USNA Property Network Podcast
Grant Vermeer '17 discusses housing and real estate options for Navy and Marine Corps Officers PCSing to new locations. This is the resource for learning about the real estate and living options before you arrive in your new location. Get a head start on your move! Learn about housing and real estate options for Navy and Marine Corps Officers before you PCS to a new location.
USNA Property Network Podcast
#007 Pensacola: An Overview of Pensacola for Student Naval Aviators with Archie Warren '13
Join us as we sit down with Archie Warren, a 2013 Naval Academy graduate and real estate expert, alongside his father Paul, a former Blue and Gold Officer, to uncover the best neighborhoods for military officers relocating to the Pensacola Area. Whether you're seeking an easy commute to the Naval station, a beachside retreat, or a vibrant downtown lifestyle, we promise you'll gain valuable insights to kickstart your research.
We'll take you on a tour through Pensacola's diverse neighborhoods, from the proximity to the Naval Air Station in Warrington and Myrtle Grove to the upscale vibes of East Hill and Perdido Key. Discover the latest trends in property values, the appeal of new developments like Fairchild Village, and how each neighborhood stacks up in terms of cost, community, and convenience. Whether you're looking to buy or rent, this episode offers a thorough comparison to help you make an informed decision.
For young Navy grads heading to flight school, Archie and Paul share personalized real estate guidance, focusing on lifestyle preferences and investment strategies. Tune in to learn about lucrative opportunities in the booming downtown Pensacola market, including short-term rentals and the benefits of building additional dwelling units. Plus, get the inside scoop on hidden gems like affordable golf courses, top-notch dining spots, and secluded beaches that make Pensacola a fantastic place to live. Don't miss this comprehensive episode packed with practical advice and local favorites!
The USNA property network podcast educates military officers on the neighborhoods surrounding the military bases in which they could PCS.
Our mission is to provide genuine, authentic, informal conversations that's going to help Navy and Marine Corps officers start their research into their new home.
This podcast is made possible thanks to the sponsorship of The Vermeer Group. The Vermeer Group is a residential real estate team that specializes in helping Naval Academy graduates and other select clientele move to both Monterey and San Diego, California. If you have any real estate questions at all, please reach out to me directly at grant@thevermeergroup.com.
I'd be more than happy to help.
Connect with your host Grant Vermeer on Linkedin or email him at grant@thevermeergroup.com.
Connect with your host Grant Vermeer on Linkedin or email him at grant@thevermeergroup.com.
The USNA Property Network Podcast is powered by sponsorship from The Vermeer Group specializing in assisting the United States Naval Academy community and other select clientele.
Grant is a Bay Area native, being born and raised in Mountain View. He is a graduate of Bellarmine College Preparatory and the great class of 2017 from the United States Naval Academy. During his time at the Naval Academy, Grant was a cyber operations major and a four year member of the basketball team. He then commissioned into the Cryptologic Warfare Community and served in support of Submarine Operations.
Due to his experience, he brings an expertise on real estate for military members and veterans, including the use of the VA loan. He is licensed in both California and Texas.
He is the founder of the non-profit 501C3 Academy Insider and host of the Academy Insider podcast.
The mission of Academy Insider is to guide, serve, and support Midshipmen, future Midshipmen, and their families.
Welcome to the USNA Property Network podcast. Powered by the Vermeer Group, the USNA Property Network podcast educates military officers on the neighborhoods surrounding the military bases in which they could PCS. Our mission is to provide genuine, authentic, informal conversation that's going to help Navy and Marine Corps officers start their research into their new home. This podcast is made possible thanks to the sponsorship of the Vermeer Group. Vermeer Group is a residential real estate team that specializes in helping Naval Academy graduates and other select clientele move to both Monterey and San Diego, california. If you have any real estate questions at all, please reach out to me directly at grant at the vermeergroupcom. I'd be more than happy to help. Thanks, hey, everyone, and welcome to the USNA Property Network podcast.
Speaker 1:In this episode I'm joined by Archie and Paul Warren and we go over everything about the Pensacola area. We do a whole overview, starting with where's Pensacola even on the map, it's location close to Alabama, right there on the Florida-Alabama border in the Panhandle All the way through detailed analysis on all the different neighborhoods, rental markets, thoughts, opinions, new developments, what's in the path of progress, the pros and cons of being in certain areas, and whether you're a person who's interested in home buying and that's your priority, or you're a person who knows, hey, I'm really there to study, I want to focus, I want to be close to the Naval station so that way I can have an easy commute and focus on my studies. Whether that's your situation, that's your profile, or whether you're a person who's just like I just want to enjoy Pensacola, like I want to be on the beach, or I want to be downtown and enjoying life, we touch on every single profile a person could fit and what might be the right area for them and where at least they should start their research about this whole process. So if you're interested in learning about the Pensacola area and what your living options may be and what everything may look like, please give a listen to this episode and if you ever have any questions, feel free to reach out to me. I can answer anything for you or I'll put you in contact with Archie and Paul so they can guide you a little bit more specifically about the Pensacola area. But I hope you enjoy the episode.
Speaker 1:Any questions, always shoot them to me. I really appreciate it. I hope you enjoy the episode. Thank you so much. All right, hey everyone, and welcome to the USNA Property Network podcast. Arjun and Paul, thanks so much for joining us today Really appreciate it and giving us a little bit of context and overview of the Pensacola area. And just to give some people a little bit of background about you, do you mind just introducing yourselves and letting us know what brought you to Pensacola and what has you established there now?
Speaker 2:yourselves and letting us know what brought you to Pensacola and what has you established there. Now I'll go first. So I'm a 2013 grad of the Naval Academy, so I originally moved to Pensacola in 2013, lived here for about a year and a half that was near the Perdido Key area for most of my time and then went and did. I was an NFO, so went to Jacksonville, hawaii, whidbey Island and now moved back to Pensacola in 2018, and I've been here for six years now. When I moved back, got super into real estate and Airbnb investing and then got licensed and have been doing real estate with Levin Rinke and formerly Gulf Coast Home Experts. I've been doing that for two and a half years now.
