Fort Hood PCS Guide | Find where to live near Fort Hood

9 October 2018 by Cameron A.

Fort Hood is located in Killeen, Texas halfway between Waco and Austin. Fort Hood is an army base and is the largest military base in the world by area with more than 215,000 acres (that's over 300 square miles).

Fort Hood Housing: Privatized housing consists of 13 villages with over 6,700 units of military housing. On post housing ranges from single houses to eight-plexes and has two to five bedrooms. There are 6,125 units for enlisted personnel and 593 units for officers. Wait times for all military personnel vary from 0 to 30 days.

In this video, Cameron from MilitaryTownAdvisor goes over the areas and popular neighborhoods near Fort Hood base.

Transcript:

Hey everybody its Cameron from military town advisor. I have been doing a Facebook Live in my private group every week highlighting a specific military town every week. My private Facebook group is for you guys and for anyone to ask questions about where to live, where to find a hair salon, best vets for your dogs, etc. This week I have highlighted Fort Hood. Each featured post will have start with a FB Live going over the area, popular neighborhoods, blog posts about that town, recommended real estate agents, things to do, military discounts, and giveaways!

Let's jump into this first featured military town of the week: Fort Hood. I'm going to start by typing in Military Town Advisor in the url and go to PCS Guides. Click on Fort Hood PCS Guide.

Fort Hood is the largest base because it takes up the largest area by square footage or acreage. It's really important to know which side of base your significant other will be working on. Example, if they working not the North side of Fort Hood, then you may want to look at popular neighborhoods near the north side. This goes the same for the East and West sides of Fort Hood base. It really makes a huge difference on where you want to live because the base is so big and it can take you a long time to get from one side of base to the other without any traffic. Plus remember the speed limit is slow on base. There are three primary gates on base: The Clear Creek gate, TJ Mills gate and the WS young gate. The pin on the map has 1 is Clear Creek gate, 2 as TJ Mills gate and then 3 as WS young

Popular areas of Fort Hood near base

Today we are going to go over each area like Cooper's Cove, Harker Heights, Nolanvlle, Belton, Temple, and Salado. My father lived in Belton for many years and then moved to Temple. This area is dear to my heart because I grew up visiting my father here.

Killeen (K-town) is just like your typical military town which has big box stores, strip malls, and a lot of chain restaurants. It's very cookie cutter with a suburban feel. It has pockets of nicer neighborhoods along with areas that are not so great great close by base. It is one of those typical military towns the closer you get to base it's probably not as great of an area so a lot of people will go away from base.

Harker Heights is located between Killeen and Belton and it's more of an extension of Killeen so you will have a little bit of the Killeen (k-town) feel. A lot of families were choosing to live in a Harker Heights about 10 to 15 years ago and it was a popular area, but now it may not be as popular. It's not the newer area anymore and may have older areas, but they have lots of things to do. They have movie theaters, Super Target, Dick's Sporting Goods, and other big box stores. Schools are good in this area, too.

Copperas Cove, let me go back to the map here so you can see we're talking about here, it is located on the west of base off highway and they call it 'The Cove'. It has more of a country feel. It's a quaint community it has access to the back gate of Fort Hood. Lots of military live in this area. It's a nice place for a starter home, but it doesn't have as much shopping. There's a Walmart than an h-e-b. If you have kids it's a very family friendly area. It is has more of that community feel.

Nolanville is east of Harker Heights and it's a very new and upcoming new construction community with families.

Belton is a more expensive area with larger homes. You'll definitely have a mix between military and civilian living here. Fort Hood so it can take 30 to 45 minutes without traffic. If you're gonna live in Belton you are getting a little bit away from the military life you're gonna be blended in with a lot of other civilian that are just Texans. There's a beautiful lake called Lake Belton. My father actually lived on Lake Belton so I have very fond memories of being the Lake Belton. There are beautiful beautiful homes being able to look over the lake obviously that may be a little bit more expensive and pricey just because you're getting really pretty views of a lake but tons of outdoor activities and it's a great place to live if you're willing to pay for the higher price.

Salado is the cutest little town. It is a small horsey town, east of Fort Hood. It is a very nice area with quaint homes. It's a touristy historic area. It's so cute with little music restaurants and just like a few streets. Great for a date night.

Temple is a very large city located east of Fort Hood. Due to its distance from base, it's a longer commute for military family. Life in temple does not revolve around the military. There you are getting into and you can see here temple is up here you're getting into just regular Texans who live in Texas who may have nothing to do with the military. Good schools with really good sports programs

Those are your most popular areas near base. Now I'm gonna click on this link so you can get a deeper dive of most popular neighborhoods near Fort Hood. For example, Glenwood in Killeen has 4 out of 5 stars. Spanish Oaks, timber wood, evergreen estates , these are popular neighborhoods. Recommended real estate agents