Should You Sell or Rent Your Hampton Roads Home When You PCS?

You just got orders. The clock is ticking on your move date. And somewhere between picking schools at the new duty station and figuring out the moving truck schedule, the question hits you: should we sell the Hampton Roads house, or should we rent it out?

This is the single most common question I hear from military homeowners. And it's a real decision, not a slam dunk in either direction. There are scenarios where renting is the right move. There are more scenarios where selling is the right move. The honest answer depends on your numbers, your situation, and your tolerance for being a landlord from another time zone.

I'm John King. Navy veteran, licensed agent with Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty serving Hampton Roads. Let's walk through the actual decision the way it deserves to be walked through, not the way most agents pitch it.

Start With the Real Question, Not the Easy One

Most military families ask the question this way: "Can we afford to keep the house?"

That's the wrong question. The right question is: "Does keeping this house actually make us money, after everything?"

Those are two very different questions, and the answer to the first one is almost always yes. The answer to the second one is more complicated. Plenty of military landlords break even on paper, lose money in reality, and don't realize it for three or four years.

Before you can decide, you need real numbers on both paths.

The Real Cost of Renting Your Home Out

Here's what most "should I rent or sell" calculators leave out.

The mortgage payment. Principal, interest, taxes, and insurance. You know this number.

Property management. If you're PCSing, you almost certainly need a property manager. Self managing from another state, especially while moving, deploying, or settling into a new duty station, is a recipe for problems. Hampton Roads property management runs roughly 8 to 10 percent of monthly rent for full service, plus a leasing fee (often half a month's rent or one full month) every time the property turns over. Some managers charge additional fees for renewals, maintenance coordination, or annual inspections. Read every line of the management agreement before you sign.

Vacancy. Even in a strong rental market, you should plan for at least one month of vacancy per year, on average. Hampton Roads multifamily vacancy currently runs in the low to mid 5 percent range, which is healthy, but single family rentals turn over too. Tenants get jobs in other cities. Marriages end. Military tenants get their own PCS orders.

Maintenance and repairs. The standard rule of thumb is 1 to 2 percent of the home's value per year for ongoing maintenance, plus reserves for big ticket items. HVAC systems average about 15 years. Roofs average about 20 to 25 years. Water heaters average about 10 years. If those numbers are getting close on your home, those are real costs sitting on the horizon.

Capital expenditures. Eventually you'll be replacing flooring between tenants. Repainting. Replacing appliances. Most landlords budget another 1 percent of home value annually for these.

Tenant turnover costs. Carpet cleaning, paint touch ups, deep cleans, lock changes, marketing, leasing commissions. Conservatively budget $1,500 to $3,000 per turnover.

Taxes. Rental income is taxable. You'll deduct expenses and depreciation, but you'll also owe taxes on net rental income. When you eventually sell, depreciation recapture and capital gains can reduce your net proceeds significantly. A good CPA who specializes in real estate is worth every dollar you'll pay them.

When you stack all of that against your monthly rent number, the cash flow picture often looks very different from the napkin math.

The Real Math Example

Let's run a realistic Hampton Roads example.

You bought in 2021 for $385,000 with a 3.25 percent VA loan, zero down. Your current mortgage payment with taxes and insurance is around $2,400 per month. The home would rent for $2,500 per month in today's market.

Looks like $100 per month positive cash flow, right? That's how the conversation usually starts.

Now subtract:

Property management at 9 percent of $2,500 = $225 per month.

Vacancy reserve at one month per year = roughly $208 per month averaged.

Maintenance reserve at 1.5 percent of $475,000 home value = roughly $593 per month.

Capital expenditure reserve at 1 percent = roughly $396 per month.

Total monthly cost on top of mortgage: roughly $1,422.

True monthly cash position: $2,500 rent minus $2,400 mortgage minus $1,422 in reserves and management = negative $1,322 per month.

That's $15,864 per year out of pocket, before taxes, before any actual emergency repair, before turnover costs.

Now here's the counterargument. The home is appreciating. Hampton Roads appreciated roughly 4 percent in 2025 and is forecasted to do something similar in 2026. On a $475,000 home, 4 percent appreciation is $19,000 per year. Plus you're paying down principal each month, building roughly $7,000 to $9,000 per year in equity.

So is the deal good or bad? It depends on whether you have the cash flow to absorb the monthly negative, the patience to wait for appreciation to play out, and the tolerance for being a landlord. Some military families have all three. Many don't.

The Real Cost of Selling

Selling has costs too, and you should know them.

Standard total selling costs run roughly 8 to 10 percent of the sale price when you account for agent commissions, closing costs, transfer taxes, prep work, and any concessions you negotiate with the buyer. On a $475,000 home, that's $38,000 to $47,500 off the top.

If you used a VA loan to buy, you don't have a mortgage insurance hangover and you don't owe the VA anything when you sell. You walk away with your equity, less selling costs.