Speaker 3:I'm Paul.
Speaker 2:I'm.
Speaker 3:Archie's dad. My connection to all of this is I was a balloon gold officer for the Naval Academy for about eight years and worked with a whole lot of potential midshipmen and a whole lot that became midshipmen, including three of Archie's brothers, class of 12, archie's class of 13. We had one class of 16 and one class of 18. We had one class of 16 and one class of 18. And so I've sort of walked through the experience of Naval Academy life moving into the fleet aviation. All four of the boys moved here to Pensacola, at least for initial flight training, and I decided to retire a few years ago and we talked to the family. They were of course Navy, so they were spread all over the country. We them in whitby island and jacksonville and virginia beach, corpus christi. They were spread out and everybody said pensacola is the place to go if we can't be with all of us, be where we all want to come for vacation anyway. So here we are sure?
Speaker 1:yeah well, my good underachieving family man, well that's, well that's incredible and and to have all aviators that have all been, yeah, my good, underachieving family man, well, that's incredible. And to have all aviators that have all been through Pensacola, archie, did that play a factor into you wanting to come back to Pensacola, like knowing that you had brothers out there and continuous younger brothers, like moving through the area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, definitely. At the time my little brother was living here. I was hoping he would stay. He ended up getting sent to Corpus Christi, but definitely the possibility of them coming back for shore tours played into that fact. And then my wife, not tied to the Navy at all, but she used to vacation here every summer and so when we were talking orders she was like Pensacola, pensacola Beach, that's the place to go move.
Speaker 1:And so it was at the top of our list and we were very fortunate to get orders here. Sure, absolutely. That's so cool and I appreciate you taking the time to kind of give this background now that your whole family has spent so much time almost accumulation going through Pensacola just talking to us about the area. And I kind of want to start at a very high level because, just for a little bit of context, as a cryptologic warfare officer I did a small stint down in Quarry Station. I had no idea prior to going there that there was even a cryptologic base down in Pensacola. Nor did I have any idea about where Pensacola was in Florida. Again, it's a city, you hear all the time, because it has such a large naval presence, but to me Florida is just such a big state that you're just like somewhere in Florida. I don't know it's down there. Do you mind just giving us a really high level overview of when we talk about Pensacola?
Speaker 2:where are we going, where's our mind located and what makes up the surrounding area? Yeah, so I'll start. I think Pensacola is basically as far west in Florida as you can go. We'll call it Florida. Well, florida is the most famous bar here and it's right on the line between Florida and Alabama. It is unique because there are.
Speaker 2:Everyone talks about the two bases there's NAS Pensacola and NAS Whitingfield, but you're right, quarry Station is another big base with a lot going on there. The cryptological guys and girls spend a lot of time there and in terms of like general overview, so for NFOs, I always recommend you know the entire area is kind of open to you, because if you're coming to NAS Pensacola, most of the actions near downtown Perdido Key and then Pensacola Beach, and so any of those locations will serve you well. If you're going to NAS Pensacola For pilots, you might start at NAS Pensacola and end up in NAS Whiting, like six months give or take six months later, and so normally I recommend trying to split the difference between the bases. And that's downtown, that's East Hill, a lot of the neighborhoods we'll probably talk about later on in this podcast.
Speaker 2:But NFOs NAS Pensacola you could be there for a year, probably up to two and a half years, depending on how long your training takes. But for pilots, if you're going to move down, spend three months, three to six months at Pensacola and then you might move to Whiting. It makes a lot more sense to kind of pick a location that's central between the two bases.
Speaker 1:Sure, and for the people that would switch to Whiting, what type of aircraft or platform would they be flying Like? What pipeline makes their way up in that direction?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so for pilots it basically your primary training. So you finish knife, which is the initial flight training, and then for primary it's split between whiting field and corpus christi. I don't know the exact breakdown. I want to say it's about 75 go to corpus and 25 percent stay in waiting but I could be wrong on that and then from there you go to advanced training. So there's advanced options in corpus. That's what all my brothers did was one of them did primary and waiting, but all of them did advanced in corpus christi. If you select helos, you're going to do primary and advanced in waiting, and so that's where you could really have a two and a half year stand up at weddings okay, really interesting, and with that being said, that such a short time frame in that kind of what you call it knife is that what it's like?
Speaker 2:naval something, flight something they change the acronym every two or three years so sure, sorry, yeah.
Speaker 1:Uh, such such short time. Do you get pcs orders there? Are you like tad there for that short amount of period?
Speaker 2:so they, the navy, will not pcs you if it's inside of a certain radius. And so if you move from Pensacola to Whiting, they're not going to ship your household goods, they're not going to pay for a move. A lot of people will still use that to their benefit and use their VA loan near Whiting and then they can make the argument hey, I need to buy a new house. It's just going to be moving on your own dime because you're not going to get PCS orders or a household goods move.
Speaker 1:Interesting. Okay, and so, as we're talking about splitting the difference then, and being kind of on, you said East Hill, downtown, et cetera. How far away are Whiting and NAS Pensacola, like? When you're talking about splitting the difference, are you talking about a 40 minute commute in each direction? A 20 minute commute in each direction, like? How far away are we?
Speaker 2:generally talking, no traffic. A typical commute is like 45 minutes and it depends on where on the base you are. For some people it's like up to an hour, but 45 minutes to an hour.
