OWN Real Estate | Erin Sherwood

Eric 0:03
Now in today’s episode of the podcast, I am going to be sharing a conversation with you that I got to have with Erin Sherwood. Aaron is with Own real estate. And we don’t actually spend a whole lot of time talking real estate, we spend a whole lot more time just talking about the uniqueness of Ocean View the different communities Ocean View. I learned an awful lot about this area, having this conversation with Erin. So I’m excited for you to hear this. And we are at one of our favorite spots a Coaster Coffee again. We don’t intentionally set out to record all of our most of our episodes there. It’s just where we, for some reason seem to seem to record a lot of them but probably because it’s such a great place and we just really appreciate the folks that Coaster Coffee letting us come in and record these podcast episodes.

Eric 1:42
Alright, well, like I said, Today we are going to be listening this conversation with Erin the background noise it was pretty busy in coaster coffee as it should be. It’s it’s a great place. And so that you might have to adjust your volume a little bit. I’ve tried to get this tweaked the best I can for you for your listening enjoyment. But like I said it was a busy day and a lot of background noise. So without any further ado, not really sure where that saying came from. But anyway, without any further ado, my conversation with Erin Sherwood of own real estate.

Eric 2:21
Well, Hey, everybody, like I said there in the intro. I am sitting here in Coaster Coffee with Erin Sherwood. Hi, Erin.

Erin 2:28
Hi.

Eric 2:29
So good to have you here.

Erin 2:30
Thanks Eric.

Eric 2:31
Yeah, Yeah. This is episode six of Discover OV podcast and we’re gonna get into a little bit here in a couple minutes about why you and I are sitting down and you’re a member of the Ocean View Business Association. But for all of the people listening that have no idea who you are and anything like that, why don’t you take a couple minutes, introduce yourself, you know. Tell us a little bit about how you got to Ocean View, I have no idea, and just tell us a little bit about yourself.

Erin 3:02
Yeah, that’s great. So my name is Erin Sherwood, and I am a broker and REALTOR with Own real estate. And I’ve lived in Ocean View now for 13 years. I love it here. I actually came here because I was a Navy brat. And my dad was commander retired with NATO. And that’s what brought us here. So I actually grew up in Virginia Beach, though. So I went to high school there and didn’t know much about ocean view. Because when I was a kid ocean view was just a different place in Norfolk. And, you know, I was beach kid but ended up going to Old Dominion for college, Norfolk and met a lot of friends from Ocean View and actually had a really good friend that lived out here and actually met my husband in college. And when we were looking for our first house happened to be at the peak of the market in 2007. So we could not afford Virginia Beach. But it turned out to be a really great thing because we got connected with a friend of ours who was selling a house and ended up buying a house out in ocean view. So we knew one friend that was out here and ended up raising our family here and really became a big part of the community and absolutely love it. So a lot of people say you don’t really go from Great Neck to ocean view. So that’s where I grew up in Virginia Beach, Great Neck, Virginia Beach and ocean view in Norfolk, but I think it is the best place. It’s been a great place to raise my kids and I work here I sell here and love it.

Eric 4:38
Great. You have two kids.

Erin 4:40
I do I have two kids. Connor is 13. And and he’s grown up in Oceanview and Haley is nine and the same for her.

Eric 4:48
Yeah, yeah, we’re actually we discovered this. It wasn’t what it isn’t how we met but we actually discovered We only live like a block of each other.

Erin 4:58
We’re neighbors

Eric 4:58
Yeah, we’re neighbors.

Erin 4:59
Yes. Cool. So it’s kind of like community. Yeah,

Eric 5:02
Yeah, we and like you, we have discovered that this is a great place to live, raise kids stuff like that. Now, we aren’t going to get into, we should say this real quick, we’re not going to get into any type of, you know, real estate advice or legal advice or anything like that. So, you know, kind of a disclaimer there, if you will, we’re just having a conversation about ocean view. I don’t want people to misunderstand that sense, even though you’re a realtor, and you’re with own real estate and things like that. We’re not giving any type of advice,

Erin 5:34
Right? I mean, I can definitely talk a little bit about the neighborhood and what I love about living here, but I sell everywhere in Hampton Roads. So everyone finds their different pockets, places that they like, and it’s all about personal opinion.

