The Best Neighborhoods In Virginia Beach - Virginia Beach Neighborhoods

You should always start your home search in the right Virginia Beach neighborhoods. You can find big beautiful houses everywhere. But there are many neighborhoods that you should avoid.   Here you will find hundreds and hundreds of pictures from some of the best neighborhoods in Virginia Beach.

I recommend browsing some of the Virginia Beach neighborhoods on the right side of this page. There are literally thousands of websites out there where you can surf homes for sale in Virginia Beach (this link is to another Will Layton website) but very few that give you useful neighborhood information and even fewer, if any, where you can find Virginia Beach neighborhood pictures.

Real estate philosophy is another up and coming discipline founded right here in Virginia Beach. As luck would have it, you have found the only site where you will find useful information on where the market has come from perhaps where it is going. Almost no one can predict the future, except for you and me. Real estate philosophy explores the world of prognosticators and how you too can predict the future of the Virginia Beach real estate market.

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There are thousands of homes for sale in Virginia Beach and you are probably trying to figure out which is the best one for you. Here’s how you do it.

First let me tell you a story to make a point. I was planning a trip to Disney World and started looking for places to stay online. Google returned 671,000 results for “Disney World lodging.” I spent hours looking at sites and reading reviews. The choices were overwhelming and expensive, and I had no idea who to trust. A couple days later I ran into a friend who had just returned from Orlando. He told me where to stay and what to do. While this was not the most sophisticated research option, it certainly simplified the process and saved me a whole lot of time.

Searching for the right home is no different. If you search “Virginia Beach homes,” Google will return 40,000,000 results. Try going through all those in one night. Even if you do, you won’t be any closer to finding the right home. For that you need someone to simplify the process.

I am that someone! Tell me your story and I will find you the right home in the right neighborhood. It’s as simple as that. Selling homes in more about people than it is about real estate. After a few days of house hunting, lunch at Panera, and a couple pit stops at 7-Eleven, we will have narrowed down your choices to two or three. I know from experience that you can’t do that with Realtor.com. As an added bonus, I have a great sense of humor and drive a very comfortable car (though not flashy).

At the end of the day, it’s all about you. Let’s find you the right home in the right neighborhood, the right lender, the right insurance company, the right settlement agent, the right home inspector… the list goes on and on. If you are still in the hunt for a real estate agent, stop looking! You found a good one right here. I won’t require you to sign anything and you pay me nothing, ever. I’m simply here to help.

So, wait no longer. Call me right now and let’s find you a place to call home.

757-621-8995 or Will@WilliamLayton.com

Who is Will Layton?

Virginia Beach neighborhood expert, licensed real estate agent with Wainwright Real Estate, BS in Mechanical Engineering from Lehigh University, Navy veteran, fighter pilot, world traveler, self proclaimed home improvement guru, father of two little girls, and he always wears a shirt and tie when house hunting.

If you ask ten people their favorite neighborhood in Virginia Beach, you’ll likely get ten different answers. Most people think their neighborhood is the best. If the house next door is for sale and they like you, they’ll try to get you to move into it. “This is the best neighborhood in Virginia Beach!” they’ll say. Of course they can’t all be right. But they all mean it.

There are different strokes for different folks. This is the reason that you should strive to keep an open mind. What matters the most is what you think as a potential buyer. Your best friend assumes that because she is happy in a certain neighborhood that you will be happy there too. Maybe, but maybe not. There are thousands of homes for sale in Virginia Beach in hundreds of neighborhoods and there are happy people in all of them.

The trick is finding the right neighborhood for you. First you have to figure out what you like. Do you like new or do you like established? While everyone likes the idea of a brand new home that is maintenance free, some people long for the trees missing from new developments. “Why would I live in an old home when I could have a brand new one,” one buyer asks? “New neighborhoods have no soul,” says another. No two people are alike. Lucky, no two neighborhoods are alike either.

Trying to find your home online is not unlike trying to find your spouse online. There are some things that you just have to do in person. I don’t know anything about online dating, but I can’t imagine making the decision to marry someone before making eye contact. You can find some beautiful homes online that are in questionable neighborhoods. On the flip side, there are some homes marketed poorly online that are in great neighborhoods. How do you tell the difference?

You have to get out there, drive though the neighborhoods, and walk through the homes. Only then can you start to match the real world with what you have seen online. With that in mind, I would love to be your guide!

