, 72 ft, share at $29,995, 1 prime week	$2,995 maintenance + $1,995 launch and retrieval
Sunrise Peak	Antelope Point	$25,000 / $50,000 / $75,000 non-refundable deposit by tier	$5,000 maintenance + $2,000 turnaround; $12,000 with depreciation
LakeTime & H.M.S.	Wahweap	Advertises 9 days a year on a 75-foot boat; week length varies by share	—
Lake Powell Timeshares	Not stated	75 ft, 6 cabins, sleeps 24; LLC with a sequenced prime trip	—
Luxury Houseboat Shares	Antelope Point	Owner aboard at all times; no renting or loaning	~$45,000 a year for the whole boat, 80–90 ft with a wet slip
Why Knot Houseboats	Antelope Point	Shares for sale; no rent, lease, loan or trade	—

Is a Lake Powell houseboat timeshare a real timeshare?

What the sellers describe is a company, not a deeded week. Lake Powell Timeshares sells under a domain with the word in it, then answers the structure question plainly: “the boat is setup as an LLC” with each owner a shareholder, and each share entitled to a specific date range in sequence each year plus off-peak access. Its sales page repeats the point, describing a group of owners who “each purchase an equal share of a Limited Liability Corporation.”

Sunrise Peak runs the question in its own FAQ, under the heading “Is this a timeshare?”, and answers that shared ownership differs because “you own a fraction of one specific houseboat with a group of other owners,” and that “unlike timeshares that can be rented or lent out, you cannot rent or let non-owners use your houseboat.” Its boats are each “set up as a Limited Liability Corporation (LLC)” that “holds the title to the houseboat free & clear.”

What you buy is a membership unit in a company whose only asset is one boat. A deeded resort timeshare gives you an interval in real property; this gives you equity in a hull that loses value. Sunrise Peak puts that loss at 5% a year in its own cost example, which on a $100,000 share is $5,000 gone before you pay a single bill.

The upside of the LLC structure is control. Lake Powell Timeshares holds annual owner meetings on each boat to vote on items including upgrades and a change of management company. A resort timeshare rarely lets you fire the manager.

What does a share cost to buy?

The lowest share price posted openly is $29,995, and it buys into an 18-year-old boat. Lake Powell Boat Rentals lists that share of a 2008 72-foot Antiqua with one prime season week included. Much of this market moves by phone instead, so treat a posted number as one data point on a thin board.

Sunrise Peak publishes something more useful than a price: the deposit. Its page names “a non-refundable deposit of either $25,000 for our entry level offering, $50,000 for a mid-level offering, or $75,000 for our high-end offering,” with the balance due on a predetermined schedule. Read that twice before you wire anything. The entry-level deposit alone is close to the entire asking price of the Antiqua share.

Its own arithmetic implies where the shares land. The 5% depreciation line in its annual example works off “let’s say $5,000,” which puts a representative share around $100,000. That is more than 3 times the lowest posted share, on a newer boat in a different program.

The houseboats for sale guide has the whole-boat market for comparison, where August 2026 asking prices ran from $10,000 to $2.2 million.

What are the annual dues, and what do they cover?

Budget $2,995 to $5,000 a year per share, then add a per-trip fee on top. Sunrise Peak names $5,000 as its average annual maintenance fee and a $2,000 turnaround fee at Antelope Point, totaling $12,000 a year once depreciation is counted, “plus fuel.” Lake Powell Boat Rentals lists $2,995 annual maintenance and $1,995 launch and retrieval on its 72-footer.

The two fees pay for different things, and buyers conflate them. Maintenance covers what Sunrise Peak lists as “boat storage (either dry storage or private slip), insurance, license, management, and maintenance” — the costs that run whether or not you show up. Sunrise Peak’s turnaround fee is the trip itself: launch and retrieval, cleaning, holding tank pump-out, fuel and water fill, propane, and piloting in and out of the slip.

Luxury Houseboat Shares prices the same problem from the boat’s end, saying maintenance on an 80 to 90-foot houseboat with a dedicated wet slip at Antelope Point “will average $45,000 for the entire boat.” That figure covers the slip fee, insurance, registration, routine maintenance and some reserve, and the company says the total is divided among the owners according to each one’s percentage. On a 10-share boat that is $4,500 apiece, which lands inside the range above and makes the whole-boat number a useful check on any per-share quote you are handed.

