Possible relocate to Norfolk/Chesapeake next summer

[tomiddes]

If I can put my two cents worth in... college students and young professionals aren't the only people leaving the Hampton Roads area. Blue collar workers are leaving too. For eight years I lived in Virginia Beach, then Norfolk, then Chesapeake, before I packed up left as soon as I could rub two pennies together. After eight years I just couldn't afford to live there any longer. An apartment that used to cost $400 a month suddenly cost $900, and my wages hadn't increased that much. I wanted to buy a house a few years back, but simply couldn't, every house I looked at was either out of my price range, falling apart, or in a very bad neighborhood.

The last neighborhood I was forced to move to (Deep Creek) was so terrible that gunshots were commonplace - no one even called the police. I now live in a tiny town elsewhere and am glad to be out of Virginia.

[Mark Sr.]

Originally Posted by Lethal_Poison

Furthermore, one factor that we arent including is that most people of wealth in the area are concentrated in Virginia Beach, while the other cities contain a much higher percent of poverty and working class people. This greatly skews the Virginia Beach median upwards, more so then if those wealthy were scattered about the communities they are scraping their wealth from.

In other words, the people who are wealthy here are living in Virginia Beach because they are wealthy, not because some job in Virginia Beach made them wealthy. Its kind of like living in Bethesda, Maryland, or in the Hamptons of New York, or any of the various snobbish Los Angeles commuting beach towns.

VA Beach like the Hamptons, Malibu, Santa Monica - I don't think so.

But there are a large number of military members in Virginia Beach (and Hampton Roads as a whole). That equates to a higher turnover rate due to duty station transfers. The above average turnover rate we have always had caused values to increase even more rapidly during "easy mortgage money" era of 2002-2005.

I ended up in VB in a military family. In general, "wealthy" people do not typically enter the military. Nor does one usually become wealthy in the military, as either an officer or enlisted. My father grew up poor and was the first in his family to go to college. That was only possible because he got an ROTC scholarship, then it was straight to Vietnam. I guess after working hard for 50 years he could now be labeled "a wealthy Virginia Beacher".

Virginia Beach has a broad spectrum of socioeconomic levels. As a whole it is a very safe an affordable city, compared to other cities w/ similar size populations.

Virtually all real estate markets went crazy over the last few years. We are in a correction, but many of the homes you see overpriced today would have been overpriced 2 years ago at today's asking price. People need to accept that a home bought strictly with profit in mind is not going to be worth what they wanted it (or thought it was going) to be worth down the road.

-Mark

[lmjohnson123]

Good monologue Mark. I agree. The market is crazy and housing should drop. There are condos below $200K in Riverfront that are nice. That is still affordable from most.