Because of the recent discussions about Soaring Heights, I am now wondering which housing, new or old, does everyone think is better? I know there will be pros and cons to both, but my husband daughter and I will be coming to Holloman in October and it will be our first stateside base so we don't know what to expect out of housing. Housing on Kadena is completely different than stateside, or so I've been told.
What are the pros and cons? Is it worth it to have a garage since they are apparently useless because they get so hot? And this is may be a silly question, but will we need to buy major appliances like washer/drier, fridge etc (it's all provided here)?

I would love to get a newer house since the one we are in now is so old and riddled with crazy Japanese spiders, roaches etc and is so tiny, but I am nervous now to have to deal with such poor customer service, I'm really going to miss these helpful polite japanese workers! 

We live in a house like this: http://holloman.soaringheights.net/homes/507 and can't complain at all. Yes the garage ist hot but I don't spend much time in it, soo ...

Maybe I am the wrong person to ask, 'cause I don't complain much ;)

Anyways .. you gotta buy your own washer/dryer but the houses do come w/ a fridge and the new houses also come w/ a microwave.

You don't necessarily have to deal w/ poor customer service, I never have ..

We are in the desert, spiders, and other bugs are pretty common here ;) 

Jess-
It really all depends what you guys are looking for. The old officer houses are not really that bad........we didn't take one of those because the bathrooms are TINY and the washer and dryer are located right next to your kitchen with only an accordian wall covering them...........the house that we chose isn't one of the new ones, but isn't an old officer one either......and it works just fine for us (although, I'm not super picky).....the new ones are very nice, but I've heard alot of people say that they are having problems with them because they were put up super fast and were poorly constructed. Also, something to think about.........a lot of the old officer houses are stand alones, the houses that we are in are duplex, but connected by our kitchen and laundry room, but the new houses are connected with bedrooms, and people have been complaining that they can hear their neighbors through the walls.........none of the houses are really that bad, so I think you guys would be ok with whatever you get- you just have to decide what you are looking for. I believe all of the houses have garages now.

You will need to buy your washer and dryer (I would look on Holloman Yard Sales when you get here because people PCS'ing overseas are always getting rid of theirs......our house didn't come with a microwave, but the new ones are coming with them.........but they come with refrigerator, stove, dishwasher. Hope this helps! 

When we moved on base in May SH told us they are now completely over the old housing so either way you will have to deal with them. We like our new house but there are problems, just like the older houses will have problems too, I would go with the new one 

Jess ...

We came from Kadena too .. And I must agree w/ you on missing the helpful and polite Japanese locals that worked for housing. I never had to wait more than a couple of hours for them to respond to my needs.

As far as the housing here on base I have my dislikes about both the new and old housing. We live in the old officer housing and I must agree w/ Christy when she says the bathrooms are super tiny (literally, only 1 person can fit in there @ a time), and I don't really care for the fact that the laundry room is connected to our kitchen area, but I do like the size of the living and dining area. We have friends that live in the new houses and they aren't too happy about them ... Most definitely because of the little time they were constructed in. Almost all of our friends have had their upstairs bathrooms flood @ random times for no obvious reason, as well as a few other random problems. But I think just like any house you are gonna have your rough spots.

If you have any other questions or concerns you are more than welcome to email me ... rmajimenez@yahoo.com

Welcome to Holloman ... 

Jess,

When my husband and I go to Holloman, the only house that was available was one that is incredibly old! It has not been remodeled or anything, and it is a duplex. Its on Valencia, I am sure eventually you will hear about the houses on that street, lol. Anyways, I really like my house. It is not appealing from the outside, and yes my washer/dryer are basically in the kitchen,..but that just means I can cook and do laundry all at the same time :)
My living room is ginormous compared to my friends who have brand new houses..and I hear the new ones were made very poorly. I do have 2 friends in old officer houses, and they are really, really nice. Again, from the outside, they dont look as appealing as the new houses..but just compared to the friends I have in new housing..there are less problems in the older ones. But yes, the bathrooms are very, very small!
My husband and I were not very picky though..considering that was the only house available on base when we got there, we just took what we could get.
Good luck with your move! and Welcome to Holloman :) 

Thank you all for the welcoming (we won't be there until October though lol). Generally I'm not too worried about what housing we end up with because nearly anything would be nicer than what we are in right now! We have a quadruplex building :( Tiny apartment style homes and our washer and dryer are literally in our kitchen with no doors or anything separating them (we hung curtains to at least hide them). Our bathroom has flooded, our dishwasher has flooded, and our storage shed right next to our living room has flooded so we are used to that particular issue haha. I wouldn't mind having a neighbor right next to us sharing a wall, but I really don't want upstairs neighbors anymore! 

