The Living With Your Plane survey on buying and selling residential airpark properties didn’t bring as many individual responses as we had hoped for but several of the ones we received apparently included both a purchase and sale.

And, in the case of some real estate professionals, multiple sales were recorded on the same form. For example, one real estate professional indicated the sale of two homes and six lots during the last year. The end result is that it appears we received information on about 35 to 40 transactions.

Our survey was designed to discover whether residential airpark properties were suffering a sales slowdown like much of the residential market in many areas of the country. We also sought information on how long a property had been on the market, how the asking and selling price compared, the price range of the property and whether there were plenty of lookers for the property. Read the full story

Editor’s note: here’s another in our planned series of stories describing state by state the airparks listed in the Living With Your Plane Directory. We started with Alaska and will tackle one state per issue unless there are a particularly low number of airparks in that particular state. In that case, we’ll try to do several states in the same story.

As always, we welcome your comments and ideas and of course, if your residential airpark isn’t listed or if you have information about other fly-in communities in the state for which we’re reporting, or any other state, let us know by filling in this form with the appropriate infomration.

Georgia counts 27 airparks with three of them currently in planning or under construction. The earliest state facility, Pinewood Airpark, opened in 1967 at Douglasville, GA.

Read the full story

This is the first in a planned series of stories describing state by state the airparks listed in the Living With Your Plane Directory. We’re starting with Alaska and will tackle one state per issue unless there is a particularly low number of airparks in that particular state. In that case, we’ll try to do several states in the same story.

As always, we welcome your comments and ideas and of course, if you have information about other residential airparks in Alaska or any other state, we urge you to contact us.

Read the full story

Here’s the third - and final - installment of results from the recent Living With Your Plane survey of subscribers informing us how much their airpark is affected by different problems that have cropped up around the country.

As we noted in first two articles, the responses came from 53 individuals representing 23 different states. Even better, none of the respondents came from the same fly-in community so that means we received a broad response.

In our first installment we discussed problems with airpark rules, animals running loose and people on the runway – taxiway. The second article covered attendance at homeowner association meetings, use of the runway by non-residents and noise complaints.

For this final report we’ll provide responses to our questions about non-aviation folks buying airpark lots, enforcement of architectural rules, allowing junk to accumulate on lots and commercial operations from residential airparks.

Read the full story

Here’s the second installment of results from the recent Living With Your Plane survey of subscribers informing us how much their airpark is affected by different problems that have cropped up around the country.

As we noted in our first piece, the responses came from 53 individuals representing 23 different states. Even better, none of the respondents came from the same fly-in community so that means we received a broad response.

Read the full story

Recently we asked Living With Your Plane subscribers to tell us how much their airpark is affected by problems that have cropped up around the country. We received responses from 53 individuals representing 23 different states. Even better, none of the respondents came from the same fly-in community so that means we received a broad response.

Rather than burying everyone with the answers and comments I received for all of the questions at once, I’m going to break it down into a few questions at a time.

Read the full story

We frequently are asked about the good, the bad and the ugly of
living on an airpark. We’ve got our own ideas from living on an airpart
for nearly 25 years but we’ve prepared a brief survey that we hope you
will complete so we can get your ideas, too.

We’ll compile the results and publish them in the near future and
then do another survey on the good reasons to living on an airpark.
Just click on the link below to get to the survey

Click Here to take survey

Our survey on liability insurance in force at residential airparks provided some very interesting results. We had hoped to obtain more participation but the 22 different fly-in communities represented in the survey results did give us information that should be of interest to everyone living on an airpark or considering acquiring property.

First, 77.3% of the respondents said their fly-in community did have liability insurance and the most popular level of coverage was $1 - $2.5 million. Slightly more than 70% of those completing the survey indicated that amount of coverage. Less than $1 million was in force at 17.8% with coverage of $2.5 - $5 million and over $5 million each reported by 5.9% of the fly-in communities.

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After we posted a survey of homeowner fees at airparks, a request came in from Gary Hamilton in Southern Idaho for additional information. He suggested we ask for more information to help enlighten residents of airparks further regarding the cost of living at various locations around the country.

He wrote:

“I live at Sunrise Skypark in Southern Idaho. After reading your recent article titled How Much do you pay? I have questions.

First, you mentioned that 75 percent of respondents said that their assessments were under $100 per month. I would like to know more. How much under were they? Did they average $50 a month, $60 a month or what.

"You also mentioned ‘built on’ percentages regarding homes constructed. These figures seemed low to me. Many airparks that I am aware of have constructed homes figures in the vicinity of 50 percent  and more.

""I would like to suggest a follow on article or topic to the one you have already done. It would be something like ‘Are you paying enough?’

"Using the previous article as a reference, if 75 percent of associations are charging significantly less than $100 a month, are they collecting enough to maintain and improve their airpark? Where does the majority of their money go? Taxes, maintenance, etc.?”

Well,  Hamilton’s questions and comments certainly have merit.

What is the homeowner fee at the airpark where you live?

How much of the fee is for taxes, insurance and other regular expenses.

How much goes into a maintenance fund, either long or short term?

You can help by providing your comments.

    Most fly-in communities or residential airparks are owned and managed by a homeowners association, usually by a board of directors. Some fly-in communities continue to be managed by the developer or someone the developer appoints.
    Are any residential airparks managed by a professional management company? Do some fly-in communities hire a firm to handle the day-to-day chores much like a condominium association might do? Have you heard of any organizations that offer such management services for fly-in communities or residential airparks?
    A LWYP subscriber in Texas asks about such companies and if there are some how much do they cost and how is the fee computed?
    If you are involved in any such operation or are aware of any, please share the information by posting a comment on our website.