For centuries, real estate was tangible, actual, genuine land to inhabit and build on and buy and sell.
Developers found ways to trade swampland, coastline and air rights and to market the ground separately from the building above. Bankers financialized real property into abstract products; start-ups sold shares in second homes. But the oceans remained everybody’s, vast and unownable.
Trust Russell Galbut to find a way to sell them too.
“The Earth’s surfaces are 29 percent land, and the sea occupies 71 percent of the Earth’s surfaces,” goes Galbut’s pitch for Crescent Seas, his new business of luxury condos on ships. “Yet millions of condominiums are sold on land, and there’s only one cruise ship out there selling residences on the sea.”
Co-founder and managing partner at Crescent Heights, head of his family office, GFO Investments, and until recently board chairman of Norwegian Cruise Lines’ parent company, Galbut has purchased two current cruise ships for an undisclosed amount. He now plans to invest $70 million to turn the first of two current cruise ships into luxury condos. If Crescent Seas’ pilot works, he’ll develop five, including a new build — up to 1,200 units of new, floating luxury inventory.
“It’s all about earning money, and this is a real opportunity to earn money,” he said at The Real Deal’s forum in May. Sales of cabins will yield commissions similar to what real estate brokers earn on land for real estate agents, travel agents, yacht brokers and private bankers. “For everyone in this room,” he said again, “lots of money.”
Galbut, 72 and in his 50th year of building on land, isn’t the only business person marketing ownership of four walls on a watery plot but he may be the only successful land-based developer. The competitor he mentions is the World, which has been afloat since 2002, its berths filled by the ultra-wealthy. The Miami Herald reported that another 60 luxury condo ships are in production. If Galbut is right that there’s a crew of second-home buyers willing to spend on their fraction of a shared ship, for the lifestyle or the tax benefits, his ability to market the water may truly open up a new frontier of real estate.
Anchors up
Developer Russell Galbut and his wife, Ronalee, once owned a boat.
Avid cruisers, Galbut estimates the duo has been on nearly 250 cruises in their lifetime, in the Mediterranean and Baltic seas, the Shetland Islands in Scotland and Glacier Bay in Alaska.
They expected to enjoy having their own vessel. They took it up and down the Eastern Seaboard, but boat life wasn’t for them, they soon learned.
“You have to deal with your captain, your first mate, your chef, everything you have to manage. And even if you have a house manager, it’s a pain in the butt,” Galbut said.
“One of the big misconceptions is why people would be there and why people would stay. It’s really the community.
You have a crew that knows all of your preferences, what you like to have when you join or how you like your bed made.”
The cliché was true for the Galbuts: Their happiest days were when they bought it and when they sold it.
Crescent Seas riffs off that experience. Galbut wants to sell the good part of maritime life without the annoyances. Ownership will be structured like a co-op, where unit owners own shares in a corporation. The Navigator is expected to travel to 140 cities on seven continents in its first year, but eventually, unit owners will have a say in itineraries and duration at port.
Galbut negotiated the purchase of two Norwegian Cruise Line ships, the Navigator and the Insignia, six months after he stepped down as NCL Holdings’ board chairman in 2024. He declined to share the purchase prices.
The Navigator will stop operating as a Norwegian ship in October 2026 and then go into dry dock for 50 days in Genoa, Italy, for a tuneup. Crescent Seas will fix up the pool decks and upgrade the spas, fitness centers and other amenities. The cabins will get new bathrooms and furnishings. Of the renovation total, $20 million will go to technology upgrades. Work on the ship will continue as the Navigator cruises to Miami, picks up condo unit owners and makes its inaugural voyage at the end of 2026. The Apollo Group, which works with Norwegian, will manage the ship with about 280 employees on board.
The World Residences at Sea, a 165-unit ship, is the only competitor out at sea; its owners and residents are ultra high-net-worth individuals.
The World’s president and CEO, Jessica Hoppe, said many of the residents on board don’t like to leave, though they have to when the World dry docks for maintenance about every three years. The World offers excursions to remote parts of the globe, like Antarctica.