Speaker 1:Okay, yeah, so so it's significant, right, it definitely. It's not a yeah, all right. So there is there's some split in that, um, in that style. But all right, um, just want to jump into now, kind of like we're talking about a little bit. So that's a high level overview. We're in the panhandle, you know we're. We're quite literally go to Florida, alabama and Florida border. Um, let's talk about some of the neighborhoods, especially for the the first time aviators, the ensigns who just graduated, who are going for knife right. Their focus is kind of on the next six to eight months of their life. What neighborhoods do you mainly see young ensigns moving into? In Pensacola, is it a large flow into Perdido Key and being in the beach area? Is it the downtown where they're close to the nightlife and walking around in restaurants and art galleries and all the things around there? What do you see most commonly?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I'm going to let him talk about a lot of the neighborhoods later on, but in terms of what I see most popular, I would say, yeah, the most common thing we see is moving out the back gate, which is basically we call it West Pensacola, and then you work towards Perdido Key. But you're exactly right, a lot of people have their mindset on we want to be close to base, short commute to work and just kind of focus on that initial flight training which makes a lot of sense, and so you see a lot of people moving into apartments, out the back gate or something where you might only have a five or 10 minute commute.
Speaker 2:That was what I did when I lived here.
Speaker 3:And when we were getting orders back.
Speaker 2:I was talking to my wife I was like, yeah, maybe we'll live in Pinot Key and she started to talk about East Hill and all these neighborhoods I'd never heard of and I think that's really where the beauty of Pensacola is and the excitement of Pensacola is, and so that's like that's. The mission I'm on is to show people like downtown, east Hill, east Pensacola Heights, all of these other neighborhoods that do split the difference between the bases and how much more they bring than just a short commute to the naval base.
Speaker 1:Sure, absolutely Perfect. Well then, let's start kind of, we'll just start out the back gate, we'll consider that terminology out of Pensacola. Yeah, paul, do you mind giving me a rundown on? Let's just start with West Pensacola, myrtle Grove and that, what was it? Warrington, warrington area? Yeah, warrington, and just yeah, give me a rundown of those areas all the way down into Perdido Key.
Speaker 3:You know, that's an area that is a little older, I feel like in terms of the housing that's there, I feel like in terms of the housing that's there and you know, I think Pensacola used to be a much larger naval facility.
Speaker 3:It used to have, you know, ships and everything here, and a lot of that moved out years ago and it shrank down to just the aviation community. So there's a lot of older housing and one of the I don't know that this is unique to Pensacola, but a lot of these areas and a lot of these neighborhoods. It's just a real mixed bag in terms of the housing. You might drive through a neighborhood and there'll be a $300,000 home with a really nice manicured yard, well kept up, and next door there's, you know, five old pickup trucks up on concrete blocks. So again, I think even in talking about neighborhoods, you really got to get into each you know subdivision, each development to really see what is there and you can be on one block in a neighborhood and the next block over may not be as appealing.
Speaker 3:I took a young ensign house hunting when he first got down here and we went into one neighborhood where there were just beautiful $300,000 homes all along one area of the development and this is just right across the bayou from the Naval Air Station. You see the water. But as you came further away from the water it just grew sketchier and sketchier. And I was taking him to show him a particular property and his dad was with him and he's like you may want to live here, but if your mom comes and sees this house, it's not going to work out well for you. So you have to get down into each, each neighborhood, I think, but there I think there really is almost a different. Uh, you know, feel for and lifestyle. I mean, perdido key is a wonderful beach community.
Speaker 3:It's a you know, beautiful area but it's a little different vibe from Pensacola Beach. Pensacola Beach, I think, is a little more of a vacation destination for people that are coming in from all over the Gulf area. We get lots of folks coming from Texas and Louisiana and Arkansas that are visiting the area.
Speaker 3:That whole western area, that I would say everything in Warrington and Myrtle Grove and that direction is. From my personal experience over the past couple of years, just driving through neighborhoods is a little bit of an older feel and a little more hit and miss in terms of what you're going gonna what you're actually going to find in each of those neighborhoods?
Speaker 1:sure, no, absolutely all right, fantastic. And I think I messed it up just because I'm not even familiar with the area out the back gate really wouldn't even be that warrington area. Is that more towards the I don't know what you would call it like the front?
Speaker 2:gate, or like the first neighborhood when you go out the front gate.
Speaker 1:The front gate okay.
Speaker 2:To be honest, when you sent the list of some of the neighborhoods, I had to research some of them, like Myrtle Grove, versus some of the other ones you had sent, because a lot of that is kind of lumped into just West Pensacola that people talk about and, like you said, there's lots of pockets of great neighborhoods and great areas.
Speaker 2:Like he said, there's lots of pockets, of great neighborhoods and great areas, and it is the most convenient to the Naval base, to NAS Pensacola, and that's what makes it very popular. I think the downside to it is the distance to downtown, the distance to Pensacola Beach and the distance to the airport. And so when I was going through flight school, after living there for like a year and a half, I was like, okay, okay, I'm done with the same four restaurants that we used to that we eat at, and I'm done, you know, with a 20-30 minute commute to go out downtown. Um, yeah, whereas I think warrenson's very up and coming because it is the closest one of all of those to downtown. Um, but as you get closer and closer downtown, that's where I think pensacola is really exploding, that's where all the growth is and so that's where I kind of, you know, push all the Naval Academy grads. I'm like this is where you want to be as close to downtown.
Speaker 1:So yeah, no, absolutely. That makes complete sense. And just in terms of, as we're talking about, I guess, these areas with downtown Pensacola and then Perdido Key, kind of in the opposite direction, right, kind of separating in polar distances from the Naval Station itself, what are property values like? Kind of like you're saying, in the immediate vicinity and then when you push out into downtown Pensacola or into Perdido Key, how big is the difference in property values between the two areas of downtown and Perdido Key versus the immediate surrounding area of the Naval base?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say Perdido Key itself, because it's on the beach and it's a beach town. You see some of those crazy beach prices. There's definitely million dollar homes and condos on Perdido Key and then same thing with downtown, like on the main street. They have new builds that are selling for it's like 1,500 square foot places that are selling for multi-million dollars. I'd say the value is out the back gate where you're probably paying.
