Fort Stewart Ga housing

Fort Stewart GA Housing

Fort Stewart, Georgia, the largest military installation east of the Mississippi River, is the home of over 20,000 active duty military personnel. Fort Stewart is considered a heavily mechanized military installation; this means that Ft. Stewart has armored tanks, fighting vehicles, and a large array of combat weapons. The base is located outside of Hinesville, Georgia which is a town of approximately 75,000 people.

To the north of Ft. Stewart is a small town known as Richmond Hill, Georgia which has a population of approximately 18,000 people. It’s a small, cozy, coastal town with no industry to speak of and structured neighborhoods and communities for families. Richmond Hill is known to have some of the best schools in the state of Georgia. The average price of a home in Richmond Hill is around $200,000. As you can imagine, many of the Ft. Stewart soldiers live in Richmond Hill and choose to raise their family around other like-minded military families. There are many services available in Richmond Hill, such as the Richmond Hill Medical Home, an Army-run primary care clinic for family members. The average stay for a soldier at any typical military base is 3-5 years.

Being a Realtor and servicing incoming and exiting soldiers to Ft. Stewart and Hunter Army Air Field, you have to take the troop movements in to account. During OIF (Operation Iraqi Freedom) and OEF (Operation Enduring Freedom) the entire military base was sent to the desert for up to 15 months at a time. To say that our town was a little bit bare would be an understatement. Real estate took a dive, as you know and could imagine, and rentals became a very popular option for the soldiers and their families. Think about it – Who would want to buy a home knowing they would be deployed to Afghanistan or Iraq for up to 15 months and not be able to enjoy it. Many wives went home to stay with their parents or family members for support.

Approximately 5 years ago the military decided to break up Ft. Stewart in to separate brigades. The brigades have always been there but what was done was each brigade was autonomous. This allowed one brigade to be deployed with a full regimen of equipment and service personnel needed during that deployment period. This staggering of sending brigades to the desert gave some stability to our housing market. The idea of 4,000-5,000 soldiers going to the desert at any given time was much better than 16,000 soldiers going all at once. The deployment term was also lessened from 15 months to a timeframe of 9 months through one year.

As you can imagine – Ft Stewart is the lifeblood for all of the cities within a 50 mile radius. As such, I honored to be able to help military families and be a part of their lives.