Have you received orders to be transferred to Ellsworth air force base, Stick around for the five things you need to know.

Hey everybody. I'm Tristan Emond with mindful living Realty a realtor right here in rapid city, South Dakota. Welcome to find a real estate YouTube channel where I talk everything about moving to the rapid city area and all the wonderful things about rapid city and the  black Hills. Go ahead and hit that subscribe button.

Right in that little belt, make sure you notified all my rapid city videos. And now let's get to the five. What can I say? Except you're welcome. Number one. The area Ellsworth air force base is just off the Northern edge in the city of box elder box elder is right along Interstate 90 as you go *WEST* about 10 miles.

You hit rapid city, South Dakota, the gateway to the black Hills. Box Elder has really grown in the past few years and now has around 9,500 people and has been the third fastest growing city in South Dakota in 2020. Compare that to Sioux falls, which is number five and rapid city, which is number eight.

Number two, what is there to do after all its South Dakota right? It's really nothing to do in South Dakota. Right? As I mentioned before, gateway to black Hills, the black Hills is our playground. If you love nature, there's hiking, camping, and fishing. You don't have to operate vehicles that are ATV trails, scenic highways and bike trails, looking for more adventure, wind cave bear country, reptile gardens, there's even a new hovercraft park.

One of my favorite things is zip line and rope climbing court near Keystone. And of course it was all those things. The black hills was known for mount Rushmore, crazy horse, deadwood, Spearfish Canyon. And so much more to do. There's some fun stuff to do in rapid city as well. Downtown. I love main street square.

There are many events like the beer festival, Halloween festivals, so many things during the air. Plus Thursdays on seventh street, there are a Free band free beer garden. You can also explore the unique shops, canvas to paint and escape rooms. Love your craft beers. There's a number of local breweries and even some wineries rapid city has plenty of culture too, with lots of museums, art galleries and events.

And during the winter, we've got the rush, our semi-professional hockey team. Number three, should I rent first even if you're planning on living on base right away, you might be asking the questions. Well, later on, should I rent or should I buy. This question is something that really only, you can answer for yourself, you and your situation and your family, but let's go over a few things that you might consider when you're considering renting a property versus buying a property.

Now, it makes a lot of logical sense, move into an area, make sure that you rent for a while and kind of get a feel for everywhere around all the different areas. So when you buy a property, you're in a spot where you really enjoy living, where you really want to be. And that's great. If that's what you'd like to do.

However, I'd like to point just a few things out to you, just so you understand how things roll. When it comes to renting in our area. Number one, the rental market, it's pretty tough. You might be able to buy a property, even maybe even a better, bigger property for the same month that you can rent for number two, if you're looking for just a six month lease to rent for six months and then to move on from there, it's a little more difficult to find a year lease is pretty common.

So if you're looking for a shorter rental term, the options are going to be considerably limited. Number three pets. A lot of rental properties have two responses when it comes to that, that's either  ah-ah give me your money. You do have furry family members, you may have more options and more opportunities for you and them buying rather than renting.

If renting is the best option for you, I have links and resources that can help you find that rental for you and your family. Number four. If you are planning to buy a home, where should you buy it at? Now, if you were talking to an air force member that has been here 20 years ago, he might tell you box is not the place to live, but things have changed.

As I mentioned before in box elder, there is more new construction out in box elder than anywhere else. The number of developments out there are popping up all over the place. So it's very possible to get it into a newer home, just minutes away from work. If you're the type of person that likes to be farther away from work rapid Valley, which is on the South side of rapid city is a very popular choice.

If you don't mind up to half an hour commute to work, you can live in West side, rapid city or close to the Hills in Piedmont or Blackhawk in 2019, the average home sale price was $219,000. If you need to get into a three bedroom, two bath home in the rapid city and surrounding area, you better expect to spend.

At least $200,000 would be better for you to have 225 or 250 to get into a property that's nicely done and move in. Ready. If you're looking to get a bigger home with more wow factor and more amenities that are expect to spend over 300,000, perhaps you're asking why are Rapid City home homes so expensive to answer this.