Eric 5:46
Yeah.

Erin 5:47
And I don’t give, you know, any specific like steering or any of that kind of stuff, because everyone loves their different little neighborhood. I just happen to love mine and Ocean View.

Eric 5:57
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And we will link to own real estate and your contact information in the show notes. If people go to ocean view dot biz/006. They’ll find all of everything, we’re links to whatever we end up talking about or anything like that. So. So it is interesting. You mentioned something that a lot of people I’ve talked to have talked about that ocean view is is kind of gone through this. There was a heyday back in the day, and then it it dipped, you know, and but it seems like we’re definitely back up on the upswing. You know, almost, if you will, we can use even a wave analogy being a being a beach down, you know, and you kind of alluded to the same thing growing up in Virginia Beach, Ocean View wasn’t the place you moved to.

Erin 6:47
Yeah, It just it wasn’t known as much. And I think that’s still one of the things that’s great about this area is you know, it’s got a little bit of a history, good or bad. And I think that’s what gives it character. And there are some people that still wonder about ocean view. But when you’re in here, you feel like you’re a part of the community. It’s really, you know, and it’s a real community. It’s just, it’s working class people and even high end people. I mean, I say you can’t be too hoity toity, because your million dollar houses are across the street from a pawn shop. So it gives reality in the area. But it still has a little bit of like the elusiveness, so people don’t feel like they know a lot about it, until they actually come in to Ocean View area and get to know some of the people here and then you can really start to really appreciate it and like it for what it is.

Eric 7:43
Yeah. And that’s that’s what we discovered. And what I’m still discovering, you know, we’ve only lived here, you know, since 2017. And what we’re still very much discovering is we talk about Ocean View, and there is a very distinct, like, area, Ocean View. But there’s also the greater Ocean View area, which is an area stretches out a little bit to include like, you know, Willoughby, and you know, little Craig and Bayview and all these other communities that I some of them I haven’t even seen yet are explored. And so there really is a little bit of something in this area. There’s a community here for everybody.

Erin 8:24
Yeah. And that’s what I really like. I mean, there’s the beach beach, you know, the old school beach town, which is down in Willoughby area, there’s the newer beach town, which is kind of East beach, and kind of everything in between, they’ve got Bay oaks Park now that’s going up that’s kind of in the middle of ocean view. And they’re really developing that area up. And then you’ve got the pockets of the neighborhoods that are in the back, like we’ve got Terrell tan, which is one of this huge park area that I know. And so and there’s water back there, that all connects to it. And I mean, I just I love finding little pockets. I love seeing the different neighborhoods, I had friends that just moved into helping move into a house that is right over off little creek. That’s this old neighborhood. It’s got little like a big brick wall as you go into it. But there’s only maybe 40 50 houses and each house has really been passed down generation to generation. So it’s very even rare to even get into the neighborhood.

Erin 9:22
So there’s just these little pockets of places, but it all has a big development of community because one of the things I found and I we’ve noticed this with our business association, is that all the different communities have their little community groups that has they actually have their civic league since typically. Yeah, and that’s something you didn’t really get growing up in as a Navy kid. You know, when you grew up in the neighborhood, you just it was hard to find, you know community sense because you moved in And you might have only been there for two years, you’re only going to be there for a couple years. And you don’t necessarily feel like you’re from the place. But when you move to Ocean View area, like you can really get involved in the community quick because of the Civic leagues and the neighborhood involvement that people seem to have that environment. And that makes people I think, you know, we have a lot of military that move into this area, too. But I’ve seen that people feel like they can really plug in a bit faster and feel like they can feel like they’re from this area. And as a Navy kid, that was really important for me to, to now be able to, you know, meet people like that and help them feel like they’re a part of the community.

