Niche Appeal

>>When a three-bedroom, two-bath home goes on the market in Southwest Florida, the pool of potential buyers is vast, but if it includes a hangar or a stable, make that pool a puddle.

Homesellers trawling the big waters have struggled to snag a live one in the slow market of 2006, so one might think that luring specialized buyers would be even more challenging.

Not necessarily.

The prospects are a different breed than their mainstream counterparts.

Ask Pat and Bill Williams. While some big players in the building industry are backing off new projects, these two are fueling up for expansion at Sky Manor Estates in North Fort Myers.

"I'm embarrassed to say that we marketed our first lots too cheaply," Bill confides. "Buyers of the caliber we were targeting need to know their neighbors can sustain the lifestyle. At $35,000 predevelopment, we couldn't give the lots away. Then we added $100,000 to the price and sold all 20."

The husband-and-wife team is launching a phased expansion, which will include 116 land/home packages in the $1 million range. Their Sky Villas will be homes over hangars.

"The buyers we seek-Fortune 500 types, western Europeans, etc.-have considerable disposable income," Bill states. "When they find what they want, they don't wait around to see if prices inch down."

Susan Bible, a resident of Wing South since 1992 and a realtor with Naples Realty Services, says sales in that airpark community in east Naples take their own course. Peopled by corporate and commercial pilots, retired military personnel, helicopter operators, financial professionals, building contractors, real estate agents and retirees, Wing South has 59 properties within its gated community and 11 more along the runway.

Bible, a former owner of a 1972 Cessna, observes that the convenience of flying from home and the scarcity of available hangar space keep turnover low. Homes that do go on the market are in the $500,000-plus range. "Lifestyle changes, not investment opportunities, are the main reasons for sales," she explains.

Scarceness of hangar space props Wing South's stability, but the troubled airline industry might be taking the tail wind out of sales at Pine Shadows Airpark in North Fort Myers. According to Rick and Therese Cinotto, a Re/Max Realty team in Cape Coral, homes there used to be snapped up by the aviation in-crowd. With pilots taking salary and pension cuts, the pace has slowed for the properties, priced from $600,000 up.

Yet Rick, a pilot and retired air-traffic controller, remains upbeat. "There are always folks who are crazy for planes, so there'll always be buyers for homes on homeowner-owned runways. And car collectors, boaters and RV owners love those hangar spaces, too."

Equestrian communities also trot to the beat of a different drummer.

Steve Trout, an eight-and-a-half year resident of Las Lomas in northern Cape Coral, hopes his 5,000-square-foot log-cabin-style home, listed at more than $1.29 million, will enjoy the same fate as a neighbor's $800,000 listing that sold in eight weeks last spring.

"We have big lots (two to two-and-a-half acres), horse-owning opportunities and incredible peace and quiet," says Trout, who is also a real estate agent.

Carrie Buttrum, a Locatehomes.com realtor selling homes in a neighboring community, The Woods, echoes that thought. "People can have horses here, or they can just enjoy the luxury of big acreage [three-plus acres] and privacy, minutes away from conveniences," she says.

When one of the 15 properties priced between $800,000 and $1.8 million goes on the market, she advertises in horse magazines and Web sites and does mass mailings to the Ocala area.

What sets a community apart also keeps it going in slow times, says Keith Basik, president of Basik Development and developer of Hemingway Place, a community in central Naples distinguished by its architecture.

"We were committed to creating the kind of traditional, old-fashioned neighborhood many families have been missing," he explains. "Every home has a front porch, two stories and architectural styles such as Victorian, New Orleans or Italianate. Garages don't extend beyond the porches."

The 23 lots sold quickly in 2005, and 10 homes are built. Although lot prices started at $325,000, recent listings were priced between $475,000 and $590,000. Home packages have been offered from $1.6 million to $2 million.

Although he concedes activity has slowed during the sluggish market of 2006, he says unusual is a good thing. "If this is what they're looking for, they're not going to find it anywhere else."

At Cape Coral's Century 21 Birchwood Realty, Uly Robinson, who has a $999,900 listing in Pine Shadows Airpark, says price is still the key. "If the price is right," she states, "the property sells."