Where in the World is Hampton Roads?

The state of VA is shaped roughly like a right angle triangle. At the very tippy top of the state is Leesburg, which, technically, is in the northernmost part of the state. Leesburg is at a crossroads of sorts, near the W. VA line 34 miles south of Harper's Ferry, MD and 38 miles east of Winchester, VA, which is also very near a state border. In spite of its location, Leesburg & Winchester are not what people are talking about when they are talking about Northern VA, or NoVA. The metro DC part of Northern VA stretches from the Dulles area (Sterling, Herndon, & Reston), which is roughly 15 miles south of Leesburg and 30 miles northeast of DC, so still rather far out for the metro area, to Fredericksburg, VA, 58 miles south of Washington, DC. Fredericksburg is really an outlying suburb, as you can see from the map, and the fact that it's 58 miles from DC. On the map, you can see where Arlington & Alexandria, close-in VA suburbs, look quite far away from Fredericksburg and Charlottesville. In fact, though Fredericksburg is considered an outlying part of NoVA, it is only 57 miles north of Richmond, the state's capitol.

Ok, so we've covered the tippy top part of the state down to Richmond, which is in central VA. No mountains, no sea. Richmond lies on the fall line, the place where rivers run over rocks and cities spring up. The fall line is the dividing line between the soft, sandy soil of the Coastal Plain to the east and the mountainous areas to the west. So though Richmond is not technically in the middle of the state, it also represents a crossroads of sorts, a geographical one.

At the very bottom corner of the state lies Hampton Roads. Just as NoVA is neighbors with Maryland, HR is neighbors with mostly rural and coastal parts of North Carolina and the Eastern Shore. The very bottom of Virginia Beach & Chesapeake butts up with North Carolina. From the Peninsula, you can go to small coastal NC cities like Elizabeth City and small inland country-setting towns like Ahoskie in less than 2 hours.

Culinary sidenote: I haven't been to Ahoskie, but I have family members who take jaunts to get the very delicious and unique NC country sausage sold there. For many years I didn't like it, but they finally happened upon a less salty brand that I love. When I was on the New Stories tour, we had dinner at the Piedmont. I had sausage and polenta, and that's when it clicked for me - I could tell the sausage was NC sausage by its texture, but that was the first time I understood how good it could be when done well, with good cuts of meat, herbs, and not oversalted. Good stuff!

Hampton Roads is cut through and surrounded by water, and is as far south and as far east as one can go in the state (except for the Eastern Shore). Richmond is one hour to the west - remember, this is where the land changes from coastal to the fall line and gradually becomes mountainous. The James is a tiny sliver in Richmond, as it flows over rocks and downstream into Newport News and into the Hampton Roads Harbor, the Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic Ocean. Instead of sitting on huge rocks in Richmond watching the James river swirl around you, you are standing next to the James, or Hampton Roads, or the Chesapeake Bay, or the Atlantic, watching pleasure boaters and huge container ships pass and huge ships standing still at the shipyards.

So Richmond is one hour to the northwest. At this crossroads, you can take 95 north for 2 more hours to DC, or stay on 64 West for another hour into Charlottesville. At this point, you are really getting into mountain territory. You can see mountains in the near distance, and within 30 minutes to another hour, can be on the top of one in Wintergreen. I-81 runs along the western side of the state from the mountainous north, near W.VA & MD, to the mountainous south - Appalachia, near Tennessee.

Since the state is shaped like a triangle, it gets wider as one travels from north to south. So basically, it would take me longer to get from Hampton Roads in the far southeast to the farthest southwestern part of the state than it would to get to NYC. Both trips would take me to an entirely different world. Appalachia is as different from coastal VA as are the huge Gothic structures in Manhattan (love that architecture). I saw a contestant on some reality show from Coeburn, VA. I looked it up and found that it was in the far southwestern part of the state. Slightly farther, almost as far west as you can go is Wheeler, VA, which is 487 mi – about 8 hours 5 mins from Hampton, VA. New York City is 402 mi – about 6 hours 57 mins (up to 8 hours 20 mins in traffic). In other words, the bottom of the triangle is as long as it looks, and the middle is pretty wide too. When I went to the VA Festival of the Book at UVA, a bookstore owner asked me where I was from. I told him, and he said, "Oh, you're from out east," and winked at me.

So if you're looking for mountains, check out Roanoake, Nelson County, Harrisonburg, or any other city along I-81. Or come see us out at the coast!

Sold in 3 Days!

I had three closings in September! Or rather, three of my clients had September closings. I helped two clients purchase homes and one client sell - the home sold in three days. Condos and townhomes tend to sell more quickly than detached homes, and this one was no exception, except that it sold even more quickly than is the norm. And this in a "slow market." Hampton Roads' home market and economy tend to be protected by the military presence - there are always folks buying and selling. Not only do our home values not have the extreme highs and lows seen in other areas, such as NYC or LA, our market does not even reflect the situation in Northern VA. The biggest shift in value happened when many Hampton Roads properties doubled in value between 2003 and 2005, but the much publicized recent national drop in values that has affected some Northern VA properties by as much as a 40% decrease in market value does not correspond to Hampton Roads, where we see many properties holding value and others dropping by say 10% at most. What does this mean? It's still a good time to buy or sell in Hampton Roads. Buyers - you can find a bargain. Sellers - be prepared to price it right, so it will sell, not sit. It's still a buyers' market, meaning that there are plenty of homes for buyers to choose from, so there is always the possibility that buyers will pass your home by for a comparable one with more updates and a more reasonable list price. The above condo is a perfect example - there was one in the same development that had been on the market before it. My listing, however, was furnished, showed well, had laminate flooring, and was priced slightly lower than the other, so my listing sold in 3 days while the other listing continued to sit.

local military bases

Here's a great map of all the local military bases from East Beach's website. They're in the smart folk crowd - fragment the .gif so it can't be lifted - you have to go to the site to see a quality version.

