All Forum Posts by: Brian Garrett

Hey - look at that.  There's two Brian Garrett's here!  :D

I know at the airport I fly out of, there's around 300 people on a waiting list for a hangar.  It's a slow process to move up the list, so that may be part of the reservation length.  If someone was able to work through the red tape at the county airport and built a bunch of hangars, they'd likely make a pretty decent and consistent return on their investment.

Oh one more - I stumbled across this while doing some more looking around... http://www.airportairparkhomes.com/listings.asp  Looks like a somewhat comprehensive listing of at least the majority of current fly-in communities.

In this day and age far more airports are closing than opening.   Fly-in communities are quite exclusive.  I live in the Denver area and there are at least four that I'm aware of within about 40 miles or so of the metro area.  The one to the south is Kelly Airpark (http://www.kellyairpark.org/) and you have to be quite well heeled to live in that community.  There's Erie Airport (https://www.erieco.gov/93/Airport) which is north of Denver.  Homes in that area range from a million or two on one end of the field to the high six figures to the other end.  The airport has a history with trying to stay open and eventually the city took it over, closing the crosswind runway much to the dismay of the home owners.  There's also Parkland Estates (http://parklandestatesairpark.org/) which is north of the Erie airport.  The homes for that area are right in line with the normal homes in the Colorado area (still expensive) and then there is Van Aire (http://www.vanaireskyport.org/) which fought to stay open when DIA was built 25 years ago.  The airspace for DIA was going to encroach into that area and threatened to shut the airport side of the community down.  I've flown in there since DIA opened and the airspace is VERY tight for flying.  The homes are considerably older and many of them are needing flipping.  

There are these types of communities throughout the country and many of the homes are advertised in aviation magazines.

Most of these types of communities have restrictions around the type of homeowner that can purchase property there.  The primary requirement is at least one of the owners is required to be an active pilot.

The the FAA Modernization and Reform Act of 2012 (https://www.faa.gov/airports/airport_compliance/re...) resulted in the laws being setup for these types of communities called "Through the fence".  I'm not totally familiar with what the laws allow (or don't allow) you to do, but I do know since 9/11 things have gotten a bit more restrictive (unnecessarily so) for these types of things.

Interestingly enough, I don't believe there is any requirement for building your own runway at your home.  I know of at least one individual who has done so.

Regardless, if you do go forward with it, you're gonna need to have a lot of legal work done and even more money.  There's a saying in aviation - "how do you make a million dollars?  Start with ten."  I'd imagine if you tack real estate onto that process you would need to start with a hundred million.

Best of luck obviously.  

Brian

@Josh C.  I did research last year but haven't wrapped back around on it, so thanks for the briefer.  I think finding someone to trust in this process is the single biggest hurdle.

@Shiloh Lundahl - what sort of things have you been hearing?

This looks like a good place to start - https://www.biggerpockets.com/rei/colorado-real-es...

I *think* there is one that meets  up in Ft. Collins which would be a bit closer to Greeley.  I know there is an Erie meet-up as well.

Google is your friend here.  :D

I dropped you an email about this - I'd like to know more.

Looks interesting....

My wife and I have slowly been creeping towards getting into our first multi-family buy/hold property in the Kansas City Missouri  area.  We've got a great realtor working with us - she's tenacious and detail oriented.  She gets onto the property when she can and provides us a great number of detailed photos of the things she finds that may be issues with the property.  I have concerns that we're wearing out our welcome as we keep seeming to pick properties that, while on the surface look great, need a great deal of work to make them in my opinion habitable.  

The recent pick was a nice looking 4-door unit.  Decent location, nice street presence.  Upon deeper investigation by our realtor pretty much all the bathrooms need to be gutted and redone because all of them have mold and/or clear water damage.  There's photos of what appears to be definite termite issues and other water damage from the ceiling.  Windows are likely painted shut as well.

My first thought was to offer $60k less than the $360k asking price because there's clearly going to be some work to be done.  Doing this remotely (from Denver) I'd need a good GC in the area to oversee the work and the $60k delta between asking and offering seems about right to make sure I don't have someone go in, pull up the shower/floor and and find out joists need to be replaced or something else worse that would seriously skew the price.  We'd also have some carrying costs to deal with as well with the vacant units were being repaired.

Using the Rental tool here on the site, the numbers are sane and should cash-flow about $9k to $10k annually at a $360k asking price, so that part checks out.  If I rehab the units I should be able to raise the rents on the remaining units to bring the returns up to the $10k returns.

Of course the same day we get this information a wholesale house opened up down the street from where I live in Denver at a good price and I can do all the work myself (which I can do) and needs FAR less work.  We have cash to do the wholesale deal without stretching the budget.

 I've expressed my gratitude to the realtor working with us as I know she's putting in a lot of work to get us over the finish line.  I just don't want to wear out my welcome.

I guess my question is - am I asking too much to find a property that would be a little closer to being able to buy/hold in the area or in general?  Thoughts/feedback is appreciated.