Eric 10:43
Yeah, yeah, no, I agree. And then the other cool thing that is about this area, so we have these unique communities, like you’re talking about, and I would say that there is an effort, a good effort, you know, by organizations like the different civics leagues, and Ocean View Business Association, to why we’re developing the area, that kind of set the term I think scares people sometimes, because I think they they get this idea that development means change. Yeah, and they’re gonna lose something. And it’s not really it’s, there’s an effort to protect the uniqueness of each little area, right. But at the same time, clean things up, modernize things,

Erin 11:25
and help it grow unit and really, like restoring the like you mentioned, the hay day, in a certain sense, where people could come here feel like it’s a beach town feel like they can get pockets places, like we had a rundown bank at the end of our street that has been vacant for, I don’t know, it was two, three years or so it was a great place to park to go to the beach. But other than that, it wasn’t just this big, empty building in our neighborhood, which didn’t really help, you know, the feel of development or the fact that, you know, the community was growing. And now they’ve made it into a brewery. It’s actually turned it into Bold Mariner, which has been great. And now it’s just kind of hopping and people are excited. And it just brings more of a feel of you know, development.

Eric 12:20
Yeah,

Erin 12:21
I guess.

Eric 12:21
yeah, come in another another place to have community like Coaster Coffee Coaster. Coffee is a great place, you know, to meet in the mornings with folks and hang out and have community and now we’ve got places like bull Manor, we got Cova brew company coming in, and they’re going to be, you know, a coffee shop, you know, by day a brewery by night, you know, it’s gonna be this eclectic. And so yeah, all of these unique places, and then I love the beaches.

Erin 12:50
Yeah,

Eric 12:50
Absolutely. We’ve got so our kids when we moved here were obviously younger than they are now. But they’re great, clean beaches. But because we’re on the bay, they’re protected and we don’t have quite the wave activity. And it stays pretty shallow way out.

Erin 13:07
I love it. Because I like I said, I grew up in Virginia Beach area, and you can’t really I mean, like the waves and I mean, the tides and everything I was taught about that as a kid, like, be careful if the Riptide starts pulling you and everything. My kids don’t even really know what that means. Because they get to go to the beach all the time. And all they get to be like, oh, here’s the sandbar not,

Eric 13:29
Right? Exactly.

Erin 13:30
I mean, really, it’s, it’s nice, it’s a good place where we can just hang out at the beach for hours on end, I don’t have to worry so much about being on guard with the kids being, you know, cautious about that. And it just springs that sense of like people were it could be older people and younger people and people with kids or without kids and it’s just a diverse amount of you know, people that end up in this area that I really enjoy and you see that at the beaches and I mean, you’ll see people hanging hammocks and the beach part Ocean Beach Park just hanging out. I mean, it just feels like that, you know?

Eric 14:07
And then they got that new great playground. Yeah, out there for the little kids. Yeah, that’s exciting. And then a development on across the street, apartment apartment building. And I just I didn’t realize but the whole bottom is going to be shops. There’s gonna be retail all through there.

Erin 14:23
Which is going to be great because I think that’s the area that Neil will talk about. I mean when we talked about things that we can build up more of a community especially in the business association meetings and stuff we’ve talked about how you know, we want a little bit more retail a little bit more shops, a little bit more areas where people can come and you know spend the day not just at the beach but kind of walking around and hanging out in Ocean View. So

Eric 14:50
But not the spring break party town. One store after the other be In identical souvenir shops, so it’s not going to that extreme.

Erin 15:05
Boardwalk extreme exactly thing where you can get watered down. But I love there’s a lot of local culture around here. So we have the, you know, the little shops and everything. It’s very mom and pop kind of feel.

Eric 15:18
Yes.

Erin 15:18
And I don’t want to lose that by having painted wood. We barely even have chain restaurants right in the area.

Eric 15:24
Well, we’ve there two or three restaurants coming in this year, and none of them are chained.

Erin 15:30
Yeah,

Eric 15:30
You know, and I really, I really, really like that. Yeah, it’s good.

Erin 15:34
And feel like you can actually have that sense of going out to eat, you know, I mean, one of our favorites is going to the pier. So it should be up here. Yeah, I mean, the restaurant on there. And then you can go on the top deck and look around. And I actually found myself this past summer telling friends about it. And they were like, I didn’t even know it was there. It’s one of the oldest, longest peers in the whole entire country, actually. Yeah. And so it’s a

Eric 15:55
One place I haven’t eaten yet.