Speaker 2:$250,000 to $300,000 gets you a very solid house, a 3-2 with nice appliances and your own backyard and everything. So I think $300,000 goes a long way out the back gate and East Hill and some of those other areas. $300,000 might be a total tear-down house and so there's a drastic difference between West Pensacola and then downtown East Hill and some of the other areas We've been pushing to a lot of people like, as you go more north Pensacola, the development we were selling was Fairchild Village, which is one of the DR Horton communities, but that gets you close to you know all of I don't know how you describe it just like there's colleges, hospitals, shopping centers, everything down there. It's close to everything that we've already talked about, not as nice in terms of like neighborhoods and suburbs, but it's kind of the center of the action still, and so that's where we're seeing a lot of growth and where I'd much rather spend 300,000 right there and be in the middle of everything than out the back gate probably no for sure.
Speaker 1:And in that neighborhood that you're specifically talking about, there, with some of the new builds, how far away from you, how far away from like walking into the door again, more or less again, it's going to be dependent, but roughly the commute to work or to be at school every day.
Speaker 3:That particular area. Again, one of the reasons, you know know, I was working with a couple of um recent grads and we really spent a lot of time driving all over pensacola and looking everywhere from milton pace, you know, warrington, down by you know, uh, the back gate all over, and we landed on this area, um, because you know, you pop it in google and it's a 25-minute drive from their front door to Pensacola, nas and it's a 27-minute drive to Whitey Field in Milton. So it really is just sort of10 and just a little bit east of I-110, which is a straight shot down to the beaches and you're five minutes from the airport. But you're also in a really good commercial area that you know. There's the Texas Roadhouse within walking distance and a big mall and again, you're right by the hospitals, you're right by University of West Florida. So just a lot of opportunity in that area.
Speaker 1:Perfect. No, it's really fantastic and it's great insight and so I really appreciate it. And kind of what I want to do in this next little piece of the conversation is actually talk about some like different profiles of ensigns and kind of what you would recommend in these specific cases, right, and I think kind of what you would recommend in these specific cases, right, and I think, kind of like you're talking, if you have a young ensign who thinks they may be in Pensacola for a long time and is really interested in purchasing a house, then it sounds like that may be a great area for them for a lot of different reasons for the financial reasons and the home ownership, to the commute to both NAS, pensacola and potentially Whitingfield. Would there be any other areas that you would suggest or have found as a great opportunity for a young ensign if they're really prioritizing home ownership and potentially wanting to be in the area for a long time?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think you know, being an ensign fresh out of college, a lot of the neighborhoods we've talked about downtown East Hill it's kind of it's a little bit cost prohibitive to say, hey, I'm on an O-1 budget and I want to buy. It's like, yeah, we all want to buy there and it doesn't really work out that way. I do think the neighborhood we just talked about, you know Ferry Pass is near there. You know it seems like we're not necessarily endorsing the back gate, but there's a bunch of great neighborhoods out the back gate.
Speaker 2:We already mentioned Warrington. It's like you're getting closer to downtown, it's more up and coming and I think you can still get a great house for $300,000. So I think, yeah, if I had to pitch it, I would say Warrington and Ferry Pass would be two that I would circle as an instant. I think both of them, even though Warrington's a lot closer to NAS Pensacola, the commute's not out of question for White and Field and I think you can absolutely get a three bedroom that you can get a couple of roommates in there and you can more than cover the mortgage on a great house. So you know you're starting to build equity, you're getting involved in home ownership, and it's not. You know, you're starting to build equity, you're getting involved in home ownership, and it's not, you know, a $500,000 house or something that's just kind of out of question. Sure, that's fantastic.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, please.
Speaker 3:One of the things Archie and I have been doing, working together, it enables us to, you know, really spend, I think, a lot more individual time with buyers. And, you know, spend, I think, a lot more individual time with buyers. And you know, as I've mentioned, I'm the dad of four Navy grads, so I look at each of these instances like this could be my kid, you know. And how can I help them make the best decision for their investment strategy, for their personal lifestyle, for their long-term goals, and that can be different for every one of them. You know, we were, we had a whole group that were coming through a little while back and you know, one of them was engaged to be married and his fiancee was going to be working, get down closer to nas, but because he was married, he was going to be at whiting, and so they were trying to, you know, make the decision where can we be? Where the commute is good for both of us, um. But then there there are others who are like, they come in and their priority is, you know what I want to be near the beach, you know, I want, I, I, that's, that's my goal, you know, um, and so we have tried to as much as possible.
Speaker 3:When we're beginning to work with a new incident, let's don't start with just running out and going to the first Zillow property you find, but let's get together, have a drink, talk about what your goals are. Why would you buy here instead of waiting until you're in Corpus Christi? What are you thinking in terms of your long-term strategy for real estate investment and how are you going to handle it when you're here? Are you planning on renting out rooms for other pilots and training? How are you going to approach that? And then we try to go from there, and it's a whole lot easier than say you know what. I think you'd do great in Cordova Park, because you're going to be able to get a house that has, you know, three separate bedrooms, that each individual renting from you is going to feel like they've got their own space, and it's going to be in a price point that enables you to do that and you're going to be able to cover your mortgage.
Speaker 3:So it's really a very personalized approach to each young buyer.
Speaker 1:No, I love that. And again in this conversation I really want to appeal and again, I think there are so many benefits to home ownership and it sounds like Pensacola is a great area to get involved in that. But if there's someone who just doesn't want to deal with the responsibility and isn't interested in, let's say, the profile of this person is hey, I just want to study, I want to be like generally close to base because I want a short commute so I can maximize time studying. Like I want to be a jet pilot or I want to do these things and be at the top of my class. In those cases is the Warrington and just immediately out of the back gate and that like Heron's forest area kind of the. The suggestion in that opinion or what would you recommend for someone who, again, is like I really just want to be close to base. I you know, I'm not worried about the other stuff. All I want to focus on is studying and and doing the best I can.
