John King Realtor

10/30/2026

🎖️ PCS Orders From California to Hampton Roads? Your Money Is About to Do Something Different

Coming to Hampton Roads from Naval Base San Diego, NAS Lemoore, NAS North Island, Coronado, Camp Pendleton, Miramar, Twentynine Palms, Travis, or any other California base? 🌴 ➡️ ⚓

Cross-country PCS moves are intense. But this is one of the most financially favorable transitions in the military. Here’s what California families need to know before they pack the truck. 👇

🏠 1. Your Housing Money Goes DRAMATICALLY Further Here
San Diego County median single family home: over $1 million
Hampton Roads regional median: upper $300s

For most California military families, this means going from “renting because we can’t afford to buy” to “owning a home with real square footage and a yard.” That’s not a small lifestyle shift. That’s a structural one.

💰 2. The Tax Picture Changes BIG TIME
California taxes military pay at progressive rates that climb fast, topping out at 13.3%
Virginia tops at 5.75%

For most enlisted and officer pay grades, the practical gap is a few percentage points of every dollar you earn. If California stays your domicile, the SCRA protects your military pay from Virginia state tax, but California still taxes it. Some families consider changing domicile during the PCS, which is a real strategic conversation worth having with your installation’s legal assistance office.

⛽ 3. Cost of Living Across the Board Drops
Gas prices: consistently cheaper than California, often by a dollar or more per gallon
Groceries, restaurants, insurance, utilities: all generally less expensive
Auto insurance specifically: meaningfully cheaper in Virginia than California metros

💨 4. Humidity Is The Adjustment Nobody Warns You About
California coast = dry.
Hampton Roads in summer = humid, sometimes oppressive.

May through September gets hot AND sticky. Air conditioning is a year-round expectation here, not a luxury. Plan for it in your home decision too (HVAC age, attic ventilation).

❄️ 5. Real Seasons Exist Here
Average January high: 49°F
Snow most winters
Spring pollen blooms in March
Summer there's lots to do
Fall color in October

If you’ve been in coastal California where the temperature swings 15 degrees all year, the seasonal change here is a genuine lifestyle adjustment.

🚗 6. The Tunnel Commute Is Real
Hampton Roads has tunnels connecting the South Side to the Peninsula. If your base is on the opposite side of a tunnel from where you’re house hunting, that commute defines your daily life. Build it into your home decision.

🎥 7. You Can Do This From California
Most California-to-Virginia PCS families never see their new home before moving in. Virtual tours work. Sight unseen purchases are routine when the agent is doing it right. I walk every property personally, video everything, FaceTime with you afterward, and tell you the truth, including “I wouldn’t let my own family buy this one.”

🎖️ I’m John King. Navy veteran. Hampton Roads agent with Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty. Thirteen-plus years and over 400 closed transactions. When veterans and active duty call me, you’re getting a veteran agent AND my trusted veteran loan officer with decades of VA loan experience.

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran
Berksh*te Hathway RW Towne Realty
757-270-3994

10/29/2026

10/28/2026

Got PCS orders to Hampton Roads? Here’s what I wish someone had helped me with before I bought a home in the 757.

Whether you’re headed to Naval Station Norfolk, JEB Little Creek, NAS Oceana, Dam Neck, Langley, or any other base in the area, orders come with big questions. Where should you live? What will the commute look like? Should you buy or rent? How far will your BAH actually go?

As a Navy veteran, I’ve been through a PCS myself. I’ve helped military families relocate here for more than a decade, and I’m happy to be your boots on the ground.

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty
Serving Virginia Beach, Norfolk, Chesapeake and all of Hampton Roads
Call or text: 757-270-3994

10/27/2026

Orders to Hampton Roads? This is the video I wish someone had handed me before I bought a home in the 757. 🏡👇

Description

PCS orders are stressful enough. ✈️ Then come the big questions:

📍 Where should you live?
🚗 What’s the commute going to look like?
🔑 Buy or rent?
💵 How far will your BAH actually stretch?

Whether you’re headed to Naval Station Norfolk, Little Creek, Oceana, Dam Neck, Langley, or any base around here, the 757 isn’t one market. Some neighborhoods sell in days. Others sit for months. 📊 Knowing the difference is how you avoid an expensive mistake.

I’m a Navy veteran. I’ve been in your shoes, and I’m happy to be your boots on the ground. 👊

💬 Got orders to Hampton Roads? Drop your base in the comments!

