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We are moving to Cannon AFB in 10 days. We have contacted the housing office and they say Chavez West (housing we originally wanted) is full. Our other options are 801 Clovis and Portales. We are trying to weigh the pros and cons of living in both. How long does it take to drive from Portales to the base and then Portales to Clovis. We don't want to be away from everything 'in town' so what kinds of stores and stuff do they have out in Clovis. ANY information would be so helpful!
First, let me say I am not a Clovis-hater. Although the cow smell makes me nauseated at times, and the shopping is depressing. As for Portales, it seemed to be a nice town, but it was raining when we drove down there and my husband's car got flooded into on the main street of the town! Move to Portales, buy a new truck... No thanks!
Anyway, we got here in October of last year and I'll have to say I agree with you 100% about the military housing. Sad, sad, sad. ACC really knew how to take care of their people. So, we found a house to rent in Clovis and are paying above our BAH on rent alone, even with the increase.
My rundown of the housing options here are: suffer in shoddy base housing (even the 801 stuff is not that great); suffer in a hole of a rental if you can find one that's more then 2 bedrooms; pay out of your own pocket for a decent rental (warning: this takes crouching down like a preying lion and jumping on the first one you see and leaving any pets you have with friends or parents-- we didn't even physically look in the house we are renting because we were out of the area when we found it online), or take a (imo) risk by buying a house here.
If you do decide to buy a house, my advice would be to pay your principal down as fast as you can (15 year mortgage with a down payment plus prepayments) AND start a savings devoted solely to offsetting any losses you incur when it comes time to sell in a few years. If you plan on buying with the intention to rent it out after you move: remember that you'll be competing with new base housing (maybe) by 2011-12 and if you set up your homeowner's insurance the correct way (I highly recommend)- your premium will at least double when the house becomes a rental house.
I speak from personal experience from all of this. The days of easy buying and selling for apparently everywhere but here are over. And I gurantee that the days of easy buying and selling will come to an end here, too. If you do decide to buy, take precautions!!
The new subdivisions here are somewhat of a joke-- one builder and only 6 or 8 different floorplans offered?? Say they only build 30 homes-- there's a possibility that there will be 29 other homes exactly like yours in the same neighborhood. Cheap home building. Consider the pain of selling that house when it's 3 years old and not only competing against new homes in the 2nd phase of the subdivision, but you are competing against 10 of the same models in the same neighborhood. Your winning factor will be LOW PRICE.
IMO, some people are taking advantage of the influx of military families to the area, and although it ain't right-- they can't be blamed. When a group of people are willing to pay for it, why not sell it? Looking at this market, I can convince myself that I got a great deal when I bought a brand new house for $88 sq.ft. in AR back in 2006! The going rates here are $100 to $120 a sq.ft.!!!
We are moving to Cannon AFB in 10 days. We have contacted the housing office and they say Chavez West (housing we originally wanted) is full. Our other options are 801 Clovis and Portales. We are trying to weigh the pros and cons of living in both. How long does it take to drive from Portales to the base and then Portales to Clovis. We don't want to be away from everything 'in town' so what kinds of stores and stuff do they have out in Clovis. ANY information would be so helpful!
The 801 housing in Clovis is about 20 minutes away from the base-- that's with "traffic". Don't know about Portales to the gate-- but it seemed longer. To me, there seemed an abundance of traffic lights in Portales. Most of your shopping and dining is in Clovis. Also, most "air force community" (spouse group, play group) activities will be located in Clovis (besides on base). Just a thought.
The houses in Portales have the larger floorplan and the back yards are, without a doubt, bigger.
The Clovis housing is nice as well. If you want a fence you have to install it and its very close to an Elem school. I have a friend that lives there and her back yard... well "back yard" is a contruction site.. she has about 6 feet of her space then its a ditch with construction trucks (New housing- oh no.. not for us haha). We looked here and liked some of the houses. Just remember to ask to see more floorplans - if they have some free ones. Her husband said that it takes him about 15 min to get from his house to work.. so its about the same drive to work from Portales and Clovis.
Portales is a very small town. However it is a University town. There are small resturants here.
The 2 Major reasons we picked Portales housing v/s any other is :
Portales is safer than Clovis.
