About
Michael Freeman's Work in Hampton
Hampton is the city just east of Michael Freeman's office, and its mix of century-old houses, waterfront lots and steady demand from Langley and NASA calls for an agent who checks the details. He has worked the Peninsula since 2002.
Right next door
His Legacy Builders Realty Group office on Fountain Way is in Newport News, the city along Hampton's western border.
Public service first
Before real estate, Michael served as a police officer in New York City and then in Norfolk.
Relocation on orders
His Military Relocation Professional designation supports clients moving to or from Langley on a fixed timeline.
A long view of prices
Roughly 500 transactions since 2002 have shown him how Peninsula prices move through good years and slow ones.
This Area
Understanding Hampton, Virginia
Hampton sits at the tip of the Virginia Peninsula, where the Hampton River, the Back River and the Chesapeake Bay meet Hampton Roads, and water shapes nearly every purchase here. ZIP 23661 holds Wythe, with its 1930s and 1940s homes along Kecoughtan Road and a National Register district of more than 2,000 buildings. ZIP 23664 runs from Buckroe Beach through Fox Hill to the Grandview marshes, and 23669 takes in downtown, the Air & Space Science Center and a wide band of neighborhoods off Kecoughtan Road and Little Back River Road. Prices sit well below York County and Williamsburg, with the August 2026 median between about $263,000 and $307,000 depending on ZIP, while First Street flood scores run high across all three. The tax rate is $1.14 per $100, short-term rentals are capped by zone, and Fort Monroe homes are lease-only. Matching a buyer to the right ZIP, and the right elevation within it, is the core of a good Hampton purchase.
Hampton has been settled since 1610 and surrounded by water the entire time, and Michael Freeman shows every buyer what both facts mean for one address.
Market Snapshot
Hampton Home Prices at a Glance
These figures are for ZIP 23669, the largest of the three, covering downtown and central Hampton. Buckroe's 23664 ran slightly higher on price, and Wythe's 23661 slightly lower.
Source: Redfin, ZIP 23669, August 2026. Markets move monthly; Michael can pull fresh numbers for any Hampton neighborhood.
Local Insights
100 Facts About Hampton, Virginia
Drawn from Redfin, the Census Bureau, the City of Hampton, the National Park Service and other public records. Select a category to see its facts.
01Market Fundamentals
- In ZIP 23669, which takes in downtown Hampton and the Kecoughtan Road and Little Back River Road areas, the median sale price was $305,868 in August 2026, up 2.0% year over year (Redfin).
- 208 homes sold in 23669 in August 2026, up 24.5% from a year earlier, with a median of 26 days on market (Redfin).
- The 23669 sale-to-list ratio was 100.3% in August 2026, and 42.6% of homes there sold above asking (Redfin).
- Redfin rates 23669 "Very Competitive" with a Compete Score of 80 and notes that many homes there draw multiple offers.
- In 23661, the Wythe and Aberdeen area, the median sale price was $263,386 in August 2026, down 3.5% year over year, on 91 sales (Redfin).
- Homes in 23661 took a median of 33 days to sell in August 2026 at a 98.7% sale-to-list ratio, and the ZIP's Compete Score was 78 (Redfin).
- In 23664, covering Buckroe, Fox Hill and Grandview, the median sale price was $307,367 in August 2026, down 6.1% year over year (Redfin).
- 23664 was the slowest of the three ZIPs in August 2026, with a median of 44 days on market and price drops on 39.3% of homes (Redfin).
- Median price per square foot was $189 in 23669 and $192 in both 23661 and 23664 in August 2026 (Redfin).
- Hampton's median owner-occupied home value is $245,700, and median gross rent is $1,427 a month (ACS 2020-2024).
- Median monthly owner costs in Hampton run $1,704 with a mortgage and $615 without one (ACS 2020-2024).
- Hampton's real estate tax rate is $1.14 per $100 of assessed value for FY2027, unchanged from FY2026 after four straight years of reductions.
- Hampton bills real estate tax by fiscal year, with one half due December 5 and the other due June 5.
02History & Heritage
- English colonists established a settlement at Kecoughtan in 1610, and the city calls Hampton the oldest continuous community in English America.
- Fort Algernon was built at Point Comfort in 1609, on ground now occupied by Fort Monroe.