Owners and residents are typically pretty adventurous, and can hop on and off the ship when it ports at a new city, barring some restrictions governed by maritime law. Residents range in age from those in their 20s to people in their 80s.
“One of the big misconceptions is why people would be there and why people would stay,” Hoppe said. “It’s really the community. You have a crew that knows all of your preferences, what you like to have when you join or how you like your bed made.”
An ocean of opportunities
Former Miami Beach Mayor and businessman Philip Levine once compared Galbut to “a pit bull who hasn’t eaten in a month, who will grab onto your leg” and not let go until he gets what he wants. Anyone who knows him and his companies knows that he is savvy.
Galbut, also a lawyer and CPA, finds every loophole, especially in zoning laws.
Crescent Seas’ ships will be registered in the Bahamas, which has major advantages for Galbut and his buyers.
Cruise ships often register in the Bahamas. That gives operators more lax labor laws and zero income tax. The World does this too.
Buyers who are not U.S. citizens can therefore benefit from not being taxed on income earned while they are on the Crescent Seas ship — only income earned in their home countries — Galbut said.
Global wealth is at an all-time high: The U.S. is home to more than 6 million people with a net worth of $1 million or more. Many of these Americans are looking for alternative residence, including citizenship in other countries. In the first quarter of 2025, the number of such inquiries nearly tripled compared to the same quarter last year, according to a report from Henley & Partners. That could benefit Crescent Seas.
Galbut is targeting wealthy buyers of all ages who can work from home — or, work from ship — including families with children who are being homeschooled. Elon Musk’s satellite internet technology, Starlink, has made life possible, Galbut said.
“What we’re trying to do is allow people to explore the world without leaving the comforts of their home,” Galbut told TRD at Crescent Seas’ sales center in downtown Miami.
From a marketing perspective, the challenge will be convincing buyers to divert money they may have used to purchase a second or third home.
“We’re competing against one of their other homes they have around the world, or a luxury resort,” as Hoppe put it.
Galbut pointed to one of the smallest cabins on the Navigator, which, at 386 square feet, starts at $1.25 million with monthly maintenance costs of about $19,500. The largest cabin is 2,167 square feet with pricing from $8.5 million. Maintenance on that could add up to tens of thousands of dollars each month, though the pricing structure is continuing to evolve, a press team member said.
Galbut is working with London-based March and White Design (MAWD), Milan interior design and architecture firm Lissoni & Partners and Journey. Buyers can bring their art, wine or cigar collections, as well as their bikes and scuba gear, on board. They will have their pick of floor plans, but that’s where the cabin customizations generally end.
In addition to the standard amenities that Lissoni & Partners will renovate, the ship will have a relaxation room, pickleball courts, private dining areas — for times when you would like a private chef to cook for you, rather than eating with everyone else — coffee lounges, a main theater, ballroom, bars, a cigar room, hydroponic garden and golf simulator.
Choppy waters
Operating on the water has its own set of challenges.
“We’re essentially operating a small city at sea,” Hoppe said. Different countries have different laws, visa requirements and public health inspections. “It’s really no small task.”
Galbut entered the business 25 years ago when he made a small investment in Frank Del Rio’s Oceania Cruises. Eventually, he became board chairman of NCL Holdings.
Other cruise condo operators have announced plans for similar ventures, but they either haven’t materialized or are supposed to set sail after the Navigator. Storylines plans the MV Narrative, a luxury cruise ship pitched as the first healthy-living “blue zone” at sea. Cabins start at about $1 million and go up to more than $10 million. It’s expected to take its inaugural voyage in 2027.
In 2023 came another floating option: Villa Vie Residences, angled as an adventurous way to retire, with cabins starting at $100,000. The cruise ship startup began sailing late last year.
The barriers to entry, Galbut acknowledges, are “enormous.”
“You have to have immense wealth, and you have to be willing to risk it and be creative enough to deliver what people want,” Galbut said. “We’ve been doing it for 50 years, so for us, it’s a little bit easier, but it’s not easy.”