Erin 15:57
Oh, it’s great. Yeah. It’s a fun environment. I mean, I always say there’s three things that make a place really good. It’s the ambience, the service and the food. And I feel like they’ve really got a good balance of all three when we go there. So

Eric 16:11
Nice. Yeah, so I mean, so we’ve got the pier, which is great, you know, activities, they’ve got a fishing boat that goes out, you know, from the pier and all kinds of stuff, you get the beaches, you’ve got a couple of the marinas, have sailing clubs, you know, things like that. So you’ve got, you know, on different nights, during the summer, you’ll see sailing events and races happening now. Ocean View sports is really starting to take off and they’re going to host, they’ve got a couple, five K’s they’re doing this summer in the area, an open water swim event. So there’s these, there’s events happening,

Erin 16:48
We actually have a run club that meets on Thursdays, but the run club and so it’s just one of those where you can get I mean, no matter what you’re enjoying, or what you what you like to do, if it’s single, you know, military or young family, or even retirees, there’s a lot of really fun environments and things to do around here.

Eric 17:09
It keeps coming back to the community. And then on the other side, you’ve got ocean view. I love how everybody, not everybody, but so many people still just call themselves ocean view, fill in the blank. Yeah, to get to it, that’s part of that community mom and pop book. But you’ve got Ocean View arts. And so the you know, there’s different art classes and things you can do their stencil, and not, you know, you understand or not, they have a paint room where you can go in with your family and throw paint for an hour and make creations like totally looking forward to doing that. And then, I mean, you’ve got all these activities and events. But then we’re also really a pretty convenient drive to all of the big city things you might want.

Erin 17:56
I mean, my office is in downtown Norfolk and it takes me about 18 minutes to get there not even in that’s in morning traffic. So which is great, we don’t even have that much traffic coming here. It’s when you’re actually going downtown right starts to really pick up so but yeah, you’re really close to get down there hop in an Uber hopping to Lyft hang out, you know, spend the evening it’s really nice restaurants, I mean, and just enjoy. Like, we’ve got the main down there and all the different, you know, fancy stuff on that harbor side. So all the things at Harbor view and downtown. It’s easy to access, but it’s it’s like ocean view is a great place to live and then you’re really close to the end great places, again to downtown to be able to pop out.

Eric 18:44
The outlet malls, the premium outlet malls, you know IKEA and I mean there’s just you’ve got all of these things with with very accessible to you. But when you’re when you come home, you’re back in the community like you know, like the street I live on you know, it’s you know, got great trees on it. You know, almost everybody you know decorates their house for Christmas Day.

Erin 19:08
You’re block is the Halloween block for sure.

Eric 19:11
Big time decorators

Erin 19:12
Gotta go down there for Halloween.

Eric 19:14
Yeah, yeah, yes, everybody and trick or treat we so often trick or treat and have a great time with the kids and it’s, you know, safe and just it’s Yeah, you know, and that’s Oh, that’s over the whole area.

Erin 19:25
Yeah, no. So what’s neat too, is used to be that there was one place one hotel that you could go to was the Howard Johnson and that was stayed in Ocean view. But now with the Airbnbs and the short term rentals and all that kind of stuff. I’ve seen a very big pick up on the tourist activities around here too, because people don’t necessarily want to just go where it’s a tourist town. I mean, when we go on vacation every time we try to get an Airbnb or the rbo and try to stay in the town to feel like we’re a part of the area and feel like we’re really good a feel of what it’s like to live there. And I think that’s what people get when they come and visit here as well, because now they can stay in an Airbnb or stay in a little beach rental feel like they’re a part of the community and not just smack down in, you know, Virginia Beach area, which tends to be more like, okay, here’s where the tourists are. And here’s where the people that actually live are. Right, right seems to be a little bit separate.

Eric 20:23
Well down there, it’s almost like feast and famine. It’s either a giant crowd, or it’s a ghost town, if you stay on, if you stay near the boardwalk. Now, don’t get me wrong, there are plenty, one of our favorite restaurants is down in the boardwalk. And, you know, we like to go down there not June, July or August. But you know, we’d like to go down there, you know, the shoulder seasons and stuff like that. But still here, even during June, July, and August, I go to the beach in the morning and go for a walk. And some mornings still not even see another person, you know, or just a couple people.