- In 1634 Benjamin Syms left land and cattle to found what the city describes as America's first free school.
- Hampton was incorporated as a town in 1705, and in 1952 it merged with the town of Phoebus and Elizabeth City County to form today's city.
- In August 1619 the ship White Lion arrived at Point Comfort, now Fort Monroe, carrying more than 20 enslaved Africans.
- Fort Monroe, completed in 1834, is the largest stone fortification ever built in the United States, according to the National Park Service.
- In May 1861 Union Gen. Benjamin Butler refused to return people escaping slavery who reached Fort Monroe, and the post became known as "Freedom's Fortress."
- Fort Monroe closed as an Army post in September 2011 and was proclaimed a national monument that November.
- The ironclads USS Monitor and CSS Virginia fought the Battle of Hampton Roads in the waters off the city on March 8-9, 1862.
- Hampton University was founded in 1868, and its Emancipation Oak marks where Mary S. Peake began teaching in 1861.
- NASA Langley, founded in 1917 as the Langley Memorial Aeronautical Laboratory, is the oldest NASA field center and trained the first Project Mercury astronauts.
- Langley Field dates to 1916-17 and has been part of Joint Base Langley-Eustis since 2010.
- Old Wythe, listed on the National Register in 2012, covers 565 acres and more than 2,000 contributing buildings, the oldest from 1849.
03Environmental & Geographic
- Hampton covers about 136 square miles, and roughly 62% of that is water.
- The city counts more than 120 miles of navigable waterfront on the Hampton River, the Back River, Hampton Roads and the Chesapeake Bay.
- First Street data reported by Redfin rates flood risk "Severe" in 23669 and 23664, with 93% and 97% of properties likely to be severely affected over 30 years.
- Even 23661, rated "Moderate" by First Street, has 90% of its properties at risk of severe flooding over 30 years.
- Regional planning guidance projects sea level rise of 1.5 feet by 2050 and 3.0 feet by 2080 across Hampton Roads.
- Resilient Hampton's first projects, about $34 million in the Newmarket Creek watershed, broke ground in August 2023 and include raising part of North Armistead Avenue by up to five feet.
- Grandview Nature Preserve covers about 500 acres in 23664, with a marsh trail and a 2.5-mile Chesapeake Bay beach.
- Grandview's dunes host the largest Least Tern colony on the Atlantic Coast each spring.
- Gosnold's Hope Park on Little Back River Road covers 105 acres, with a boat ramp and a kayak launch.
- Buckroe Beach has about three-quarters of a mile of public Bay beach, with lifeguards from Memorial Day through Labor Day.
- Bluebird Gap Farm is a 60-acre city farm park on Pine Chapel Road that has been open since 1969.
04Lifestyle & Culture
- The Virginia Air & Space Science Center, opened downtown in 1992, is one of 12 official NASA Visitor Centers and displays the Apollo 12 command module.
- The Hampton Carousel, built in 1920 for the old Buckroe Beach amusement park, now runs at Carousel Park on Settlers Landing Road for $1 a ride.
- The Hampton History Museum sits at 120 Old Hampton Lane downtown.
- The Blackbeard Pirate Festival fills the downtown waterfront each June, with free admission and fireworks over the Hampton River.
- The Hampton Cup Regatta, first run in 1926, is the oldest continuously running hydroplane race in North America.
- Hampton Coliseum opened in 1970 and seats up to 13,800 for concerts.
- Buckroe Park has picnic shelters, a stage pavilion, a boardwalk and a fishing pier that was rebuilt after Hurricane Isabel and reopened in 2009.
- Air Power Park on Mercury Boulevard is free to visit and displays jets, missiles and rockets from the 1950s and 1960s.
- The 2.25-mile Waterwalk at Central Park links the Power Plant shopping area with Air Power Park along Newmarket Creek.
- Hampton maintains 50 city and neighborhood parks, four public beaches and two golf courses.
- Wallace's Marina at the end of Dandy Point Road in Fox Hill gives boaters direct access to the Bay.
- Peninsula Town Center opened in 2010 as a 1.1-million-square-foot mixed-use center at the I-64 interchange.
05Infrastructure & Access
- I-64 and I-664 meet in Hampton near the Coliseum, linking the city to both the Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel and the Monitor-Merrimac crossing.