I like to think I’m an optimist, but I’m really a realist. Things have been crashing down around us lately; rising unemployment, falling house prices, foreclosures. However, as a realist, I am now very optimistic. Unemployment is stabilizing. Home prices in Virginia Beach have stabilized. Interest rates are the lowest we will ever see (that’s a bold statement, don’t you think!) The feeling that the capitalism was imploding is being replaced by the understanding that recessions happen. “Look Mom! The world didn’t end and things are starting to get better.”

There’s a statistic I look at every day. The number of homes that were sold for the week in Virginia Beach and the number of new listings. The number of sold homes is outpacing the number of new listings for the first time in years.  This bodes very well for next Spring and Summer.

Here’s a wake up call. Prices are low! Interest rates are low! If you have been considering moving to a nicer neighborhood, now is the time. If you consider both the drop in prices and the drop in interest rates, your monthly payment will be just over half of what it would have been had you purchased in 2006.

Half! Half! Half!

Knock! Knock! Knock!

That’s opportunity knocking. Is it time to let him in?

Tax Credit For First Time Home Buyers

The Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 has extended the tax credit of up to $8,000 for qualified first-time home buyers purchasing a principal residence. The tax credit now applies to sales occurring on or after January 1, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010. However, in cases where a binding sales contract is signed by April 30, 2010, a home purchase completed by June 30, 2010 will qualify.

For sales occurring after November 6, 2009, the Act establishes income limits of $125,000 for single taxpayers and $225,000 for married couples filing joint returns.

The income limits for sales occurring on or after January 1, 2009 and on or before November 6, 2009, are $75,000 for single taxpayers and $150,000 for married taxpayers filing joint returns.

Tax Credit For Repeat Buyers

The Worker, Homeownership, and Business Assistance Act of 2009 has established a tax credit of up to $6,500 for qualified move-up/repeat home buyers (existing home owners) purchasing a principal residence after November 6, 2009 and on or before April 30, 2010 (or purchased by June 30, 2010 with a binding sales contract signed by April 30, 2010).

Click here for FAQ’s involving the tax credits.

Most people assume that the listed price is negotiable when a home is for sale. But how negotiable? Will a buyer accept an offer $20,000 below asking price? How about $30,000? Here’s the answer! [Read more →]

There is a trick to selling your home quickly in today’s market. Present your home in its best light and price it very close to where it is most likely to sell. Your home will stand out because it shows nicely and is priced fairly. This brings lots potential buyers and multiple offers very close to the asking price. Even in this market!

Story Of Two Homes

Why do some homes sell in a week and some sell in six months?

Long Road to a Small House – The Story of Home #1

Home #1 goes on the market in October. It has been recently remodeled and the owners have taken great pains to ensure they make as much money as possible when they sell. They are not investors. They are homeowners who feel that they should be compensated for their hard work and ingenuity. They decide on a list price based on what other sellers are asking and then pad that number because of their efforts and the fact that they are in a “very desirable neighborhood.”

“It takes months to sell in this market,” they say. We can wait around for the perfect buyer.” [Read more →]

John and Jane bought their home in 2006 for $400,000 with a 20% down payment ($80,000). Today, the market value of their home is about $300,000 and there is a 10 months supply of homes on the market in their neighborhood. They have $5,000 is savings and John expects to lose his job in the next six months.

At this point there is very little they can do. If they put the house on the market for $350,000 no one will buy it because it is overpriced. But they can’t afford to sell it for market value. They are stuck in their house.

Is it possible that they could talk to their lender and convince the bank to take a loss on the mortgage? Sure, anything is possible. But in this situation it is unlikely. John and Jane made a promise to the bank that they would pay off the  $320,000 along with interest over the course of 30 years. As long as John is making his payments, why would the bank renegotiate the terms of the loan? [Read more →]

Before even considering finding the right home or the right neighborhood, most home buyers must be convinced that the benefits of home ownership outweigh the risks. Until three years ago, this was a no brainer. Home prices in Virginia Beach had made new highs every year for 50 years. There seemed to be very little risk. Today we see Virginia Beach home prices as much as 30% off the 2006 highs. Clearly the risk was there, we simply weren’t aware of it.

I am optimistic for three reasons. First, homes are about 30% more affordable than they were three years ago. Everybody likes a bargin and nothing says “On Sale” like a $100,000 price drop.