Speaker 2:Uh, as a student going through knife yeah, yeah, we see that all the time. I think the most common by far far is just an apartment complex out the back gate. Yep, you know your commute could literally be five minutes till you get to the office. You know you're like a minute and a half to the gate and then when the back gate is open, you know it's another four minutes on base to get to where you're doing knife or whatever ground school. Yeah, to get to where you're doing knife or whatever ground school. Um, yeah, I see that a lot more than I see people trying to anticipate, getting orders to whiting and trying to live halfway in between the two um, usually it's if you're laser focused on getting qualified and you know getting your wings.
Speaker 2:Most people are buying apartments with the shortest possible commute. There's like six or seven different apartment complexes out the back gate.
Speaker 2:Um and then, if they, have to, they'll move up to wimpy. Normally people don't need the household goods move. It's very easy to like pack up their one bedroom apartment or whatever it is and drive up you know the 45 minutes or an hour and get another house or apartment up in milton and then again have a super short commute there. So, and yeah, you know, we all know homeownership is not like, it's not necessarily passive income, especially while you're the one doing the management and everything else, and so certainly not for everyone. And if if your goal is laser focused on flight school, I think rent an apartment is a great option.
Speaker 1:Fantastic and then kind of like. The last profile I want to bring in is the profile of almost what Paul mentioned earlier is like I want to just be by the beach or not necessarily in the beach, but I'll use the case of. I really care about the social experience of being a student aviator and I want to be in the downtown area or in the Perdido Key area. What would your pitches be or what would you tell people about? Hey, if I'm trying to decide between living in Perdido Key like renting an apartment or living with friends in the Perdido Key area or the Pensacola like downtown Pensacola area, what would be your top pros and cons of those two areas for someone who's really interested in just having a good time while they're in Pensacola as a student aviator?
Speaker 2:having a good time while they're in Pensacola as a student aviator, yeah. So I think I definitely was that profile. And I think Perdido Key is awesome. For the first six months You're going to the beach every day. Four of AMA is like 12 or 15 bars in one, and so it doesn't get old. You can go there every single weekend. That's what most people do. But then in the off season, when it's Pensacola, it doesn't get cold, but we've had snow a couple times in the six years that I've been here and there's definitely an off season where you're not going to the beach and I think during those times that's when Perdido really does get quiet and not as exciting and Fort Bama is not as exciting.
Speaker 2:I think downtown is really year-round.
Speaker 2:There's stuff going on, there's things to do.
Speaker 2:You know you mentioned all of the art festivals and gallery night where they shut down the street and you can walk up and down and that's really where the center of everything is, I think is downtown and I think you can still have that beach experience if there's ways to get into the East Hill downtown.
Speaker 2:Or you know, paul just mentioned Cordova Park, east Pensacola Heights. I think those are really underappreciated areas where you basically have all the same convenience of downtown and East Hill but you're not quite paying that price point. And especially if you have two or three buddies where you're getting into a property, you know you're the one buying it but you have, you know, buddies or classmates that you're renting out to, I think it's definitely realistic for an ensign or like yeah, I guess it would be an ensign second lieutenant, whatever it is to purchase in that area and you still have the. You know you're less than 15 minutes from pensacola beach, you're close to downtown and it's not gonna dry up in the in the winter when you don't really have the tourists and everything going there no, very cool that's it all right.
Speaker 1:Well, thank you so much for that.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, sorry you were talking earlier about just not knowing pensacola. There was so much that I didn't know before I came here and um archie was mentioning, like the arts and the culture scene in the downtown area. I didn't realize before I moved here that Pensacola is one of the biggest Mardi Gras towns in the country Like New Orleans is the one that is known for Mardi Gras and Mobile has a great Mardi Gras scene.
Speaker 3:But Pensacola is right up there and Mobile has a great Mardi Gras scene, but Pensacola is right up there and that's a huge season where every other weekend parades and parties and it's a great scene. It really is a lot of fun and that's sort of the vibe of Pensacola and I would even just suggest to any young person that's getting ready to move down here just Google, like you know, pensacola, real estate, and there have been Wall Street Journal just did an article, the surprisingly hip vibe of Pensacola, you know and there was another article that was just written that talked about Pensacola as the new Miami and the way that's driving real estate prices up. Like the number of million dollar homes that are selling here in Pensacola is just skyrocketed and it's because it's a cool place to be, it's a great, great town and people are discovering it and it's driving a lot of new development.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's fantastic and in the sake of talking about some of these areas that we didn't know originally and learning about the pensacola area at large, have there been any neighborhoods that we haven't talked about that you'd like to bring to people's attentions? Or do you feel like, out of all the conversation already we've kind of touched on the areas that people would want to research in their initial search of the area?
Speaker 2:I think we've covered it pretty well. I think you know we mentioned Milton a lot. I think Pace is probably preferable to Milton just because it's a little bit closer. There's a ton of new development up near Pace but that's also going to give you a very short commute up to NAS Whiting. So whether you're an ensign or you're a lieutenant coming back for short tour, I think Pace could be a good option. And then we haven't really talked about North Hill.
Speaker 2:but North Hill kind of bridges the gap between downtown and East Hill and I think there's a lot of opportunity there as well, where it's very pockety what we've talked about before you could have a million dollar house right next to a $ hundred thousand dollar teardown, um. But there's definitely opportunities there and I think it's kind of the most logical area for growth. Right, if you're, you have all the convenience of the other neighborhoods we've talked about. It just hasn't really boomed yet, um, so that's another spot I think is a great option for people one of the things you'll hear.
Speaker 3:Yeah no, absolutely one of the things you'll hear people talk about is, if you're looking to move into pensacola or buy in pensacola, you want to avoid the alphabet street. When you get just directly west of like palafox, which is the main north south drag that goes through downtown and and up north in pensacola, you, you hit what are A, b, c, d, e, f, g, the alphabet streets. But those areas even are beginning to see some gentrification, some redevelopment and, you know, because there has been such an interest in the Pensacola market, there are investors that are coming in and buying and flipping houses, and I do. I think there's a ton of potential in that area as well, because because, you are.