Let's check out the map here of the rapid city area. As you can see here, we're hours away from many other major cities. It's five hours who falls five hours to Bismarck, another five hours to Missoula. And it's six to seven hours, seven to Denver, which is the nearest metropolis around us because of this.

Our area has about 150 mile trade radius, which brings in people from all over the place into rapid city for services and shopping that we offer. In this trade radius, we have the largest hospital. We have the airport, we have the civic center where all the events and concerts happen. So we bring all these people to our area for that I don't on top of that, all the tourism for our area, the agriculture and Ellsworth air force base.

And we always have a consistently strong economy in our area because of that. We generally have low inventory, lots of buyers. which Drive up the prices. We've seen an increase in our home prices in our air for the past 10 years. What's great about this for you. So we have a greater chance of getting your home sold and it cleanly.

When you're ready to move for your next station. I have a number of military clients here that hung onto the properties rather rented them out. And hope someday to come back and live in the black Hills. Number five. How can we get your home purchased long distance? Now, hopefully you've got your order soon enough that you're able to start looking around at properties online, and you can start checking out where things are at and what things you really love in the area.

If you get ahold of us sooner, rather than later, we can help you go through the process, get all those boxes checked, and hopefully we can get you moved into a property. When you're ready to actually move out here. The first step is pre-approval. I always will recommend a local lender. They understand what's going around around our market, and if I need to get ahold of them, I can go knock on their door.

The local lenders that I trust have very competitive rates and have been doing a very good job of getting us closed on time. Number two, your orders obviously this is a, no-brainer got to have them. They need to be in writing. If you've got a verbal, we can still go around and look for properties. If you don't have your orders in writing, we're a little hesitant write an offer for you.

Just in case things change because you know, they can, whoever we can always make an offer contingent upon you receiving your orders, which means if you don't get those orders in writing or things change, you can get out of that home purchase, but making an offer contingent upon your orders makes it a little bit weaker.

And then the tough market, it really can be difficult to win out on a property with multiple offers with your contingency. Number three, don't be afraid to contact me and let me help you. There are so much you can see on the line of our property. There's also a lot. You can't see what does the neighbor down the street look like?

Do they have cars over their yard? Is there a drainage ditch in the backyard? Maybe there's huge power lines behind that. You don't like. There's so many things that I can help you see once you've established your favorites. I'll schedule a time to get together with you and either to zoom or Skype or some kind of video conferencing software to go take you through the home virtually I'll take you to the property, open up closet doors.

I'll give you my opinion about the property. Make sure that there's no leaking under the sink. I'll do all the things that you can't see as you're looking, even on some of the virtual tours. Online after we've narrowed down your list by a few video tours. I hope you have a chance to come out here for a weekend and we can take a look at the homes that you love personally.

And go from there. We'll look at the properties we'll to the area. We'll give you a tour of rapid city itself. Give you an idea of where the fun things are, and then we'll write an offer on your favorite. I also like to put together an offer on your second favorite, so that one is ready to go in case for whatever the reason the first one falls apart.

Now, if we need to, I can always, yeah. Right. An offer for you and a property without you physical, looking at the home. Obviously I don't recommend this. There is so much more to do a home than what you can see. There's that feel when you walk in the door that I want to make sure that you're a part of but I'm happy to work with you in whatever situation you're in to make sure you get into that home that you love after you've had a chance to visit, and we get your offer accepted.

We then go through the process of making sure we get the inspections lined up, making sure the lenders are doing their job and doing everything we can to make sure we get closed at successfully. It does take about 45 to 60 days to close on a home in our area. So make sure that you include that in your time frame for when you're coming out.

Our goal is to have everything done and ready so that when you report to base. You'll be able to move right in. I've helped a number of families, just like you PCs to Ellsworth air force base over the years, whether you're planning on living on base renting first and buying later or buying right away, we're here to help you in whatever way we can.

We've done this before. We'll do it again. I hope you've enjoyed this video and the information we've provided has been helpful. If we can help you out in any way, please contact us for more videos about rapid city in the area. Check out this video here, or this video here. Thanks for watching. Have a great day and love where you live.