Tips on ‘Clearing’ Airport Areas for Home Buying

Is your wallet stuffed with frequent-flyer cards? Are you flying more than ever? Do your travel habits tempt you to buy a home near an airport?

Then select the right spot and you can enjoy both the convenience of airport proximity and the comfort of knowing that your housing investment is sound, according to those who have examined the issue.

“People who live near an airport and still have the isolation they’re looking for are in the ideal situation,” said Dick Marchi, senior vice president for the Airports Council International of North America.

Several factors are combining to make proximity to an airport a better housing choice, said Marchi, whose group represents airports and airport-related businesses.

For one thing, as Marchi points out, the federal government has mandated the phaseout of older, noisier planes by 2000. The new jets are much quieter.

A second factor is that many airports are expanding and creating more jobs, not only for pilots and flight attendants but also for magazine vendors, airport kitchen workers and those who fuel the jets.

The expansion is happening because the number of U.S. air passengers has steadily increased by about 4.5% a year since the early 1990s, Marchi said.

Furthermore, airport areas are magnets for all sorts of non-airport jobs. Given the expanding global economy, more companies want locations where their executives can fly in and out easily. As jobs grow, demand rises for nearby housing.

Although there’s no sudden surge in buyers seeking homes close to an airport, there’s now less danger of making a costly mistake in buying an airport-area home, said Joan McLellan Tayler, author of several real estate books.

“With more traffic problems, there’s now tremendous anxiety about getting to the airport on time, especially if you have a big business deal pending,” Tayler said.

Still, if you’re a person who is unusually sensitive to noise or who wants to spend a great deal of time outdoors, living in the vicinity of an airport could be a poor idea unless you chose your site with unusual care.

Here are four pointers for those considering an airport-area home:

No. 1: Investigate the flight paths for the airport serving your area.

What the industry knows as “flyovers” are arrival and departure paths. Noise experts say that anyone living underneath a flight path (within 3 1/2 miles on either side) will get the brunt of jet noise, noted Marchi, of the Airports Council International.

If you can accept a moderate degree of noise but don’t want to be bludgeoned by it, you could consider living 3 1/2 miles from an airport, so long as you’re not under a flyover path, Marchi said. If you want more tranquillity yet proximity to an airport, he suggests you select a site seven to eight miles from an airport (again, not under a flight path).

It’s easy to get objective data from airport authorities on current and planned flight patterns, according to Marchi. Call the airport’s main office and ask for its noise abatement department. There you’ll find noise experts to answer your questions.

Most airport officials are sensitive to public concerns because they want community residents to support their operations.

“The airport doesn’t want people lying on the runway protesting the noise or anything else,” said Tayler, the real estate author.

No. 2: Visit an airport-area home several times before deciding to buy.

It’s not sufficient to visit a home you’re considering just one time, especially if it’s near an airport. Noise levels can vary depending on the day and time.

Tayler suggests you stay long enough to see whether passing jets rattle the windows of a home. That’s a telling test of the noise level, she said.

No. 3: Drop in on shopkeepers in the area.

Before purchasing a home, it’s prudent to walk around the neighborhood and, in a friendly manner, poll residents on the pros and cons of living there.

In the case of noise problems, you’re better off speaking to those who work in local retail establishments, because they’re less likely to have become so accustomed to the noise that they no longer notice it.

Tayler, who formerly owned her own realty company, recalls one client, an investment broker, who moved from another state. He and his wife selected a home close to the airport to make his business travel more convenient.

The night they moved in, the man was so tormented by the noise that he couldn’t sleep. His wife immediately ordered expensive noise-numbing draperies. “But within days--before the drapes arrived--he was sleeping like a baby,” Tayler recalled.

No. 4: Bargain for a discount when you buy and expect to pass it on later.

There are many factors that influence the price of a home, including its size, the quality of its community and the ratings of local schools.

Distance to the airport is just one element, along with other factors affecting its future value.

All other things being equal, a home you buy within a 3 1/2-mile radius of an airport should go for 2% to 5% less than a similar home seven to eight miles from the airport, said David H. Blewett, a broker-associate for the Re/Max chain.

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Distributed by Universal Press Syndicate.