Investment in Airpark Communities

[sjperry]

We are interested in someday living in an airpark, or fly-in, community. Once these types of communities are well-established, it is our experience that property value is rather high, and currently out of our reach.

Therefore, we've thought for some time that it seems to be a good investment to try to find land in a new, as-yet-undeveloped, airpark community. People talk about real-estate investment as one good way to nice payoffs, and we are thinking this might be a niche market that could be profitable in getting us closer to our ER goals.

We just found a prime lot that fits this description and we are thinking about buying it, either as an investment or a future homesite. But we are still debating on whether this is a good real estate area to invest in or not.

We know the potential buyer population is much less in airparks (mainly pilots) and the time it takes to sell property in airparks is typically longer. Also, airparks are typically farther out of big cities than some people like to live.

Given these realities, I am interested in people's opinions on what type of investment airpark property could be. Does anyone have experience buying and selling property in airparks? And how long does it usually take for a new airpark to get established before the property values to rise?

Thanks in advance for any wisdom people can offer...

[Rich_in_Tampa]

I used to fly (Skyhawks and a Cardinal for a while) and read about those parks. I thought they would be great for a middle age aviation family without children.

As the Boomers age and give up their flying for various reasons, will the market shrink even more? Sounds like a great idea from a lifestyle point of view, but as a real estate investment it would be too risky for my taste.

[beebers]

I'm a pilot, airline and military. I would love to live in an airpark. So many people that live in airparks are former airline pilots that retired making a mass amount of money and have great retirements. Those days are long gone for great airline retirements. Today the salary and retirement has dimenished and will probably never fully recover. hopefully i'm wrong.... Besides the Debby downer post,I would love to be your neighbor.
Good luck!

[Milton]

IMO it comes down to what your principal objective is: future residence, or investment.

If you are a pilot seeking the airpark lifestyle, then it probably makes sense to buy the land. Maybe it will substantiately appreciate over time; maybe not. If it does, that would be a bonus. If it doesn't, well, aviation is an expensive hobby and like owning your airplane, it can't be justified on purely economic terms (at least you will have pursued your passion, and life is short). I doubt that you would actually lose money.

On the other hand, if you are primarily thinking of this as an investment, it wouldn't be my choice. There are certainly exceptions, but generally speaking speculating in raw land is not the most productive use of financial resources.

[sjperry]

Thanks for all the input. It's nice to hear from fellow aviation-lovers on the board. We are now looking at it from a slightly different perspective because we'll be moving in another 2 years or so...but probably not to this lot in that timeframe. So we're thinking we should be saving our money for the next move now, instead of getting it tied up in a long-term investment. Then we will be able to make this next move a good investment and a nice residence, instead of merely trying to make a good investment (and maybe residence way down the road) in this lot.

Thanks again!