I’ll see you around town! 👋

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty
📱 Call or text: 757-270-3994

10/26/2026

🏡 **MONDAY HAMPTON ROADS REAL ESTATE MARKET UPDATE!** 📊

📅 October 26, 2026

Another week, another look at what's REALLY happening in the Hampton Roads housing market!

Whether you're buying, selling, or just keeping an eye on your home's value, here's what the latest numbers are telling us. 👇

📊 **THIS WEEK VS. LAST WEEK**

🏠 **Active Listings:** 4,872 ➡️ 4,904 🔺 +32

🆕 **New Listings:** 536 ➡️ 503 🔻 -33

📝 **New Pending Contracts:** 318 ➡️ 298 🔻 -20

💰 **Pending Contracts by Price Range:**

🏡 $0–$250K: 63 ➡️ 67 🔺 +4

🏡 $250K–$450K: 178 ➡️ 166 🔻 -12

🏡 $450K–$700K: 65 ➡️ 54 🔻 -11

🏡 $700K+: 22 ➡️ 23 🔺 +1

🚪 **Homes Leaving the Market UNSOLD:** 174 ➡️ 226 🔺 +52

📉 **Price Reductions:** 485 ➡️ 460 🔻 -25

🏦 **Foreclosures/Bank-Owned/Short Sales:** 239 ➡️ 250 🔺 +11

⏳ **Average Days on Market:** 47 ➡️ 54 🔺 +7 days

🔑 **Closed Sales:** 192 ➡️ 224 🔺 +32

📉 **Mortgage Rates:** Mid 7% ➡️ Low 7% ✅

━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━

🔥 **JOHN'S TAKE ON THE MARKET**

Here's what stands out to me this week.

🚨 **226 HOMES LEFT THE MARKET WITHOUT SELLING!**

That's nearly a 30% increase from last week!

Meanwhile, active inventory continues to climb, pending contracts declined, and homes are spending more time on the market.

What does that tell us?

👉 Buyers are still buying, but they're being selective.

👉 Sellers who are overpriced are having a harder time getting traction.

👉 Pricing, presentation, and strategy matter more than ever.

👉 The days of simply putting a sign in the yard and expecting multiple offers are not the reality for every property.

But here's something else worth paying attention to...

✅ Closed sales actually INCREASED this week!

We went from 192 closings to 224.

And mortgage rates moved lower according to this week's report.

**The market isn't dead. It's changing.**

🏡 **SELLERS:** You can absolutely sell your home in today's market. But what you could have gotten six months ago isn't necessarily what a buyer will pay today. Your competition matters, and the market determines value.

🔑 **BUYERS:** More inventory and longer marketing times may mean more opportunities to negotiate. But don't assume every seller is desperate. Well-priced homes in desirable locations can still move quickly.

💡 **MY ADVICE?**

Don't make a six-figure real estate decision based on headlines, national predictions, or what your neighbor thinks their house is worth.

Look at the actual numbers in YOUR neighborhood.

Real estate is local. Sometimes it's street by street.

And I'll always tell you what you NEED to hear, not just what you WANT to hear.

⚓ **John King | REALTOR®**
Berkshire Hathaway HomeServices RW Towne Realty

📞 757-270-3994
🌐 757King.com

📍 Serving Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk & Hampton Roads

10/26/2026

🏡 Selling your home in Virginia Beach? Buyers decide how they feel in the first 3 seconds. ⏱️

Before a buyer ever sees your kitchen, their brain has already reacted to three things:

💡 Lighting
🎨 Color
🛋️ Flow

A home that feels bright, calm, and easy to move through makes buyers feel at home right away. A home that doesn’t gets skipped online. 📱

That’s why homes I list in Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, and across Hampton Roads gets:

✨ Professional advice on home staging
📸 Cinematic real estate photography
🎬 Video built to stop the scroll

Your first impression happens online, long before the first showing. Don’t leave it to chance. 💯 If you’re thinking about selling your home in Hampton Roads, let’s plan how to make those first 3 seconds count.

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran 🇺🇸
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty

Serving Virginia Beach, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Suffolk, Portsmouth, Hampton & Newport News
📱 Call or text: 757-270-3994

10/25/2026

⏱️ You’ve got 3 seconds. That’s how long a buyer’s brain takes to decide if they love your home, and it happens BEFORE they ever see your kitchen. 👇

Most sellers think buyers fall in love with the granite countertops. 🍳

They don’t. They fall in love in the first 3 seconds.

