Are you thinking about moving to Virginia Beach or Hampton Roads and you’re not quite sure where to start? Well, today we’re going to talk about all the things I think would be best for you to know. And keep in mind as early as possible while you’re preparing to move here to Virginia Beach or Hampton Roads. Let’s get into it. I’m Rachel Beasley with That Fit Team, and I’m a real estate agent here in Hampton Roads for more than 15 years. And I was born here. So I’m a local and I know everything about this area. So I’d love to help you know more about Hampton Roads and all things real estate. So if you like these videos, please subscribe.

Hit the button, the bell like comment below. We would love to hear from you so you can get more videos from us about Hampton Roads, Virginia Beach, Newport News, all of the area. Well, I’ve been talking to a lot of people recently about moving here. People are contacting us pretty frequently now from these videos. So thank you so much, you guys. We love hearing from you. So I took some information and compiled it together. So basically a plan, a structure for your move so you can use this as like a reference guide maybe as you make your plan. The people I usually talk to our anywhere from six months to a year away from moving here and they’re finding me and then trying to figure out like what’s the best starting point?

Why Are You Moving

Where do I even research? And that’s what I’m here for. I want to be there for you in that process. So here’s the first thing I always recommend when people ask me this question Why are you moving? Like, What is the reason? Are you PCSing here? Are you transferring for a job? Do you have family in the area? Are you looking for a better or a different school district for your children? Knowing your why beyond just someone’s making you? Which could be it, but knowing your way is a really, really big deal, even deeper into your why. What’s important to you. Or maybe you’re already local and you just want to move from city to city or district to district, whatever your Why may be.

It’s important to know that. Why? Because it’s basically your foundation for the next three six months to year and your process of moving. Oh, man, it could be that you want to retire to a sleepy beach town. Whatever it may be. We’re here for you. We want to help you through that process of even helping you figure out your big why for moving here. Once you have number one nailed down, then you can really dive in to research. How long do you plan on living here in Virginia Beach or Hampton Roads? People that plan on being stationed here for a short time or maybe two or three years or five years. You might make different decisions depending on how long you’re going to be here.

Maybe you’re being stationed here and you know it’s going to be for two years. Maybe you know it’s going to be for five years or maybe even longer than that. Maybe you’re coming for a job move and you’re hoping that it’s permanent or you’re here to retire. So all of those different reasons of moving here will help us help you research the areas are going to best fit your needs, desires and your lifestyle. Because seriously, if you’re only going to be here for like a year, renting might actually be a better option for you. Or maybe you want to purchase a home. You know you’re going to be here for a year, turn it into a rental property. We can help you with that too.

I could go into more details about that, but that would be a different story. Or please reach out to us. We’d love to help you with any any investment opportunities, the nuances of when a good opportunity to buy equity or not. These are all conversations that we will talk about, depending on how long you want to be here and what your goals are. Long term, it might be better for you to buy instead of rent. And if it depends on the situation and you’re planning on staying here for a long time or a short period of time, these are all things that we want to take in consideration and help you strategize three, six months, nine months to up to a year before your move here.

What Is Your Budget

So after you know, your why and how long you’re going to be here, budget is also a very important factor knowing your budget is going to help you narrow down the areas, neighborhoods, the style of home type of home, the lifestyle that you want to live here. So that’s actually a really important thing to consider. We can help connect you with a local loan officer that can help you with any loan type. So reach out to us, of course. Always we want to hear from you and we can help connect you with someone local here to help you really know and narrow down what a good budget would be for you. Now keep in mind what houses may be listed for now may not be the same ballpark listing as six months to a year from now, but at least you’ll get a good idea and you have a good thumb on the market here and know what your dollars will get you here in Hampton Roads.

It’s just a matter of time before you figure out the right one. But seeing the houses that are in the price point and budget your desiring will help you be prepared for when you actually come here. Boots on the ground to look at houses with us while we’re talking about budget. I’m just going to, like, throw this little tidbit out there for you, pulling up a mortgage calculator online. They’re not always going to be 100% accurate for you. Some of them don’t even factor in taxes and insurance. So this is why I really do suggest, even if you’re six months to a year out having a conversation with a loan officer so they can help set expectations for you here, specifically for our area, they’re going to know if you’re looking in Virginia Beach, what the average tax rate is there, or if you’re looking in Newport News or Suffolk or Carrollton, whatever the area is you’re looking for, they’ll know the tax rate.

They’ll help you understand the interest rates and really break down like, hey, I don’t want to spend more than X amount of dollars a month on my mortgage. They can help guide you and let you know what that means in a budget for your home search. Now, of course, we know interest rates can change in that can be adjusted a little bit, but it’s going to give you a much better snapshot of what you can expect here and where your dollars will go here in Hampton Roads. Now, sometimes people can be a little leery and I’m still talking about finances. Sometimes it makes people’s skin crawl a little bit. But people may be a little leery to have their credit pulled. And I’m not saying talk to a loan officer and have them pull your credit and do the whole loan app. Because reality is, if you’re not actually moving here for six months, you’re going to have to do all of that all over again.

So just have a conversation with someone here. They’ll let you know the right timing for when they should do the credit pull for when you’re actually coming to move here. Now, I will say this. I’m going to throw this out here because I can’t not you guys. I love new construction. If you are moving here or you know you’re PCSing here or transferring here or retiring here, and you know you’ve got a plan to be here six months, 12 months, even 18 months away. Please let us know. We can actually help you get started with the new construction process now, because the reality is it takes about to 12 months to actually build a home from start to finish. So if that’s the case for you, new construction could be a really great option for you. You know, you would get everything you want in the home.