Wilson's Landing

Yesterday I saw a flyer advertising an open house luncheon for realtors at Wilson's Landing, a new condominium community in downtown Hampton. Several of us went over this afternoon.

I posted about Wilson's Landing back in January, while taking a walk downtown. At that time they were still being constructed. This is how they looked then.





And this is how they look now.

If you want a trilevel condo in downtown Hampton, these units might very well be for you. To the left in the photo, there is a walkway. The front doors of four units are facing each other. Going into either of the doors on the right will take you into two of the models we saw. The middle balcony where the "models open" sign is draped is the balcony of models E & C, the largest and smallest units at 2,409 and 1,961 sq feet respectively. I was confused when I went onto the balcony from the larger unit, but when I went onto the same balcony from the smaller unit and asked about it, I was told that the divider has not been constructed yet. Just to the right of where the "models open" sign is is where the 2,409 sq foot unit ends and the 1,961 sq foot unit begins. We also saw the 2,092 & 2,328 sq. ft. units.

All units have a ground floor garage. All have a great room with fireplace, a kitchen, and a half bath on the second floor. Hardwood floors in the kitchen area - we saw a light blond wood in the smallest unit and a gorgeous dark wood in the largest unit. Also on this floor, there is a separate laundry room in the larger two models, while the washer and dryer are combined with the half bath in the two smaller units. All four of these units have double doors leading out to a balcony. Units E & C's balconies face Eaton Street, and while it's not the interstate, there is some traffic. The amount of balcony space on the larger unit and the large overhang make up for it somewhat. The units with balconies facing the courtyard are a bit more serene.

On floor three, all three of the larger units have two masters, while the 1,961 sq. ft. unit has a master and a second bedroom with a hallway bathroom.

The best feature of these units, in my opinion, is the fourth floor loft. Each unit's fourth floor has a loft and a full bath, and though the size of the units differs, when I got to the fourth floor of each, I had the same feeling of space and comfort.

Floorplans & Pricing

I have to be honest though. If you were here and you told me that you wanted a new trilevel condominim or townhome on or near the water on the lower peninsula, I would take you to H2O first. I suppose I'll have to visit both again to come up with concrete reasons and a better and more specific comparison. My main reason is that H20's layout and view of Newmarket Creek appealed to me more, but that may have been influenced by the fact that all of the models were staged, whereas only one unit in Wilson Creek was staged. But while H20 has a water view, Wilson's Landing is located near the Hampton river, in restored and historic downtown Hampton. Over the past 20 or so years, this area has seen a revival. Longstanding seafood & watermen establishments like Graham & Rollins, I Cooper's, and Amory's Seafood Market co-exist with many fairly new restaurants, the VA Air & Space center, Hampton History Museum, and thriving businesses. Downtown Hampton is small, quaint, and thriving.

Wilson's Landing is adjacent to Mill Point (on the water) & Towne Creek (not on the water) townhomes. Towne Creek is visible in the photo above. You can see Mill Point behind the house in this photo. Mill Point very rarely has units for sale - only one went on the market this year, in May. It's pending as of 9/13. Towne Creek had 2 units go on the market this year. One sold in two months above list price, the other in four months at list price. So you can see that real estate in the Hampton Roads area is not quite in dire straits compared to other areas of the country. Most say the main reason this area's economy and real estate prices don't take such huge dives and jumps is due to the stabilizing presence the military has on the local economy. Between Mill Point, Towne Creek, & Syms Eaton Square (the other side of the street), there are 4 condos/townhomes currently on the market in this area: 2 one-bedrooms in Syms Eaton, at 655 sq ft. each, and two larger units in Mill Point. So Wilson's Landing is meeting a need for more/larger townhomes/condos in this area. Wait, there's another established development down Eaton St., Jonathan's Landing. There's a 2 bedroom, 1.5 bath townhome in the mid 150's that just went on the market 9/4.

Another part of the area's appeal is the proximity to Mill Creek Park, which is on the Hampton River between Mill Point townhomes and the Booker T. Washington bridge, pictured above (photo courtesy of Jerry Gammon). Events such as wine festivals, the Blackbeard festival, and the Afrikan American Festival are held at this park. For larger events like Bay Days, the entire area is cordoned off for pedestrian traffic and streets are off limits to cars. It's only during festivals like this that you will see in Hampton Roads cities the pedestrian traffic that is native to larger cities. After the festival is over, it's back to suburbia - cars rule. If you like the feel of living in a small downtown with easy access to the rest of the Peninsula, less than five minutes to the HRBT and a quick jaunt to Norfolk, and the opportunity to live in the middle of downtown's block parties, you might like living in Wilson's Landing.

The event was catered by several downtown Hampton restaurants: Marker 20, Goodfellas, La Bodega (formerly The Wine Shop), The Taphouse, Queens Way Soul Cafe, and The Grey Goose.
Marker 20's crab dip was all gone when we got there, and I passed on the Texas Caviar. Goodfella's Hawaiian meatballs were awesome. La Bodega's Greek salad and the Taphouse's Mediterranean Cheese Tortellini with crab and feta were awesome. The best of the day for me. The Soulfood Cafe's fried whiting and collards were decent. The folks were the friendliest, and I've heard they have great drinks. I missed the Grey Goose's dessert.