In April 2026, a listing went live at the end of Redhaven Street in Hillsboro: three bedrooms, two and a half baths, 3,580 square feet, a hangar, four acres, and an asking price of $1,550,000. If you searched "Sunset Airstrip homes for sale" that spring, this is likely the number that stuck. It's the kind of price that makes a buyer either bookmark the search or close the tab.
Neither reaction tells you much, because that price describes one corner of a runway around which three distinct residential markets have developed since 1968.
One Address, Three Different Price Reports
Before we get to the runway itself, it's worth pausing on how confusing the surrounding North Plains market looks right now, because that confusion is part of the story.
As of August 31, 2026, Zillow's home value index put the average North Plains home at $561,358, down 2.9% from the year before. Redfin, looking at February 2026 sales, reported a median sale price of $465,000, down 16.6% year over year, with homes sitting on the market a median of 89 days compared to 36 days the previous year. Movoto's August 2026 figures showed a median list price of $508,000, with typical time on market stretching to around 150 days, up from roughly 102 days a year earlier.
Three sources, three numbers, and a spread of nearly $100,000 for what is supposedly the same small city. None of them are wrong exactly. They're measuring different slices of a market that includes everything from starter homes in newer subdivisions like Brynhill to acreage properties well outside town limits.
Sunset Airstrip sits in that outside-town-limits category, on private acreage a mile southwest of North Plains, and none of those three numbers describe it. The airpark isn't tracked as its own market by the major portals. It's folded into a countywide average that has nothing to do with four-acre custom-built lots with hangars attached. If you're pricing a home here off a Zillow or Redfin headline number for North Plains, you're pricing the wrong product.
The Runway Is One Thing. The Houses Around It Are Three.
Sunset Airstrip itself is a single private grass runway, 3,000 feet long and 200 feet wide, owned and managed by Roth Development Corporation, a company held by the surrounding property owners rather than an outside developer. That part is straightforward.
What sits around the runway is not one neighborhood. It's three legally separate residential communities, each with its own homeowners association and its own set of covenants, conditions, and restrictions, alongside a working orchard:
- Air Acres – 16 homes on roughly one-acre lots, built in the 1970s, the original neighborhood around the strip.
- Sunset Orchards Estates HOA – 4 homes on four-acre lots, built between 2017 and 2023.
- Falcons Landing (Sunset Orchards Estates 2 HOA) – 16 homes on roughly four-acre lots, built by Garrette Custom Homes starting in 2017.
- Jossy Farms – a 25-acre you-pick orchard on the southeast corner of the runway, a working farm rather than a residential HOA.
That's 36 homes across three residential associations, plus a working orchard as a neighbor, all sharing access to the same strip of grass. A buyer who says "I want a house at Sunset Airstrip" hasn't actually specified a product yet. They've specified a runway. The CCRs that govern setbacks, hangar construction, exterior materials, and even how the aircraft easement works can differ meaningfully depending on which of the three HOAs the listing sits in.
Why 1968 And 2017 Aren't The Same Zoning Story
The one-acre versus four-acre split isn't a builder preference. It's the direct result of two Washington County land use decisions nearly a decade apart.
In 2003, the county created an overlay district covering the airstrip and adjoining properties that restricted commercial aviation activity, including flight instruction, to preserve the area's residential character. That decision locked in the original Air Acres footprint as a personal-use community, not a business location.
Then in 2013, county commissioners approved a new airpark district that allowed additional homes to be built on adjoining land with aircraft housing capability, a decision that two local groups challenged before it took effect. That approval is what opened the door to the four-acre parcels that became Sunset Orchards Estates and, starting in 2017, Falcons Landing under Garrette Custom Homes.
So the lot-size split you see today, tight one-acre sites from the 1970s next to sprawling four-acre custom builds from the 2020s, is a direct fossil of a zoning fight that played out over a decade. Buyers comparing an Air Acres listing to a Falcons Landing listing aren't comparing personal taste. They're comparing two different regulatory eras, which is a large part of why the recent $1,550,000 Redhaven Street listing sat on a newer four-acre parcel rather than an older one-acre lot.
The Governance Layer Nobody Mentions Until Closing
Here's the friction that tends to surface late in a transaction rather than early: buying at Sunset Airstrip means dealing with two separate layers of governance, not one.
The first layer is the runway itself, managed by Roth Development Corporation. This covers access rights, taxiway use, and the shared aviation easement that makes the whole community function.
The second layer is whichever HOA governs the specific lot, with its own dues, architectural rules, and maintenance obligations. A one-acre Air Acres lot from the 1970s and a four-acre Falcons Landing lot from 2017 can carry very different HOA cost structures and very different rules about what you can build, modify, or store on the property.
For financing and appraisal purposes, this matters more than it might seem. An appraiser comparing a Sunset Orchards Estates sale to an Air Acres sale is comparing two different lot sizes, two different construction eras, and potentially two different sets of restrictions, all under one runway name. If you're financing a purchase here, ask your lender early which comparable sales they're pulling, and make sure those comps come from the same HOA tier as the home you're buying. A generic "Sunset Airstrip comp" isn't precise enough to be useful.
The Airspace Rule That Surprises Most Buyers
One more detail catches people off guard who assume "private airstrip" means uncontrolled airspace. It doesn't, here.
The Sunset Airstrip page says the strip sits inside Hillsboro Airport's Class D airspace. Pilots need permission from a property owner before landing, and they also need to coordinate with the Hillsboro Tower on frequency 119.3 to transition that controlled airspace before taking off or landing. It's a private strip with a public airspace obligation layered on top, which is a different daily reality than a fully uncontrolled backcountry airstrip.
For context on how the strip is used day to day, the Oregon Department of Aviation has historically capped the number of aircraft based at Sunset Airstrip at 50. As of the most recent county count referenced in the strip's regulatory record, from 2013, there were 16 aircraft based there. That count is more than a decade old and worth confirming directly if aircraft capacity is a deciding factor for you, since it's the kind of number that shifts as homes change hands.
A Few Questions Worth Asking Before You Tour
Does the CCR difference between HOAs affect what I can build? Yes. Air Acres, Sunset Orchards Estates, and Falcons Landing each maintain their own CCRs, and hangar size, setback rules, and architectural guidelines can vary between them. Ask for the specific HOA's governing documents before you assume anything about what's allowed.
Can I run a flight school or commercial charter from a home here? No. The 2003 Washington County overlay district specifically restricts commercial aviation activity, including flight instruction, to keep the area residential.
Do I need to talk to air traffic control every time I fly? Yes. Because the strip sits inside Hillsboro's Class D airspace, coordination with the Hillsboro Tower on 119.3 is required before takeoff or landing, in addition to getting landing permission from a property owner.
Where This Leaves You
The lesson from Sunset Airstrip isn't that airpark real estate is complicated for its own sake. It's that a single memorable listing price, like the $1,550,000 Redhaven Street home, can quietly stand in for a market that actually has three distinct residential tiers, two governance layers, and a decade-old zoning fight baked into its lot sizes. None of that shows up in a countywide median.
If you're weighing a purchase here, or trying to figure out what a specific HOA's CCRs actually allow, I'd rather walk through the details with you directly than have you piece it together from three conflicting portal numbers. Smile! Relax! Enjoy! That's easier to do when you know exactly which of the three residential communities you're actually buying into.
Ready to talk through what a Sunset Airstrip purchase looks like for your situation? Let's Connect with Stacey McGhehey.
This article is general information, not legal, tax or financial advice. Consult a qualified professional about your situation.