- The Hampton Roads Bridge-Tunnel connects the Phoebus area with Willoughby Spit in Norfolk.
- The $3.9 billion HRBT expansion finished tunnel boring in spring 2026 and is scheduled for substantial completion in February 2027.
- The Monitor-Merrimac Memorial Bridge-Tunnel on I-664 opened in 1992 and gives Hampton a second route to the Southside.
- Mercury Boulevard runs about 10 miles from Fort Monroe to the James River Bridge and takes its name from Project Mercury.
- Hampton Roads Transit is headquartered on Victoria Boulevard in Hampton, and the Hampton Transportation Center is one of its three hubs.
- The mean commute for Hampton residents is 22.5 minutes (ACS 2020-2024).
- 93.0% of Hampton households have broadband, and 96.6% have a computer (ACS 2020-2024).
06Schools & Education
- Hampton City Schools enrolls nearly 20,000 students in 29 schools.
- The four comprehensive high schools are Bethel, Hampton, Kecoughtan and Phoebus.
- Hampton High on West Queen Street traces to 1875, is an IB World School, and its 1956 building is nicknamed the "Little Pentagon."
- Kecoughtan High on Woodland Road opened in 1962 and serves the Fox Hill area.
- Hampton was the first Virginia division to adopt the Academies model, giving each high school its own set of career academies.
- Academy examples include aerospace and information technology at Hampton High and health sciences at Bethel High.
- The New Horizons Governor's School for Science and Technology, founded in 1985, is based at the Butler Farm Campus in Hampton.
- Hampton University's 314-acre campus sits on the Hampton River and enrolled 4,243 students in fall 2024.
- Virginia Peninsula Community College, known as Thomas Nelson until 2022, has a campus in Hampton.
07Land, Development & Zoning
- Hampton's short-term rental rules, in effect since September 1, 2024, cap rentals at 1% of homes in each overlay zone and require 300 feet between them.
- A short-term rental in Hampton needs either a Use Permit or a Zoning Administrator Permit, depending on the zone.
- Chesapeake Bay Resource Protection Areas carry a 100-foot buffer, and a Resource Management Area extends another 100 feet beyond it.
- Land disturbance over 10,000 square feet in a Bay zone needs a permit, and a site-specific delineation is usually required first.
- The Downtown Hampton Master Plan, approved in 2017, calls for more downtown housing, mixed-use buildings and stronger waterfront links.
- The Coliseum Central Master Plan covers nearly three square miles where I-64 and I-664 meet, with one of the largest business improvement districts in the country.
- The FY2027 city budget funds updates to both the Downtown and Coliseum Central master plans.
- Fort Monroe's 174 homes are lease-only, at roughly $900 to $3,500 a month, inside the National Historic Landmark District.
- In February 2026, a developer received the keys to convert Fort Monroe's former hospital and old arsenal into housing.
- Aberdeen Gardens, built from 1934 to 1937 as a New Deal homestead community, has 158 homes and is a National Register historic district.
08Demographics
- Hampton had an estimated 137,315 residents in July 2025, close to its 2020 Census count of 137,148.
- There are 58,057 households in Hampton, averaging 2.30 people each (ACS 2020-2024).
- Median household income in Hampton is $69,621, and per capita income is $37,706 (ACS 2020-2024).
- 28.5% of Hampton's adult residents hold a bachelor's degree or higher (ACS 2020-2024).
- 83.7% of Hampton residents lived in the same house a year earlier (ACS 2020-2024).
- Hampton's 2020 population density was about 2,665 people per square mile.
- At the 2020 Census, 23669 had 41,030 residents, 23661 had 13,771 and 23664 had 10,301.
09Investment & Value
- 56.9% of Hampton homes are owner-occupied, leaving about 43% in the rental market (ACS 2020-2024).
- Hampton's largest employers include the city, the Department of Defense, the VA, the school board, NASA, Sentara Healthcare and Hampton University (Virginia Works, Q3 2025).
- Hampton's unemployment rate was 4.2% in September 2025, compared with 3.4% for Virginia and 4.3% nationally.
- Hampton had 3,114 business establishments and 49,809 jobs in the third quarter of 2025 (Virginia Works).
- Langley Air Force Base covers 3,152 acres and hosts Headquarters Air Combat Command and the 1st Fighter Wing.
