Experience in Air Rights

[Sam Spoerl]

Good afternoon,

I learned about air rights when I was working on getting my RE license. I have always been intrigued with it and now I feel like there could be good opportunities to start buying some. This being said my question is. Does anyone have experience in buying air rights without buy the property?

thank you. 

[William Whitley]

Hello Sam, 

Technically you can buy air rights, and buy and sell air rights. You have to understand that there are a bundle of rights in real property, and you can lease and/or sell a portion of these rights or all of these rights in various situations.

Let’s talk air rights. There is something called an avigation easement. Properties that are near an airport where a desired flight path is over one’s property could sell an avigation easement to a government or other entity that could restrict certain uses of that property in exchange for compensation. These easements could also completely sever the air rights from the property, eliminating the right to construct any structure on the property. Now I’m not referring to the right of airplanes to fly over the property at 30,000 feet. I’m referring to takeoff and approach routes. While many of these types of routes already have established avigation easements, there are still situations where additional acquisitions are necessary.

Another potential scenario is that of a development in an urban area, where air rights could be traded in the real estate market to enable the construction of taller buildings or to preserve desirable views.

So yes, air rights can be transferred to others while maintaining ownership of the land, but these agreements and the valuation of these rights can be quite complex.

Equally as complex are ways to earn a profit from these air rights from an investor’s perspective. Just like any of the other bundle of rights, there needs to be both supply and demand for these rights to realize any value.