Moving into your home within 30 days of moving to Naples Italy Navy Base is unheard of. With determination and these few tips, it’s possible.
When we tell people that we attended area orientation on the 8th of July and are already moving into our off base home, they can’t believe it. Moving-in within 30 days is fast but rare. So how did we move-in so soon?
In order to move-in fast you need to be really motivated – it’s not something that will happen on its own. My motivation came from being in a hotel room with a 3- and 4-year old. My kids do well when they have a routine, and going from Japan to half a week in the USA to Italy threw everything off. Add to that the fact that since the middle of April we have been living out of our suitcases, and we really wanted to get settled!
Be Prepared
Since we were coming from Japan, we knew things would be different – opposite, in fact. In Japan, everything is neat and orderly. Time is valued and honored so when you say you’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, you better show up at that time. The Japanese are extremely efficient. They work hard and fast and their dedication to quality is incredible.
So take everything I’ve said, apply the opposite and you have Italy. It’s great and chaotic and we love it; prepare for it now, and you will arrive ready to embrace it. When it comes to getting housing, though, the attitude is the same – it’ll get done…sometime, and on their terms, not yours.
We have friends who lived here before, and they told us they were in a hotel for over 80 days. I knew that it was possible we would be in a hotel for a long time, but its reality motivated me to not let it happen!
Finding a Home on or off the Naples Italy Navy Base
If you know you want to live on base than the process is pretty simple. Show up, submit your request for housing, and wait for something to open up. If you want to live off base, you need to wait to be approved since there is an automatic assignment to base housing in effect. You can live off base if there are 5 or less units available in the home size you qualify for.
With this in mind, we chose to move at the busiest moving month, July, to give ourselves the best shot of base housing being full.
Pro tip: If you want to live off base and your orders are flexible, try to arrive in the beginning of July to have your best chance!
On Base – Support Site
Most families that choose to live on base have school age kids or don’t want to have a long commute. There are pros and cons to living on or off base but we were hopeful to live off base.
Even if you want to live on base there is no guarantee that you will be able to move-in right away. There were several families that arrived at the same time as us that were on a waiting list because there wasn’t anything available yet. If you are PCSing to Naples during the summer, there is high turnover but with everyone moving, there are families taking their place.
Off-Base
There are two categories of people who live off-base. If you are military with dependents and are PCSing to the Naples Italy Navy base, you are automatically going to be assigned to on-base housing. If you want to live off base, you need to apply for off base housing. Next are civilians, they usually live off base with active duty members having priority for on base housing.
Move-in Process
What is the process? There are a lot of steps to take before you finally move in to off-base housing.
- Receive a Certificate of Non-Availability
- Set up an appointment with a realtor who will show you different homes
- After finding a home, place a temporary hold on the residence
- Once you decide for sure that’s the home you want, place a permanent hold
- Set up an appointment for a document review (make sure the landlords have all the paperwork they need)
- Pre-contract appointment (negotiate for things you want the landlord to provide)
- Home inspection
- Final contract
- Move-in
Which area is the best to look? During the Area Orientation they give you numbers for break-ins in all the areas. One thing to remember is that they give you how many break-ins each area has, but they don’t tell you how many Americans live there. For instance, there are a lot of break ins in Lago Patria but there are also many more Americans there, too.
There are several realtors that will take you to different homes. Usually they each have their own designated area so they only show you the homes in that area. It’s ok to use different realtors. We were extremely lucky; our realtor only needed to take us to 4 homes. We loved 3 of the 4 homes but one of them checked more of the boxes on our wish list than the others so we went ahead and put the permanent hold on it.
Pro Tip: Give your realtors detailed information about what you want in a home!
It’s understandable that people take a long time looking for housing: this is where you will live for the next few years. Landlords can make or break your experience so you want to make sure you get a place with a great landlord.
Once you find the home you want, it’s a waiting game. The housing office will set the appointments up for you. We placed our permanent hold on July 15 and learned that the next step, the document review appointment, wouldn’t be until August 22!
Moving the Process Along
After stewing on the fact that we wouldn’t even have the document review for over a month, I decided to go to the housing office and see what could be done. The biggest hint that I can give is to talk to the right person. Always ask for the administrative support specialist or a supervisor – they are the ones that can help.
Tips for moving to the Naples Italy Navy Base:
- During your week-long area orientation make sure to attend and pay attention to all the housing info.
- Ask questions. Go up afterward and introduce yourself. They might become your new best friend and your key to moving in early.
- Don’t just call the housing office, physically make your presence known. If you have kids, bring them. They can help you “make your presence known!”
- Don’t settle for any answer given to you by the front desk. They don’t know.
- Go into the housing office everyday – multiple times a day, if you need to, have no shame!
- If you have an appointment for weeks later, go back in a couple of days to see if you can move it up. They will probably say they can’t do it, but ask to talk to a supervisor about moving it up.
- Be friendly and patient with all you meet. Sometimes there really is nothing else to do, and you’ll just have to wait.
We are so excited to be in our new home, and to be getting settled. With all the traveling we plan to do and have already been doing, having our home base set up is essential. Now, bring on the adventures!
Check out some of our early week’s adventures here:
Caserta Palace, the Largest Royal Residence in Europe
Modena, Italy: Fast Cars, Slow Food and the Top 5 Reasons to Visit
First Trip to Pompeii! Week 4 of Living in Italy
Shannon
April 20, 2020 at 3:47 pmHi. I love your blog about moving to Naples, Italy. I’m going to follow some of the suggestions for sure!!