- The city holds bond ratings of AA+ from S&P and Aa1 from Moody's.
- Retail sales in Hampton reached $1.79 billion in 2022 (Economic Census).
- The Hampton VA Medical Center traces to a national soldiers' home that opened on Emancipation Drive in 1870.
10Hyper-Local Detail
- The Wythe neighborhood carries ZIP 23661, and Olde Wythe lies between Kecoughtan Road and Chesapeake Avenue.
- The Old Wythe Historic District is roughly bounded by Hanover Street, Pear Avenue, Hampton Avenue and Kecoughtan Road.
- Wythe Place, Wythe Crescent and the Wythe Shopping Center were developed along Kecoughtan Road in the 1930s.
- Buckroe Beach Park's address is 100 South First Street.
- Fox Hill runs from Bloxom's Corner down Beach Road to Grandview, and Fox Hill Road addresses fall in both 23664 and 23669.
- The Air & Space Science Center and Carousel Park, at 600 and 602 Settlers Landing Road, are in 23669.
- Hampton High (1491 West Queen Street) and Kecoughtan High (522 Woodland Road) both have 23669 addresses.
- Aberdeen Road crosses two ZIPs, with lower numbers in 23661 and the Aberdeen Gardens end in 23666.
- Phoebus (23663), Coliseum Central (23666) and Fort Monroe (23651) use ZIPs other than the three featured here.
Why Michael
How Michael Works a Hampton Sale
Flood exposure, priced in
Almost every Hampton home carries some flood risk. He gets the flood zone and an insurance quote in hand before you settle on a price.
Older homes, inspected well
Wythe's 1930s and 1940s houses have original systems and drainage worth a close look, and he knows which questions to ask.
Listings priced to sell
In 23664, nearly four in ten homes took a price cut in August 2026. Michael, author of The Hidden Costs of Overpricing, sets the price right the first time.
Four books of guidance
He has written four books, including guides to buying, selling and the transaction itself, and the same thinking shapes every client plan.
FAQ
Common Hampton Real Estate Questions
Does Michael Freeman work in Hampton?
Yes. His office is next door in Newport News, and he works across 23661, 23664 and 23669, including Wythe, Buckroe, Fox Hill, Grandview and downtown Hampton.
What is Hampton's real estate tax rate?
Hampton's rate is $1.14 per $100 of assessed value for FY2027. On a $300,000 assessment that is about $3,420 a year, billed in halves due December 5 and June 5.
How much flood risk comes with a Hampton home?
A great deal, in most of the city. First Street data on Redfin shows 90% to 97% of properties in 23661, 23664 and 23669 at risk of severe flooding over 30 years. Michael gets the flood zone and an insurance quote for each home before you make an offer.
Can I buy a house at Fort Monroe?
Not at this time. Fort Monroe's 174 homes, from single-family houses to apartments, are available for lease only, at roughly $900 to $3,500 a month.
Are short-term rentals allowed in Hampton?
In limited numbers. Since September 1, 2024, short-term rentals fall under an overlay of 51 zones, each capped at 1% of its homes, with 300 feet required between rentals and a city permit for each one.
Which ZIP codes cover Hampton's main neighborhoods?
Wythe is 23661, Buckroe and Fox Hill are mostly 23664, and downtown is 23669. Phoebus uses 23663, Coliseum Central and Riverdale use 23666, and Fort Monroe has its own ZIP, 23651.
Explore the Authority Center
For financing, inspections, estate sales and moves across the region, Michael's Authority Center goes deeper than any single city page.
Other Areas
Michael's Other Hampton Roads Markets
Newport News
Shipyard city with Port Warwick, Hilton Village and City Center
See Newport News homes
Williamsburg
Historic Triangle living around Colonial Williamsburg
See Williamsburg homes
Yorktown
York River waterfront and established York County neighborhoods
See Yorktown homes
Virginia Beach
Oceanfront and Oceana-area homes south of the harbor
See Virginia Beach homes
Chesapeake
Suburban neighborhoods along the Intracoastal Waterway
See Chesapeake homes
Suffolk
New construction and open space in North Suffolk
See Suffolk homes
Authority Center
The hub for everything Michael publishes on Hampton Roads real estate, from first purchases to estate sales.
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