Virginia Nesties
Dear Community,
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
If you have questions about this, please email help@theknot.com.
Thank you.
Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Moving to Newport News
Hi, Ladies!
I am accepting a job transfer to Newport News (from Colonial Heights), and I was wondering if anyone can somewhat point us in the right direction on what complexes are nicer than others. I know it is hard because we are trying to stay right around $750/month, but any help would be great! Thanks!
Re: Moving to Newport News
Thanks for responding. We arent sure how much my husband will be making yet or what we can "afford" out there. It's cheap here. We also have a dog, so that was a problem we were running into as well.
How are the people there? This is a completely new area for me and my husband lived in Chesapeake when he was going to school, so it's fairly new for him too. I was just wondering if people are friendly and how easy it is to make friends there (keep in mind I am coming from the country where everyone is so friendly!!)?
Thanks for responding, again. We are going back out next week to put a deposit on whatever place we decide on because I have a feeling this transfer is going to go through very quickly.
Er, well, it depends? I mean, there's nice places & nice people, but there are also some very sketchy parts of Newport News. There's a lot of military in the area, so you're going to meet people from all over the US. I'd say people are nice, for the most part. You're not far north enough to completely lose that "southern friendliness" attitude
Newport News/Hampton/Yorktown/Poquoson are all on the peninsula, so don't necessarily discount those other areas while looking for housing. NN is long and skinny. Depending on where your DH's work is located, you could, in theory, end up being able to live in Hampton or Yorktown & have a shorter/easier commute than if you lived in NN.
I've been here around 6 years now. Before that I was in Raleigh, NC for 6 years. One thing I definately had to get used to when I moved up here was the total mix of good & bad streets/neighborhoods. Raleigh was pretty divided (Northern Raleigh = good, East Raleigh = bad, etc.) Here, it's more like, "Neighborhood A is good...with the exceptions of streets X & Y. Once you go past those, it's good again."
As far as meeting people goes, most of our friends are CWs of mine or DH's. We haven't really met many people outside of CWs & friends of CWs. I know there's a lot of younger people in Hampton Roads, but much of the night life is on the south side (VA Beach, Norfolk, etc.). We were just lamenting about that the other day =P
You have been so helpful! Thank you so much! I think we agreed on a place today (Ashton Green?) and it is sounding like DH will be working in Poquoson. It's sounding like there is a lot to do out that way and I think this is going to be a great change. Any other advice that you have would be awesome! What do you and your DH do for a living?
I'm an electrical engineer, & DH is a mechanical designer. Ashton Green is near Ft. Eustis, in the northern end of NN. Poquoson is a little bit of a drive from there, but not too bad. You'll have lots of restaurants & shopping, including the mall w/in about 5 miles of that complex.
Here's some things I can think of off the top of my head that I didn't know before moving here:
Including the city tax, prepared food has a total of an 11.5% tax rate in NN & Hampton.
I-64 West WILL back up every Friday afternoon (& also every Sat. & Sun. by lunchtime in the summer) from the Jefferson Ave. Exit all the way to Williamsburg. Same prettymuch goes for the HRBT, if you're trying to get to/from the southside.
Thanks to the rivers on both sides, the humidity is horrible, but there's almost always a slight breeze.
::butting in::
If you decide to travel to Southside for whatever reason (Va Bch, Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth) I highly recommend taking the Monitor Merrimac Bridge Tunnel over the Hampton Roads Bridge Tunnel any day of the week.
::butting out::
I work at Ft. Eustis and I wouldn't really recommend too many places right outside the back gate. It's in an ok part of the neighborhood, but it's sort of on the outer edge of the northern part of NN.
If he's going to be in poquoson, I would suggest you look in york county along the 134 corridor. There are quite a few apartment complexes there and it would be an easy commute to poquoson. If your heart is set on NN, then I would also check Kiln Creek and Springhouse which are located on the airport end of Jefferson Avenue.
Wives Unscripted
Right now, he and I are on a really tight budget, so those places are out of our price range, but what about Woodscape Apartments?
I found this, with regard to Woodscape:
http://www.apartmentratings.com/rate/VA-Newport-News-Woodscape-Apartments.html
Doesn't look so good. I agree w/ the PP that the Denbigh & Ft. Eustis areas aren't exactly the greatest places for living in an apartment complex. There's tons of apartments in Newport News & some in Yorktown too. If you can spare the time, the best way to look might be to take a Saturday & drive to the ones your considering to get a good look at them. The Harbors is across from City Center. It's one of the older ones & might possibly be cheaper, but is still nicer than Woodscape.
That's actually not a bad little area. No Kiln Creek or City Center, but very decent. It's also central to everything. They're not the newest & best, but I'd definately feel safer there than I would at Woodscape. I can speak for the area, but not the complex itself.
Nettles is an interesting little road. It's like a road that the city forgot. On either end, you have 2 major traffic arteries, but since the speed limit is only 35mph, the only people that use it are ones that live in the surrounding neighborhoods.
That area's not bad, I don't know anyone that has lived in those. There is also Arboretum right across the street. They are an income restricted complex, so they tend to be cheaper.
ETA: I'm talking about the old Arboretum, not the new one. There are older buildings in the back of the complex.
http://property.onesite.realpage.com/templates/template_concept04_berkshire/default.asp?w=arboretumplace&t=template_concept04_berkshire
Wives Unscripted
I agree, DO NOT live in woodscape! Also, the Arboretum apartments are kind of cheap, but I was told a while back that the wait list was really long. Have you looked at Windsor Crossing apartments? Or Springhouse? Those are two that I can vouch for.
Are you looking for a one bed or a two? You can get a one bed for about 749 at Windsor crossing and Springhouse or a smaller sized two bed in Springhouse for 850ish.
Oh yeah....I wanted to add, this site is pretty helpful when it comes to looking for a place. But keep in mind sometimes the reviews that make the place sound to good to be true are written by people who work there. Also, some of the negative ones are probably exaggerated. Just keep that in mind.
http://www.apartmentratings.com/