The brain processes beauty instantly, and what it’s reacting to isn’t square footage. It’s:

💡 Lighting: bright, warm, and inviting
🎨 Color: clean, calm, and cohesive
🛋️ Flow: a space that feels easy to move through and easy to picture yourself in

Get those right, and buyers feel at home before they can explain why. Get them wrong, and they’re already scrolling to the next listing. 📱

That’s why I don’t leave first impressions to chance:

✨ Professional staging
🎬 Cinematic photography and video
🏡 Presentation built around how buyers actually decide

Don’t gamble with your first impression. Let’s engineer it together. 💯

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran 🇺🇸
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty
📱 Call or text: 757-270-3994

10/24/2026

The Hampton Roads average days on market has been running in the low to mid forties+ this year. 📊

My listings this year? Six. 🔑

Not because my listings are better. Not because I know buyers nobody else knows. 👇

Because of what happens BEFORE the sign goes in the yard. ⚒️

Here’s the thing almost nobody tells sellers: your listing gets more traffic in its first week than it will ever get again. More eyes. More showings. More urgency. 📈

A home that launches READY captures every bit of it.
A home that launches unprepared spends that week apologizing for itself, and then spends the next six weeks chasing the market down. 📉

So what does “ready” actually mean? 👇

🔨 Condition items handled BEFORE listing, not negotiated after the offer comes in. (Peeling paint, wood rot, a missing handrail, roof issues, crawlspace moisture. Every one of those can cost weeks when it gets flagged at the appraisal instead of fixed in advance.)

📸 Professional photography and marketing ready at launch. Not “we’ll update the photos later.”

💰 A price the comparable sales actually support. Not a number we test to see what happens.

That’s it. That’s the whole secret. 🎯

I can’t promise anyone a six day sale, and no honest agent would. Market conditions, price band, and the property itself all matter. ✋

But here’s what I CAN tell you after 441 closings and 13+ years in this market: the sellers who listen on prep and price consistently land on the FAST end of the range. The ones who insist on testing an ambitious number consistently land on the slow end. 📋

That pattern has never broken. Not in four completely different markets. 💯

One more thing worth knowing: “days on market” only measures time to CONTRACT. Add another 30 to 45 days to actually close. So if you’ve got a hard deadline, a PCS report date, a job start, a closing on your next house, a guided timeline matters and the agent to keep it on track.

Working against a date? Let’s build your timeline for it. 📅

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty
📱 757-270-3994

10/23/2026

"John, why should we work with YOU?" 🤔

I get asked this all the time. Here's my honest answer 👇 🎥

Most agents stop learning after they get their license. I went the other way 10+ years of high-level coaching in negotiation, marketing & business.

When you work with me, you're not just hiring an agent. You're hiring strategy. 🎯

▶️ Watch the full story below

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty
757-270-3994

10/22/2026

That free home value estimate you just looked up? 🏡

It’s probably wrong. 😬

Not a little wrong. Online estimates can miss by TENS OF THOUSANDS of dollars in either direction. And sellers make huge decisions based on them every single day. 📉

Here’s why they miss: 👇

An automated estimate pulls public records and past sales, runs them through a formula, and spits out a number. That formula literally cannot see:

🔨 The condition of your home. Two houses, same square footage, same bedroom count. One has a new roof, renovated kitchen, fresh systems. The other has deferred maintenance and original everything. The algorithm sees the same house. A buyer does NOT. And neither does an appraiser.

✨ Your upgrades. That kitchen you redid. The addition. The new windows. Public records rarely capture any of it, so the estimate rarely credits you for it.

📍 Your EXACT location. Not your zip code. Your street. Your block. Your lot. Three streets closer to the water or backed up to a busy road can mean a meaningfully different number. Algorithms smooth right over the details that matter most.

📅 This week’s market. Value isn’t static. It moves with inventory, rates, and buyer demand and it moves differently in different price bands. An estimate built on months-old data describes a market that may not exist anymore.

Here’s why this matters so much: 🎯

Price too HIGH and your home sits. It loses its best buyers in the first two weeks, invites lowball offers, and usually ends up selling for LESS than an honest price would have brought. The market doesn’t argue with an overpriced home. It just walks past it. 🚶

Price too LOW and you hand money to the buyer that was yours. 💸

Price it RIGHT, built on real comparable sales and real market conditions, and your home draws its natural buyers fast and sells near or at true value. ✅

An online estimate is where your thinking STARTS. It’s not where your pricing decision should end. 🙌

Want the real number for your home in Virginia Beach, Norfolk, or Chesapeake? I’ll build it current comparable sales, your home’s actual condition, today’s market. Free, no obligation, no script. 📊

Full Service Real Estate Agent
John King | Navy Veteran
Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty
📱 757-270-3994