Slip rent is the first item on that list, and it is not small: an open slip for a 75-foot boat runs about $15,900 a year at published marina rates. The marina guides cover what each marina offers.

How many weeks do you actually get?

One assigned prime trip, and the length varies by program. LakeTime, which places its boats at Wahweap, advertises 9 days a year on a 75-foot houseboat, and the length varies by boat. Sunrise Peak defines prime season as the end of May to the end of October and sells a recurring trip inside it. Lake Powell Timeshares assigns each share a specific date range in sequence.

Off-season trips add the rest of your time, first-come. Sunrise Peak books it through the boat’s manager. Luxury Houseboat Shares opens December reservations for the season ahead. Neither is a guarantee, so price the share against the prime week alone and treat the rest as a bonus.

The operating agreement fixes your dates before you ever board. A share carrying the last week of September is a different product from one carrying the Fourth of July, at the same price. Ask which week before you ask anything else.

Who is allowed on the boat?

The named owner, and the rule holds every time the boat leaves the dock. Why Knot Houseboats states that owners “can not Rent, Lease, Loan or trade their ownership in their shares.” Luxury Houseboat Shares says an owner has to be on the houseboat at all times, and that under no circumstances can you rent or loan the boat out. Sunrise Peak states the requirement as a “legal, insured owner must be on board anytime the boat leaves the marina.” Trading weeks with another owner is a separate question, and Sunrise Peak allows that, so long as an insured owner of record is aboard.

Whether 2 people can hold one share is unsettled. Lake Powell Timeshares says it allows two official owners per share, with some pairs alternating prime weeks year to year. A buyer on the Wayne’s Words forum posted the email he got back in February 2025 from a Sunrise Peak resale contact: “The marina and the park service only allow one owner per share, so decide which of you wants to be listed as the owner of record.” An owner on the same thread said his own boat out of Antelope Point allows one owner per share and called the reasoning “highly insurance driven.”

Get the answer for your specific boat in writing, from the management company, before the sales page convinces you either way.

What does it cost to get out?

The marina takes a cut, because the Park Service requires it to handle the sale. Lake Powell Resorts & Marinas states that Glen Canyon NPS “requires all sales go through Aramark if your vessel/shared ownership is within the park, in a slip, on a buoy, or in dry storage” at Wahweap, Bullfrog, Halls Crossing or Hite. Its limited listing agreement is mandatory at minimum under the moorage agreement, and costs 3% of the sale plus a $300 administrative fee. Full service is a graduated 6% to 10%, hitting 10% under $100,000.

Antelope Point publishes its own schedule for shares: $900 or 3% if you find the buyer, $900 or 10% if the brokerage sells it, whichever is higher, with a $900 floor either way. It also states that the Park Service use agreement gives the marina the exclusive right to sell boats and shares of ownership on its premises.

The buyer pool is the harder problem. Owners on Wayne’s Words describe listing shares in the forum’s own yard sale, on KSL and on BoatTrader, three places instead of one market. A seller in 2022 spent days working out whether moving a fraction of his interest inside the LLC needed marina paperwork at all. A share carries the dues, the boat’s remaining life and your assigned dates to whoever buys it.

If the plan is one week a year, price 5 years of houseboat rentals against the deposit before you sign anything.

Key takeaways

1. A share is a membership unit in an LLC that owns one boat, and the operators say so in their own FAQs. Sunrise Peak answers “Is this a timeshare?” with a flat no.
2. Sunrise Peak’s deposit alone runs $25,000 to $75,000 by tier, non-refundable, with the balance due later. That is the number the sales pages bury.
3. The carrying cost is the real cost: dues plus a per-trip turnaround fee land between about $5,000 and $7,000 a year before fuel, and the share depreciates about 5% on top.
4. One assigned prime trip a year is the product, and you buy whichever week comes attached to the share. Off-season time is first-come.
5. You cannot rent, loan or charter your week. Getting out means a marina commission on top of a thin buyer pool.