Erin 20:56
That’s that hidden gem, I mean, and we do a good job protecting that. And also supporting the community. I mean, to go back to, you know, yes, it’s about development, and all the fun things and big things that are going on. But we do have people here who are working class or for even less and really trying to make it work. And I think everyone kind of looks out for each other. I mean, we have a very big church presence in the area, with lots of different churches that are trying to really help build up the community on their end as well. I mean, Coaster Coffee, for example, is a nonprofit coffee shop that’s trying to go back and like develop back into the community like building up different areas and things that we can do. And I mean, even the skate park that’s across the street, like my son goes there, and he can go to the McDonald’s and get free water and he can get free water. And those kinds of things where it’s just a sense of even, you know, even a little areas of let’s just help each other have some, you know, have a good time and feel like we’re not we’re inclusive and not exclusive to anybody.

Eric 22:02
Right. Yeah, no, I agree. And like you mentioned, the park across the street, the, the pool over there, the indoor pool is great. And to get a park and rec membership is very, you know, doable.

Erin 22:15
Yeah, like 10 bucks or so.

Eric 22:17
And it’s and they have all these great times that the pools open. And there’s been plenty of times we’ve taken the kids, maybe one other family has been there, you know, so it’s great. And then you mentioned Tarlton, like, planning, like, if you want to get your kids if you have kids, if you wanna get your kids and you know, soccer or baseball and T ball. Yeah, you had to bet we’ve we’ve spent plenty of time there for soccer and in baseball.

Erin 22:40
Yeah, I mean, this is Northside Park is the largest Park and all of the Yeah, if you go all the way back, I mean, they have all the the baseball things. And that’s where we actually started doing our easter egg time we do a community strike time for free 2500 eggs that we actually did with the whole entire neighborhood. And we actually we went to Carrollton and did it there as well. And so it’s the parks are huge. And so that’s what I like, as a parent to be able to have lots of free options of things to do, especially in the summertime when the kids are at a school. It’s a great environment of, you know, oh yeah, we can go to the park and hang out all day. I don’t have to spend a ton of money to do something fun.

Eric 23:22
Right. Right. Well, hey, Erin I just want to say thanks. I really have enjoyed our conversation, just exploring from your perspective from somebody that is, I think, because of what you do is as a realtor, and you’re constantly out, talking to people and showing people different, you know, parts of the area and stuff like that. I was excited to hear what you had to say about the area because you see it even more than I do you know you’re in all these different areas. And so I think I’m even more excited living here. You know, after our talk. I appreciate it even more.

Erin 23:58
Oh, I know I love it. I say you can’t spell love without OV

Eric 24:02
That’s right. That’s right.

Erin 24:03
So it’s a great place to be.

Eric 24:05
Alright, now just real quickly, your with Own real estate?

Erin 24:09
Own o w n where we help make you an owner so I’m a broker the operations manager and realtor so one of the top in the neighborhood and or the area and love helping find people making people owners and helping owners sell their houses.

Eric 24:25
Nice. And people how can people find out more about.

Erin 24:29
You can actually check out my website its own REVA. So Own real estate, Virginia, own ar e va.com. Slash Erin dash Sherwood,

Eric 24:40
Okay, we’ll put a link to that in the show notes that people can find you because one of the things I like about own is you guys are definitely a significant healthy real estate company because you sell real estate in Virginia and North Carolina and I know you’re expanding yet you’re up All these brokers that live in the community know their communities. And so you’re still getting that personal, you know, real estate agent that knows, but has the full backing of a very healthy, significant company that knows how to walk people through the process the best way.

Erin 25:20
Yeah,

Eric 25:20
yeah. I appreciate it.

Erin 25:21
All right. Thank you.

Eric 25:22
Thank you. Indeed. Thank you, Erin, and thank you friend for listening to this episode of the Discover bovee podcast. If you enjoyed today’s podcast, please make sure you leave a rating or review on iTunes. And that really helps us out a lot. We really appreciate that. Well, for more about own real estate and to discover the other businesses that make up the ocean view Business Association, please head on over to our website, Ocean View dot biz, until next time, continuing you and join the beach life here and ocean view and we’ll be back soon with another podcast.