Interest rates are at an all time low. Three years ago a $300,000 loan at 6.25% would cost you about $2000 per month. Today you can borrow $355,000 for the same price at 4.75%. This is significant in the grand scheme of things for obvious reasons. Take yourself back to 2006 and imagine a $300,000 home and a $450,000 home.  Let’s say you qualified for a 100% VA loan for $300,000 (principle and interest of about $2000 per month). You would rather have the $450,000 home but it was well out of your price range. Now bring yourself back to the present. That same $450,000 home is selling for $355,000 and it can be yours for… you guessed it! $2000 per month, principle and interest.

You can buy 50% more home today than you could three years ago for the same price. This is very significant and is overshadowed by the fear in the market place.

The third reason I am optimistic about home prices is because I think inflation will rear its ugly head. Now, I am no prognosticator. Nor am I an economist. But I have listened to enough people much smarter than me say that inflation down the road is probable based on the amount of money being forced into the system. Inflation is the reason a $200,000 house in 1980 is worth $1,000,000 today. The value of the homes won’t necessarily be worth more relative to other goods in the economy, but the price of everything will be more. A gallon of milk will double in price. Our incomes will double in price. And yes, our houses will double in price. This has the effect of chopping our mortgage in half.

If my math is wrong, please feel free to correct me. Perhaps the price of a gallon of milk will double and everything else will stay the same. As I said before, I am not an economist.

If you are making twice as much money 10 years from now, it is safe to assume a $4000 per month mortgage would be the same burden as a $2000 mortgage today. Today a $4000 mortgage will buy you a $700,000 home, which was a $1,000,000 home in 2006.

Stay with me here. If we see inflation, as some predict, and you buy that home that was $1,000,000 in 2006, it will cost you the same in ten years as a $300,000 home did in 2006. This is based on a combination of the housing slump, low interest rates and inflation.

At the end of the day, people buy homes because they want a place to call their own. Every morning I sit in my favorite leather chair and drink a cup of coffee. And every morning I feel the pride of ownership when I look across my living room and out into my backyard. Owning a home is more than an investment. Having a place to call your own seems to be a fundamental human need. You may not need a $1,000,000 home, but if it only cost you the equivalent of a $300,000 home in 2006, would you pass it up?

The problem with recoveries is that we don’t usually recognize them until they have already happened. Is the housing market recovering right now? The stock market is certainly having a great rally and pending home sales seem to be on the rise in Virginia Beach this month. But one month of improving data hardly defines a recovery. In six months will we know the answer, but not today. Here are some reasons to be both optimistic and pessimistic.

Reasons To Be Positive

There are certainly positive signs that make me optimistic. Interest rates are at an all time low. Not only that, the spread between the 30 mortgage and the Federal Reserve’s rate to lending institutions is at an all time high. This means that the banks could drop rates further and still make money (they don’t because they are recovering from massive losses and need the money). Will we see lower rates? Who knows? The Fed may raise rates if the banks start making too much money or if the banks continue to lower the mortgage rates. Nobody, not even the Fed, knows what the future holds. But low rates make it easier for everyone to buy a more expensive house and that is a positive for housing.

Another positive sign is that housing prices in many areas have fallen to a point where buyers feel that they are getting great deals. If prices fall further, then today’s good deal clearly isn’t quite as good as what it could be tomorrow. It is true that buyer sentiment plays a large role in any recovery. When the buyers stop waiting for the prices to drop and start buying again, the bottom is near. Are we there yet? Nobody knows. But right now there are buyers feeling that they are getting good deals.

We already know the negatives; job losses, foreclosures, very high supply, loss of easy money, price depreciation, etc. Home prices in Virginia Beach had never fallen until 2006. This made real estate seem like a sure thing investment. Where else can you put zero down and keep all the profits? As home prices soared, everyone wanted a piece of the action.

Home prices in the US were fairly flat in the 90’s. In Japan, home prices are still below where they were 15 years ago. Now, explain to me why home prices should be higher in the United States today, in the middle of the Great Recession, than they were in 2000, at the height of the dotcom bubble. Seriously, there is a place at the bottom of the page for you to leave your comments and I would love to hear your thoughts.

There is more supply and less demand today, but it is cheaper to borrow money. The real estate market has shown that it can pull back sharply, but it has already pulled back so much. There is one thing that I can say with complete confidence. We are closer to a housing bottom today than we were a year ago. The National Association of Realtors said housing had bottomed in January of 2008. Their forecasting needs some fine tuning. Jim Cramer on CNBC says that housing will bottom on June 30th. We will see. There is a Money Magazine article that says the bottom will come in the first quarter of 2011. Who knows?

I know I can’t see into the future, but I know the Virginia Beach housing market like the back of my hand.

What do you think?