Here's what most sellers don't realize: if you've owned for less than two years, capital gains tax may apply to your profit. If you've owned and lived in the home for at least two of the last five years, there's a primary residence exclusion that may eliminate that tax for most military sellers, but the rules around the exclusion are situation specific and a CPA conversation is worth having before you sign anything. (We'll cover the military specific tax angles in a separate post because the rules are unique enough to deserve their own deep dive.)

When Renting Actually Makes Sense

I'm not going to pretend selling is always the right answer. It's not. Here's when renting can be the better path:

You have strong positive cash flow even after honest expense budgeting. Not theoretical positive cash flow. Real positive cash flow with property management, vacancy, maintenance, and capital expenditure reserves all subtracted. If the home pays for itself with a buffer, that's a different conversation.

You have an assumable VA loan at a rate well below current market. That low rate is real money. In some scenarios, holding the home and renting it captures equity gains faster than selling and reinvesting elsewhere.

You expect to return to Hampton Roads within a few years. Many service members rotate back through this region multiple times in their careers. Selling and rebuying every few years is expensive. Holding and returning to your home is sometimes the cleaner play.

You have cash reserves to weather a bad year. A vacant property, a big repair, or a problem tenant can blow through $10,000 to $20,000 fast. If that number would seriously impact your finances, you're not ready to be a landlord.

You have a property manager you trust. This is the one most military landlords underestimate. Self management from another duty station is hard. Bad property management is worse than no property management. The manager you choose is the single biggest variable in whether your rental experience is profitable or painful.

When Selling Is Almost Certainly the Right Move

The honest answer for most military families is selling. Here's why:

You don't actually have positive cash flow once you account for everything. This is the most common scenario, and it's the one most likely to be misdiagnosed. Owners who think they're cash flow positive because rent covers the mortgage payment are missing the other 20 to 30 percent of true ownership costs.

Your equity could work harder elsewhere. Hampton Roads is a strong market, but it's not the only strong market. Rolling your equity into your next duty station, into your retirement accounts, or into a more profitable investment can sometimes outperform holding the property as a rental.

You don't have the bandwidth to be a landlord. Active duty service members on demanding tours, deployed members, or families navigating high stress assignments don't always have the mental space for tenant problems, repair calls, or property management oversight. There's no shame in admitting that. The opportunity cost of stress is real.

You've stopped breaking even and don't know it. Many landlords run profitable for two or three years and then hit a bad turnover, a big repair, or a vacancy stretch that wipes out years of cash flow. Selling locks in your equity at today's market value and removes that risk.

You need the equity for your next purchase. If your next duty station calls for a bigger home, a different price point, or zero down with full VA entitlement, selling now and reusing your full VA benefit at the next station is often the cleanest path forward.

The Property Management Question

If you decide to rent, the property manager you pick will determine whether the experience is profitable or painful. I have a property manager I trust and refer my clients to when they decide renting is the right call. Decades of Hampton Roads experience, transparent pricing, and a reputation for treating landlords and tenants both fairly. You're absolutely welcome to use whoever you want, and you should interview at least two managers before you sign. But if you don't already have someone, ask me. I'll make the introduction and you decide from there.

What to look for in any property manager:

Local presence. Not a national chain running a call center.

Clear, written fee structure. Management fee, leasing fee, renewal fee, maintenance markup, every line.

A real screening process. Credit, employment verification, rental history, criminal background, eviction history.

Direct communication. Will they call you on the regular, send you a portal login, or expect you to chase them down?

References from current landlord clients. Ask for them.

How the Decision Usually Plays Out

When I sit down with a military family for the sell or rent conversation, here's the order I work through:

We pull the real numbers on both paths. Realistic rent, realistic ownership costs, realistic selling costs, realistic equity position. No napkin math.

We talk through the family's actual situation. Tour length at the new station, deployment expectations, financial cushion, comfort with being a landlord, plans for VA benefit reuse.

We look at the home itself. Age of major systems, deferred maintenance, recent updates. A home with a 17 year old HVAC and a 22 year old roof is a very different rental than a home with both replaced last year.

By the end of that conversation, the answer is usually clear. Most of the time it points to selling. Sometimes it points to renting. The point isn't to push one outcome. The point is for you to make the right decision with all the information on the table.

Bottom Line

The "rent it out and let it appreciate" pitch sounds appealing, and for the right family with the right numbers and the right home, it can absolutely work. For most military families I sit down with, the honest math points to selling, taking the equity, and moving forward cleanly to the next chapter.

If you've got orders and you're trying to decide whether to sell or rent your Hampton Roads home, let's get on a call. I'll run the real numbers on your specific situation, walk through both paths with you, and give you a straight read. No pressure. Just the math and the honest answer.

When it's time to talk real estate, you know who to call.

About the Author

John King is a Navy veteran and licensed real estate agent with Berkshire Hathaway RW Towne Realty, serving Hampton Roads including Virginia Beach, Norfolk, and Chesapeake. Known for straightforward approach and market expertise. 📞 757-270-3994 📧 [email protected] 🌐 www.757King.com

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