Portales housing is bigger and has a "home" feel to it.
Of course there are problems from time to time with all of the homes. We havent had anything major pop up (Other than having to wait 2 days before they could install a new dishwasher- which wasnt bad imo)
Clovis has most of the shopping. It takes us 15 min to get from our house in Portales to the Base. Portales has a few red lights - which is needed seeing how a lot of college kids are walking & its needed to make sure you do not have someone going 65 straight through town.
This whole area is not used to having any large amount of rain. Our 1st week here it rained non-stop (Some hurricane or something related to that). We were in Clovis and the streets are a joke. It was like playing a video game or something .. water standing in the roads and people splashing other cars- couldnt see anything!!! But that doesnt happen often at all.
For us to get to .. lets say.. 21st street (Where Clovis starts to look a little better and not so run down) in Clovis from Portales it takes 20-30 min.
We enjoy being detached from Clovis.
In the inbreifing we were warned and warned about the lower half of Clovis. So we thought why not just live in the better housing and not have to worry about the "Lower Half".
We don't want to be away from everything 'in town' so what kinds of stores and stuff do they have out in Clovis. ANY information would be so helpful!
To us, it feels like Clovis has lots of stores because we used to live 8 miles from the nearest grocery store when we were back East. Here there is Walmart, Lowe's (do it yourself stuff), another Lowe's (groceries), Albertson's, plus another couple of supermarkets. A small mall with Beall's, Penneys, and Dillard's, etc. People here say they do their "big shopping" (?) in Lubbock or Amarillo. We did take the drive to Lubbock to get to a Best Buy to get a computer.
Portales is smaller and more charming than Clovis. It has the University, a Walmart, some furniture stores (including Ashley), some good restaurants, and... I hope that someone on here who knows Portales will fill in the rest.
Ok, now that I'm even more scared to buy a house out there than before, I'm sick of thinking about that for now. Especially since we haven't even been out there to see the area yet.So let me ask you know about things for kids. We have a 4 yr old son who loves to play outside and is as rambunctous as they come. Again, not being military (not active anyway, my husband is a former Marine) I'm concerned about being able to find playgroups and such that include civilians. I see you all talking about the military things that are available, but are civilians included in the playgroups you see and such? The and such being good daycares, playgrounds, etc.
Ok, now that I'm even more scared to buy a house out there than before, I'm sick of thinking about that for now. Especially since we haven't even been out there to see the area yet.So let me ask you know about things for kids. We have a 4 yr old son who loves to play outside and is as rambunctous as they come. Again, not being military (not active anyway, my husband is a former Marine) I'm concerned about being able to find playgroups and such that include civilians. I see you all talking about the military things that are available, but are civilians included in the playgroups you see and such? The and such being good daycares, playgrounds, etc.
I do not know...
However if when you move here just let some of us know and I am sure we can put you into contact with someone we know etc... so you can have some play grps etc.
I would suggest myself- however I dont do Play groups anymore..
However if when you move here just let some of us know and I am sure we can put you into contact with someone we know etc... so you can have some play grps etc.
I would suggest myself- however I dont do Play groups anymore..
Both kids are in school now
Thanks. I appreciate that. I will do that. Thanks!!
School info, is the Clovis base housing called Cannon Place near Mesa a good housing area? Our son's 5th grade teacher(also his gifted teacher as well) here in Florida used to be a teacher at Mesa and highly recommends it. Should we put other housing on our list? Also, we have done the math and yes it is smarter to buy a newer home at a reasonable price than to rent at a higher one! Simple math. With the luck we are having here at Eglin selling and renting I don't want to buy there. We are even allowing a smaller dog in our home and all the renters have big ones. It's all so much to consider BUT we are looking forward to coming there.
Another option to consider is Farwell, Tx as there are some pretty decent houses for sale there at a pretty good price. I dont know how long that will last as we start to see a housing crunch develop between the growth of Cannon and the lowering of base housing inventory due to renovation/demolition. I will say that if I were buying I would be very aggressive to the penny out here because if you can get into the market now at a good price I do believe for just the reasons I stated above you will get a good return on your house in a couple of years.
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