Speaker 3:You're very close to downtown when you're there and it's super convenient to downtown and to Pensacola and I guess I think that you know that's one of the real, you know, untapped areas, I think untapped areas?
Speaker 1:I think Sure, absolutely. And just to Archie, bringing it back to you being there all the way back in, basically, 2013,. As we talk about this development in influx of resource, etc. How have you seen that? Have you seen tangible change, quite literally, between that 11-year period? How have you seen Pensacola develop over this 11-year span from your first introduction to now this point where you're living and really established in the area?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you know I was naive to most of Pensacola. Like I said, I've said several times I was kind of the Perdido area and for Obama, most of the time that I was here in flight school, but I would go downtown for gallery night and I think downtown has really exploded. I think a big thing what Paul said, like not just Mardi Gras, but this weekend there's a seafood festival and they're blocking off a huge part of the street and it's this huge four day event of I guess it's the crawfish festival. The seafood festival is month and every month they have something massive like that and I think those type of events and you know, I don't know the word, but they're putting on huge things that it's attracting a lot of tourists. Yeah, I would say downtown has probably doubled since I was here in 2013,. Just in terms of bars, restaurants, hotels, everything that's there is significantly was here in 2013,. Just in terms of bars, restaurants, hotels, everything that's there is, it's significantly bigger than in 2013.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's turning into the new Miami.
Speaker 3:The new Miami. It was ready to go. Yeah, it's a big, you know. Again, we could probably hit on a lot of the different things they do, but, like you know, comic-con, they have PentaCon here, which is a huge weekend where you know. Comic-con, they have Pensacon here, which is a huge weekend, where you know everybody is coming out and all of their I don't even know the word for it Nerd stuff, I don't know. Yeah.
Speaker 2:But, you know, minor league sports.
Speaker 3:You know we've got a minor league hockey teamiate sports. Come into town, we host a lot of the conference basketball tournaments and soccer tournaments and things that are here, so there really is a. You know, if you're looking for things to do outside of just studying and when you're in flight school, there's a whole lot going on.
Speaker 1:A lot going on. No, that's really incredible and I really appreciate it, and I think it's a really cool, again from the outside and just hearing stories and perspective, that the whole area is really just in a massive path of progress right now. There's just a ton of influx, like you said it's it's finally getting the recognition and exposure of being a really fun town in a really great area and just all the surrounding stuff, and so, um, I kind of want to turn this now. This has been a great overview conversation. Now we're going to put a little bit of our real estate hats on and just talk to the people who may be interested in purchasing a house. So, again, if you're listening and you're like, oh, this is all I needed to hear, I just want to rent, that's great. I encourage you to listen to the remainder of this anyway, but I really want to tailor this conversation.
Speaker 1:Now is for a military officer that may be thinking about buying a house. Again, it's my opinion that they have a long-term plan, or at least an idea of how they want to execute when they move am I selling, am I renting? And so I think it's important to know all your options. And so I want to talk about the rental market from the owner's perspective. In your opinion, in terms of best options and we'll start with again we have the short-term rental, the mid-term rental and the long-term rental market. My first question to you is in the Pensacola area, are short-term rentals blanket allowed everywhere? What's the process to get a permit, if you need one? Are there certain areas that are restrictive to short-term rentals? And just turn it over to you guys to talk about the short-term rental market and if that would be a possibility for naval officers, if that's something they wanted to pursue.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so that short-term rental is kind of our specialty. That's what got us both into real estate is running Airbnbs. Being in Florida, there's almost no restrictions at all. It's every neighborhood allows it. They've started to introduce some bills where it's you know, if you, if you have some violation some you know code violation they could pull your your short-term rental license. But other than that, it's complete open season for short, short-term rent.
Speaker 3:Yeah, the state of Florida actually has legislation that prohibits local municipalities from outlawing short-term rentals because it's such a big part of the tourism. They can regulate it, but they can't outlaw it. They can't strictly prohibit short-term rentals.
Speaker 1:Wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think Perdido actually has a great short-term rental market. In the summer I have friends with highly successful places, even bleeding over into Orange Beach, alabama. That's a great short-term rental market because it's a huge beach town and people vacation there. Ours is downtown East Pensacola Heights Cordova Park. We either own or manage.
Speaker 2:Airbnbs there and they're very successful. When I first got started I was like someone's really going to want to rent a, basically a guest room in a suburban neighborhood, um, but when you're five minutes from the airport, 10 minutes from downtown, 15 minutes from the beach, it's just, it's year-round. We said we all four of our properties that we own or own or manage stay at about 95% occupancy year round. So even when the thing that contributed the most for us building a tiny house in our backyard was our Airbnb survived through Hurricane Sally, which ripped up the bridge to Pensacola Beach. The commute from to the beach went from 15 minutes to one hour. And then we had covid 19, where basically people weren't, weren't vacationing, and our airbnb survived through both of those things and I was like time to start buying more, more properties, because it's just kind of immune to anything holding it back.
Speaker 1:So and you mentioned, you said built, you built something like in your backyard. Is that like an adu type thing that you built something like in your backyard?
Speaker 2:Is that like? An ad you Made the decision that we wanted to buy another property. We submitted five other offers. One of those was like 35% above asking price and we were getting beat out on everything and Our lot it's like a triple lot, and so we were like there's room back here for an ad you and started having a conversation with a contractor and an architect and the numbers just seemed to make sense and so we went for it and it's definitely been a good thing for us.
Speaker 1:Yeah, no, very cool. So, yeah, I just I want to articulate that to the young entrepreneurial ensigns, right, who want to use this opportunity in Pensacola more than just the experience of being there. And that's very cool because, like you're saying, if you want to put in the effort to do it again, it's work right, but it's possible and the opportunity really does exist for the short-term rental market, which is very cool. Moving on a little bit to now the mid-term rental market, do you see that as a thing or basically, because the short-term rental market is just so strong, you just do that? Or do you have people who dedicate properties to the 30 to 90-day rental market and do you see, like travel nurses, et cetera, in the demand for midterm rentals?
