This is urban waterfront, and it plays by its own rules. You are minutes from downtown, the frontage is naturally low to the water, and the lifestyle is walkable and connected in a way no other waterfront here offers. The category to understand is the floating home, which is a world of its own: moorage ownership versus lease, co-op structures, and financing that most lenders will not touch, all of which make expert guidance less optional than anywhere else on this list. Portage Bay sits quieter against the university, while Eastlake gives you the fuller city-on-the-water feel, and seaplane activity is part of the daily texture here, charming to some and not to others. If a houseboat or a close-in slip is on your mind, talk to me before you write anything, because the diligence here is genuinely different.