I live in the new housing, I'm also in a duplex. I don't here much from next store, and just like any new home their are things that need to be fixed. They have a good staff, that's just my opinion. I love the home I'm in. You'll have to look and see what fits your need. 

They gave us a renovated 3bed/2bath and we don't even have kids yet. It's a nice size home for two to four people.

We're in old officer housing... like I said, it's renovated. We hate the outside of the house, but us and our duplex neighbors both agree that we love the inside of our homes. The laundry room is perfectly fine and when you shut the door you can barely hear the machines at all. We have a lovely two car garage. Carpet in the living room and three bedrooms. Nice tile throughout the rest of the house (not grocery store tile, the nice tile.) The trim/crown molding (or whatever it's called) along the walls throughout the entire house looks nice. If we had children, I would be glad for the size of our yard.

The homes that are not remodeled are said to have lots of problems. They also have grocery store tile throughout the ENTIRE house.

There are lots of renovated homes available in our neighborhood, so I'm surprised that they haven't offered you one yet. We got our house 2 days after arriving here.

Sure, we'd love to have a new home, but this works just fine as well. 

And like the others said, the bathrooms are small, but we don't spend much time in them anyways. We just took the door off of our bathroom in the master bedroom. Honestly, I enjoy having a large living room as appose to having a big bathroom and bedroom. The bedrooms are bigger than the bedrooms in my husbands parents old house in Navy housing, so I'd say we're lucky for the renovated and new houses on Holloman. haha

I'm nervous about where ever we get stationed next in three years, because I really like our home and this base. Welcome. :) 

i also live in the old housing on Valencia and as Kaity stated they are not pretty from the outside but i absolutely love it. I also have friends in new housing who sincerely dislike the lack of space in the living areas. The new houses look new and pretty but were constructed with the cheapest materials found, therefore they are already undergoing some problems. My living space is huge! 2 adults and 2, sometimes 3 children (my stepson), occupy my house and we are very comfortable and rarely under each others feet. The lay out is also very open so us mothers can keep a good eye out on the household activities :) I love my old house and wouldn't want anything else, good luck to you and your family!
P.S. Spiders are inevitable here, no matter what kind of house or location, your moving to the open desert. We are in spider territory. 

crystal, where at are you on valencia? i live on that street too! totally agree with the living room area, the new homes are so tiny where as the older ones like what crystal and i are in are humungous! and unfortunately, the spider thing is so true..doesn't matter if you have a new house, "middle" house, or old house..your are going to have spiders! 

ooh, and another pro to the old homes..since they do not have carpeting, like Jessi KO mentioned..you dont have to give up all of your BAH. the older homes are only $799/month so that is pretty cool!! i love my older home, and i have got to say, cleaning the floors are so simple! just run a swiffer through the entire house twice a week and your good to go! 

That is kinda crappy.........our house doesn't have carpeting and we still pay all of our BAH!!! I think Soaring Heights is a major ripoff personally....I think they are shady! 

i actually have carpeting, therefore we pay all BAH. Which personally im ok with cause i have a little one who is crawling and i would rather her be on carpet, but anyways lol. If you have ceiling fans, carpet, anything that isnt an original part of basic housing you are supposed to be paying out all ur BAH, they consider it to be some type of luxury amenity (whatever). If you have absolutely nothing extra but the basics (no fans, carpet, yada yada) you are supposed to be paying out only $799 or whatever the price is. Oh and i was also told that you will only pay $799 if your house not only has nothing bu the basics but has also been on the market for over 14 days. I agree soaring heights needs to treat everyone equally not pick and choose who pays what simply cause they feel like being a-holes. Their logic on all this crap really sucks! Kaity im on the side of valencia that is near all the renovations, where the street gets gated off! 

P.s. other than pricing of housing, i as of this very moment have not had any other problems with the housing staff. If i do have any problems or questions (which are very infrequent) they so far have been decently nice about it. They leave me alone as i leave them alone lol. I do however have an issue with not the maintenance men or the work they do but the call in maintenance line. It seems that for the past...... oh atleast 2 months, i have not been able to contact the maintenance call center to schedule appts. I even last week had an emergency where my screen door got jammed closed and i couldnt enter my house. could i get through to after hours maintenance to help me and my 2 small children? of course not.... thankfully i was able to find something laying around to pry my door open. This is really my only compliant besides the BAH as of this point with soaring heights. 