Speaker 2:Yeah, there's definitely a market for that as well. There are several huge hospitals here that are Baptist and Sacred Heart, and so there are traveling nurses. A lot of people use furnace finder and list their place and have success with that. Um, there's also a ton of things on nas pensacola. There's uh aso school. Um, there's a bunch of like commanding officer courses and other things where people are getting orders.
Speaker 2:Here there's reservists that come in and have orders and they're authorized to come out in town and use airbnbs or or more midterm rental type places and so you know, I have a friend who he was able to rent for like 45 days to an aso student, and you know that that is a lot closer to passive income than airbnb is right if someone's in there for a month or two and you're not doing cleaning or anything else. So there's certainly a market for that. Obviously, you have to balance competing against short-term rentals, and so you have to make the numbers make sense, but I think there's definitely a market for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and then kind of the most we'll consider like passive route is just the long-term rental market. Do you see people purchase homes and then rent it out? Is it cash Again? These are all very dependent and you have to run numbers and stuff and make sure. But do you generally see people rent out homes on a long-term rental basis to families and still have it cover the mortgage? Or do you see a lot of rentals to two and three young officers at a time that are coming out and you rent more rooms to a group of ensigns? How do you see that? And is the long-term rental market a sustainable one to cover your mortgage if you're a young ensign getting ready to buy?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think you kind of hit the nail on the head.
Speaker 2:I think you have to kind of approach it more for the two or three military officers and you don't necessarily have to rent by room, but I think you have to make it appealing for people in flight school. So that you know, I think O1BH is approaching $1,600. So you can make something that's really appealing. Have three separate incidents and they're only paying $1,000. They're saving $600 in BAH and now you're charging $3,000, where if you're trying to advertise a $3,000 rental to a family, you're shrinking your renter pool drastically.
Speaker 2:So, that's way more what we see, and it's a lot of VA loan and then turning it into rentals. I've had friends that are like, hey, I want to use an investment loan, where you're paying way higher interest rates and buy this and then rent it out to a family. I'm like the numbers don't make sense in that case, but I think by marketing it to flight students that's where you can create value there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's really the sweet spot, because we have both been incredibly successful with the Airbnb but we're managing it ourselves, we're cleaning it ourselves, we're doing all the work.
Speaker 2:And again, like you said, it's work, somebody in flight school doesn't have the time to do that.
Speaker 3:You know, if they get you know guard duty or something, they can't just drop it and go clean during the little window that is necessary to get that ready. And the same thing on the other side with long-term rentals You're just not going to be able to compete with what you could do in the mid-range. And when we first moved here, we moved at sort of the height of the real estate craze and we put in offers on six different houses before we got one. But we were also just looking for someplace to stay and Archie found us a place through the NAS network and they wanted a year-long lease and we basically said you know if we can get somebody to take our place in the?
Speaker 3:lease and they were like sure, whatever. Well, it took like six hours, you know, to get you know an incident, to take over the you know studio apartment that, uh, we had, and that's the kind of thing I think regularly happens and archie's seen that with his brothers when they've bought and invested in properties in places like pensacola.
Speaker 3:His younger brother bought a house in corpus when he first moved there for flight school and he used his Naval Academy network and basically had sort of a policy when you leave the house, you find somebody to come in and take your spot and he didn't do anything for six years after he bought the house and always had it full and always had the mortgage paid and that's really sort of the house hacking that we're pitching to a lot of young ensigns. You know, find some friends, buy the house, rent out the rooms, give them a great living experience while they're here and they're going to help. You find, you know, renters to take over when they're gone.
Speaker 1:Oh, absolutely Well, um, genuinely, guys, thank you so much for sharing your insight and opinion on all these different topics that we've touched on. Um, as we get ready to kind of wrap this up, I do want to touch a little bit onto yours, having been in the area for a long time. Now is generally what I'll consider hidden gems. Right, we all know about Floribama. I don't even I don't, you know, I never spent really that much time in Pensacola. I feel like every midshipman in the world knows of Floribama just because of the stories that are told by every student aviator that's ever been down there. But, moving on to some of the less known things, or things that you guys really like whether it be restaurants, activities, different things in the area that are just fun to do or great places, and so I'll turn it over to you if you have any hidden gems that you would recommend for any student aviator coming down that they should go check out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I've got three. I don't know how hidden any of them are, but they're three of my favorites. So first, ac Reed Golf Course on NAS Not the nicest course in the world, but it's 27 holes. I think it's like $22 to walk 18 and maybe 35 if you've got a cart, but I've been playing there at least once a week for six years. I've never had to make a tee time. You can basically show up the fact that it's 27 holes. They went viral like a year ago because the blues fly over like two days a week while you're golfing, and so it really is a cool experience. Almost all 27 holes have water on them, and so I think maybe not the best golf in Pensacola, but the best value for sure. Great course and I love playing it.
Speaker 2:Bayview Park in East Hill I don't think it needs to be exclusive to people that live in East Hill. There's tons of parking, there's a dog park, a dog beach, kayak rentals, outdoor workout station, tennis courts which has now turned into pickleball courts, but just a ton going on there Super fun park, and even if you don't live in East Hill, I think it's very accessible and a fun place to go. And then, in terms of restaurants. My wife and I are huge into dharma blue. I think they've got the best sushi in all pensacola. The best bread pudding in all pensacola. Um, for a while we're doing like our date nights at all these different restaurants and we basically like two years ago, we're like there's no point bouncing all these different restaurants and we're always disappointed that it's not dharma blue and that's kind of our go-to for every date night.
Speaker 3:Mine would be. We moved about a mile away from Archie and Sam when we moved here, but we're right across the bayou from them and that Bayview Park, as Archie mentioned.