You can customize it just for you and you’re not living in someone else’s home. I always suggest just looking at new construction to someone that knows they want to move here. Now, every once in a while I’ll get something that’s like, No, I love older homes. I love the charm. That’s awesome. I love older homes too. Actually Old Town Portsmouth is one of my favorite places to visit and just walk around and look at all of the beautiful architecture. But new construction is a great option for you if you know you’re going to be like six, 12 months out if you get that process going and then you can take that worry off of your plate with all of the other things that go on with moving to a different area. All right. So we did your why, your timing, your budget, and now location, location, location.

What Location Works Best For Your Lifestyle

I think somebody said that before anyway. So location is a big deal. Finding and narrowing down the area that you want to live in here in Hampton Roads is absolutely something you should start doing to prepare and prepare your expectations for what’s in these areas. You guys, Hampton Roads is huge. It’s a really, really big area. It consists of more than just the seven cities. It’s Williamsburg, Newport News, York County, Hampton, Poquoson. Then you have all of that on the peninsula. And then on the south side you have Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, Suffolk, Isle of Wight County, Smithfield. The list can go on. So there’s a huge area here. We have everything from historical districts to absolute country bumpkin living, which is where Jonathan and I live and I love it to absolute complete city life suburbs, beach towns, you name it.

We have it all. We just don’t have mountains, guys. Lots of water, no mountains. So Hampton Roads is a very eclectic place to live and be, actually makes it kind of fun. You can see all of those cool places and visit these areas within like a 20 to 30 minute drive, which is kind of neat and unique, neat and unique. That was a good one anyway. So narrowing down how you want to live your life is a big deal. If you love living in the country and you don’t mind traveling, you know, 20, 30 minutes to the next grocery store or shops or town. Then we have that. If you’re like, No, I want Target and Starbucks and my favorite restaurants within a five minute drive.

We have those too. So figuring out those types of things is huge in figuring out which cities are best for you here in Hampton Roads, we have videos on each city, so please watch them. But or you can reach out to us, comment below. We would love to give you some local insight as to what we think would be the areas that would best fit the lifestyle that you’re looking for. And after we have a few conversations, probably your personality too. So like if you’re looking for country, there’s areas of Suffolk, Carrollton, Isle of Wight, Smithfield, even some areas of Virginia Beach like the Pungo area. And then we have York County. Those are the areas I would consider to be like, you’re more country style laid back areas. Now, if you’re looking for suburbs, you’ve got Hampton, Newport News, Chesapeake, Virginia Beach, Portsmouth, Norfolk.

You could definitely consider all those places like the suburbs. If you’re looking for a lot of waterfront. Basically, you could look at any city here, but there’s a ton of waterfront in Norfolk, Portsmouth, Virginia Beach, some of Chesapeake, Hampton, Newport News, Puquoson. Those would be your waterfront communities. Now, if you’re, like, super artsy and you really like culture, Norfolk is definitely for you. Norfolk is a really, really cool town. It’s actually a big college town, but it’s a really, really cool city here in Hampton Roads. It has a lot of art, culture, really, really cool local restaurants and a lot of fun places to play and visit. So if you like art and you want to more like art culture, Norfolk is definitely for you.

There’s actually some districts off Virginia Beach that are have an art culture there as well. Now, if you’re looking for a beach town, Virginia Beach, and then some areas of like Buckroe Beach and Hampton and Ocean View in Norfolk are definitely the places for you. So you guys, we have it all. But if you want more specifics on areas, please let us know comment below. We’re here for you.

Traffic and Commute Times

Last thing for today and if you’re still watching, thank you. Traffic is actually a really big deal here in Hampton Roads, traffic patterns. So there are sometimes of the day where you could drive around, not hit any traffic and it’s awesome. Everybody is really happy and excited about that. But rush hour, morning and afternoon, rush hour, it is a thing here, especially if you have to cross a tunnel or a bridge.

So keep that in mind when you’re looking at where your job or your base station is going to be and the areas that you would want to live in, you could live within a 30 minute drive. But during traffic, let’s say on one of those afternoons where raining and no one knows how to drive here in Hampton Roads during the rain. Sorry, it’s a reality, but if that’s the case, then you’ll just know. Like you might have a 45 minute drive that day or an hour minute drive that day because you’ll be sitting in traffic. But that’s not the norm. But so keep in mind the traffic patterns, and we can certainly help you with that or you can Google that.

Or I would actually suggest Googling those traffic patterns like during rush hour here in Hampton Roads. So like if you know you’re going to be on Norfolk Naval Base and you want to live in Suffolk, if it’s like 5:00 where you are here at this time, go ahead and like Google map what that looks like and see what the drive is going to be. That’s what I do for our clients here. When we start to engage in and talking about your move here. So that’s something that we do for all of our clients, but I’ll give you that little tip without even having to work with me. How about that? And in case you haven’t like notice the theme here just gave you some really good tips about preparing to move here, but actually like the resounding theme and I didn’t even plan it is if you talk to a local real estate agent here, they really can help prepare you best for your move here.

So engage with their local real estate agent that knows their stuff, cares about people. But no, there’s a ton of great real estate agents here. So make sure you connect with someone that works with your personality so that as you prepare to move here, you really do get to know some of the local people here, including your real estate agent, and how to best prepare according to your goals. So talk to a local real estate agent. We would love to be that for you and we can’t wait to hear from you sometime soon. So please comment below like the video. Do all of the like youtube things or if you’re on Facebook, please give us a light and a comment below. Give us a call. We’d love to help you. I’m Rachel Beasley with That Fit Team. We are professionals in real estate and passionate about people. We want to help you. We’ll see you next time, bye!