Wow......they consider ceiling fans a luxury amenity???? My house does have air conditioning and two ceiling fans........however, we spent thousands of dollars to lay our own carpet so that our children wouldn't have to crawl around on tile. Seems to me that we should get some compensation for that? You're right Crystal.......they shouldn't just be able to charge what they want, when they want. Everyone should be treated the same.....and if they are giving a discount, then everyone should be given the option to live in a discounted house.....we were never offered a cheaper house.....which seems unfair. 

i agree it does seem unfair christy and yes i think they should definitely compensate you for installing carpet cause once you move they are gonna make money off of it, not you. However, everyone, the ugly truth is that we all do have the option to collect our BAH and live in town. For one reason or another we all chose to live on base because it must hold more pros than cons for each individual family. Basically soaring heights isnt holding anyone hostage here on base lol. I hate how they dont treat everyone equally when it comes down to rent but i love my house, my neighborhood, and the convenience that living on base provides for my family! Really thats all there is to it...... 

You are right Crystal..........I just might have to re-think things when we PCS. 

Really we've lived on base for almost 4 years in the same house on San Miguel and they have always taken all of our BAH. We have nothing...a swamp cooler no fans, no carpet..nothing and they take all $900 we were told that it didn't matter that whatever your rank got they took all of it... 

Uh lord someone lied to you honey. We stayed in the older housing so we could save some money. They aren't taking the whole thing. I have some friends who pay less than us by a hundred bucks.
SH changes there story so many times. Did you know that my hubby and I asked to be put into a 2 bedroom house because a 3 bedroom one is to big. They have them but would not give us one in the end. They changed there mind at the last moment after I opened my big mouth and talked about how much we like saving our money. After that they suddenly didnt have any available. 

When have you moved away from San Miguel Lp Stephanie? They just started lowering the rent for those houses last year ..

Other than that .. reading through y'alls post makes it seem like y'all are forced to live on base ... 

Claudia. I have lived in the same house on San Miguel for almost 4 years We moved into it in April of 2007 and still live in it...We have payed all the BAH the whole time we have lived here...I don't mind living on base just tired of getting different answers from housing about everything and having to wait forever for them to fix or not fix things... 

We live in the old housing. We have fans and carpet that we installed ourself!!! We have live in our house for 2 1/2 years and been paying full BAH. After reading this we called them and were given the excuse that it depends on when you sign your lease if there is a special going on!! Wish we would of know about the "specials" when we were moving in!! I agree it's horrible that only certain people pay less. 

wow!! i had no idea that there were diff prices for the old, old housing. when we moved in they did not say that it was a "special", the gal just said that she would pro-rate the rent for us because its an older house, it was the only one available, and it didnt have carpeting. a friend of mine actually mentioned to me that all the houses on valencia should be $799..that is so sketchy!! i just assumed they were all like this. we do not have fans, carpeting, a/c..none of that..just basics.
crystal..i live on the same side as you do, right at the bend of the loop where they are doing the construction. i have been gone for a month and a half and am very shocked at how many houses they got done while i was away..the garages look nice on those renovated houses.
i didnt mean to start an up-roar, i just thought all these houses were the same price, sorry. 

SH really does need to charge less for these old houses though.. 

claudia no. i personally am not forced by anybody to live here. no one really is. We all have a choice to be here and put up with this crap or live in town and put up with someone elses crap, or we could buy a home and put up with no one. really what we do and where we live is purely by choice. It all just depends on how much sh** you really wanna deal with. I lived in town and then moved on base and that was all purely my familys choice! Kaity i cant believe u live over here too! there are so few of us left on this side of the street anymore i thought i knew everybody lol! i live in the house with the toyota in the street! 

p.s. kaity i think we can blame jessica for all this lmao. she started this posting that created all the debate haha. Im just kidding jessica, set aside soaring heights you really will have fun when you get here! i hope to meet you one day and good luck on your move ;) 

lol Crystal! I didn't mean to start an uproar haha I'm just trying to get opinions from people in the different types of housing there in case we are even given options. It generally seems like the pros and cons to all the houses are about equal so I'll just have to be patient and see what's available when we get there. 

I have never said that I was forced to live on base..........Soaring Heights is serving military families.....you would think the least they could do is be fair about housing..........why be so shady.....why not just treat everyone the same........being shady makes people not trust you and eventually I imagine it will come back to bite them.......and not everyone has the option to live in town if you can't afford to live in town......housing prices in town are super expensive.....my husband and I lived in town for the first year we were here and then moved on base to save money.....guess we aren't saving money if Soaring Heights is ripping people off......but the only reason we could afford to live in town was because we were both working full-time.......I don't know how an Airman's family would be able to afford living in town......so it isn't exactly black/white.......and people should be able to live on base without being ripped off by the housing company......that should be one thing that our military members shouldn't have to worry about!!!!!