Speaker 3:They rent out a lot of water equipment but my wife and I own paddle boards and we just have to walk down the street from our house and hit the bayou and beautiful paddle boarding any kind of water sport right there, and it takes you out to Pensacola Bay and you know, if you were really adventurous and you had, you know, jet skis or something, you could go all the way out to Gulf Breeze and head that way. So the water activities there are just outstanding. We're a little different, we're older, we're retiring and we love the more outdoor nature and secluded stuff. So for us, the beach we've discovered is if you go past Casino Beach, which is sort of the premier, you see the Beach Ball water tower there and the Casino Beach, which is sort of the premier, you know, you see the Beachball Water Tower there and the Casino Beach Bar and Grill. If you just keep going past that on Fort Pickens Road and you go all the way out to the entrance to the Gulf Shores National Seashore, you have just it's almost private beach. I mean you can walk from, you know, two miles and you won't see another human being. And it's what they advertise Pensacola for white, squeaky sand beaches, gorgeous Caribbean water. You know, that's one of the things I always say to these ensigns that are coming in here Would you rather buy a house in Corpus Christi with brown sand and brown water or white sand and blue water? You know, it's gorgeous. I mean it really is beautiful. And you know we walk three or four nights a week at sunset and we've got the beach all to ourselves. It's fantastic.
Speaker 3:And then, in terms of places to eat again, because we live over in east pensacola heights, there's a little place right down the street from us. It's a Mediterranean restaurant called Agape and you know, really nice food, really nice cocktails. It's got an outdoor seating area. That's really great and good weather, but a real small but sort of a foodie kind of place. And then our other favorite is just a breakfast place that is called Aunt Katie's. Welcome to Breakfast and it's just around the corner from Agape and down the street from our house and they basically are just breakfast and brunch every day of the week. And you know, I mean my wife and I, when we first started going there, we would order, you know, an order of Eggs Benedict each and these loaded Bloody Marys that are a meal in themselves, and they were so big that we started one bloody mary and one eggs benedict and it's all you need to order, and it's just fantastic it's really.
Speaker 3:It's really high-end food in a very, very casual breakfast brunch environment. So those would be the places I'd recommend one more note about so jd, and liza come in.
Speaker 2:Uh lived here for a while and my wife and I would always debate with them. They were huge into fort pickens. Our kids hate the car and that's about 15 minute commute and so we're like let's post up at casino beach next to the pier good people watching and jd and liza always want to go out to fort pickens where it's like a postcard and it's secluded and private but a lot of good beach options for sure.
Speaker 1:Absolutely, and you know your city's developing when tennis courts are turning into people. There we go. That's when you know you're on the rise. You're on the rise, but fantastic. Thank you guys so much and I just want to turn it over to you one last time for any parting words of advice or thoughts to anyone who may be getting ready to PCS, to Pensacola. What are you telling them, what do you recommend and what would you leave them with at the end of this episode?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I think I mean, if you talk to any grad, everyone's going to say hey, I regret not buying at all my duty stations. For me it was a combination of things. I think it was a lack of you know, a lack of education on the matter.
Speaker 2:But it was also. I was looking at places like, if the market was to crash, am I going to want to end up here? So for, like, whidbey Island Whidbey is beautiful, it's a great retirement community but I knew I didn't want to end up on the West Coast and so I was like I'm not going to buy for a. I was basically there for a year and a half, but I think Pensacola it's pretty universal. Everyone would want to live here. I mean, the beaches are beautiful, the cost of living you know, when you compare it to some other beach towns like San Diego or, you know, hawaii or something equivalent places that have these type of beaches very affordable cost of living and, I think, a chance to start your career by buying someplace like here where the numbers really can make sense and you have a consistent rental market, because there's other grads that don't want to put in the work. They want to focus on renting a place and going through flight school.
Speaker 3:So I think the combination of those two things make it a super desirable place to buy and a desirable place to come back to whether that's later in your career, for a short tour or after you're retired and like my dad did so um, I think there's a lot of appeal to pensacola and it's up and coming, like we said yeah, and I would say for us, um, you know, especially for myself, I I really just get a kick out of helping young naval officers and we really are committed to helping them get a feel for Pensacola, and obviously we would love to see every one of them buy if it's right for them, but we'd rather them not buy if it's not right for them.
Speaker 3:And we would rather them not buy the wrong place or get in the wrong rental. It's not right for them and we would rather them not buy the wrong place or get in the wrong rental. And so we're really just committed because of you know, our connection to USNA and to this group of people to really doing everything we can to help them find their best option.
Speaker 1:Whether that is renting or buying or, you know, just learning about Pensacola and making sure that they have the best experience possible in the real estate market. Absolutely Well, as a fellow member of the parent-son real estate team, combo, I genuinely appreciate you both coming on and talking about Pensacola, and I echo the sentiment that you just said, paul, and this is something that I really want this platform to be, which is it's an educational platform. Right, and not every situation is perfect for home buying for every person, right, and so we're here to to help educate you, help provide you with the resources to make the right decision for you in your situation in life. Right, and I think, again, there's a lot of advantages in positive things to the home buying process that we want to educate you on. But it doesn't mean it's right for you at every point in your life, but when it is, that's where we're here to help you and be the experts and guide you in that process. So I appreciate you sharing all of your perspectives about the Pensacola area, about the rental markets, about home buying in the area and everything of the sort.
Speaker 1:So thank you so much for being here and if anyone is listening and they want to get in touch with both Archie and Paul. Please shoot me a message. I will absolutely get you connected to them and get you all their information. We'll also put their contact information in the show notes so you can just reach out to them directly and we'll make that happen. So I really appreciate both of your time today. Thank you so much and thanks for giving back to the USNA Property Network community.
Speaker 2:Thanks, grant, appreciate it yeah.
Speaker 1:Absolutely All right everyone. Thank you for listening. I hope you have a good day.
