I've been dreaming of having my own airstrip compound for years, somehow getting a hundred acres or so of flat, fairly clear land and building a house and a grass strip on it, and somehow it would be close enough to the city that I could still work. It's a dream, and I know it.
Well, a good friend of mine actually grew up on such a piece of property, and his mom is considering parceling out a couple of lots to a select couple people. It's in Monroe, GA, east of Atlanta. It's out there a bit, but considerably closer than just about anything I could hope for, and not really any worse of a commute than any of the conventional fly-in communities in the atlanta area. It would add about 20 minutes to my already hour-long commute. Most importantly, they have 8mbit cable internet out there already, and I can just expand my work from home hours.
The strip is an FAA registered 2000x200' turf strip, 1GA9. 2000' is on the short side, but plenty for the RV and most other airplanes I hope to own. I flew my cherokee in there on sunday, and it's a bit tight getting out of there solo; I wouldn't attempt it with any amount of weight... at least not on the 95 degree day we had sunday! They have a pair of tractors with 7' deck bushogs, and they keep it mowed once or twice a week. Only three homes are currently on the strip, and she wants to sell two or maybe three more lots, and keep it very private with only people that share the same sorta ideals for the place. The sale comes with an easement and 99 year lease on the strip so it can't go away.
The property isn't remarkably cheap, and there's no firm price on it yet, but right now it's looking like around $200,000 for 5 acres of the best land on the property; center of the strip, adjacent to it. About 2.5 acres is already cleared, there's an ex-home site there that burned and plenty of space. If I did it, I'd get another $200-250k on top of the $200k for the land to build a modest 1800-2000sqft or so house and a 60x60 hangar.
I also have tons of construction resources, and I'm hoping I can save a fair amount of money in the build process and have some cash left over for, I dunno, a nice IO-360 or something
Another nice bonus is I'm currently paying for both a tiedown at KRYY and a hangar out at KRMG, and with this place I won't need either of them, which will save me $400/mo.
So... am I talking crazy talk? Or is this realistic?
. your payment should come in around 3500-4000 a month. 
when the interest rates dropped about 6-7 years ago i took a 30 year note refinanced it and went 15 years on it. It only increased it 100 a month. i think it is @ 5.5 now so i dont see another break any time soon. Having trimmed 15 years off of my mortgage is quite satisfying though. 