We are PCSing to Naples from the Seattle area (as soon as the Covid travel stuff clears up). We have teens that will be attending the base DoD school but we are really hoping to live off base. Assuming we are able to live off base, do you have any suggestions on specific neighborhoods/cities that are nice and close enough to base so that the kids would be on the school bus route? I’d LOVE a house view. Our budget is $3200/month for rent just to give you an idea of what areas might work for us.
Thanks in advance!!
Shelbi Kelly
May 22, 2020 at 3:17 amYou will love Italy, it’s been amazing! There are several areas near the base but they even have bus routes as far out as Lago Patria, Quarto, or even Pozzuoli. If you are allowed to live off base there are several realtors to choose from that will take you around to different homes. Make sure you have a list of things that are important for you in choosing a home and let them know. Best of luck! Please let me know if you have any other questions.
Jenny
June 24, 2020 at 5:48 amHi! I was wondering if you could tell me more about what the community is like for kids, and for adults? We have three girls- ages 13, 10, and 8. I’m curious about how easy it is for the kids to make friends. Also curious if you have had experience with any churches in the area, and what that was like?
Shelbi Kelly
June 26, 2020 at 10:43 pmHi!
We have really enjoyed the area, and have found that the Italians are very friendly and easy to get along with. We don’t spend a lot of time on base but have friends with kids that go to school and participate in sports and they love it. As far as churches go, we go to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints but there are other christian denominations that are in Napoli that speak english. Good luck!
Julie
July 16, 2020 at 9:43 pmHi! I am very new at this, sorry ahead of time…lol I am retired military, DOD civilian. I just took a job NSA Naples Italy. Currently waiting on my PCS orders, coming any time.
I will be moving to ITALY. EXCITED, NERVOUS. My family will be staying in the States during my tour(3yrs). My question- where to live as a single female in my 40s! I keep to myself and like quite neighborhoods. ??
Also, what does the colors mean for communities??
Any help, guidance, asstitance is greatly appreciated. Thank you.
Shelbi Kelly
August 12, 2020 at 4:01 pmI’m not sure what the colors mean for the communities. In general Italians are loud so keep that in mind. We live in Bocoli and I would say that this is a quiet area and would recommend looking into living here. I’ve heard that homes out around Caserta are quiet too. Italy is wonderful, congratulations on the upcoming move!
Aliza Zagorianou
August 12, 2020 at 6:32 amHello, I’ve found your blog while being tormented with the decision to PCS to Naples with my 11,12 and 14 year old this October. I hear mostly scary stories about pollution and crime. How have you been able to mitigate that? You mentioned break ins in Lago Patria (I often hear this), is there enough safety measures in place where you live? Do you feel safe? Thank you, I’m so distraught and not sure what to do. I lived In Thessaloniki which also has grimy areas, but I understand that Naples is much worse.
Shelbi Kelly
August 12, 2020 at 4:19 pmI hope that I can help ease your torment! Naples is wonderful, if we could, we would live here forever! Does that help? Honestly, we were scared with all the stories too. Maybe expecting the worse will help with the transition. Don’t get me wrong, Naples is a dirty city and there are areas where there is some serious pollution but it’s also amazing. I feel 100% safe and often leave our windows open when we leave. I wouldn’t recommend that in all places. One of the requirements that we had when looking for a place to live was on-site landlords. Our home is connected to theirs and we are like family now. That might be something you can consider. As for the pollution, it’s helped us realize the impact that we have on this earth. We are trying to use less plastic and have days where we go and clean up the beach.
There have been people who have had a miserable tour here and those who love it. We absolutely love! I think a lot of it is just what you decide to make of it. Feel free to reach out when you get here!
Sheena Daniel
August 22, 2020 at 11:27 amWe will be moving there in October from Yokosuka. I was told that it is direct assignment for housing and really want to move off base. Especially since I was told the housing there is smaller than here in Yokosuka. We don’t even think our bed will fit in a small 2 bed on base. I was told that you have to live on base for one year before applying to live off base. Can you give me any guidance on getting approved to live off base. I know about Naples the area as I went there for study aboard years ago, but now being military affiliated, this is different. It’s all seems so stressful. Any assistance would be appreciated. Thank you for your blog. It has been helpful.
Shelbi Kelly
September 15, 2020 at 5:54 pmWe lived in Iwakuni prior to moving here and our off base home is much larger than our off base home in Japan. Timing is everything with being approved for off base housing here. Fortunately, there are a lot of people who want on-base housing so there is often a waitlist. We got here July 5 and were approved right away for off base housing. Hopefully this helps a bit.
Rikki
September 2, 2020 at 1:14 amHi! I enjoyed reading this blog post. I’m trying to figure out if it would be good for us to put Naples as one of our choices. Where is the base located? I’m having a hard time figuring out the map… or if you could suggest what are the cities nearby. Is Chiaia close to it? Thanks!
Shelbi Kelly
September 15, 2020 at 6:00 pmNaples is a wonderful place to be stationed! There are several different bases in the area so it just depends on who you work with. There is the support site is located in Gricignano there is also Nato near Lago Patria and the Capodichino base near the airport. Basically, if you’re in the area of Naples you will be close to all the bases. Best of luck!
Matt Skaggs
September 19, 2020 at 2:13 amQuick question you might be able to answer. We might be PCSing back to Naples. We are civilians. When we were there 08-10, we lived in Casa Pasenna just outside of Casal Di Principe. There were a lot of concerns about water in the area and they made many areas off limits to rent. Has this been lifted or are there still areas off limits?
Shelbi Kelly
October 29, 2020 at 5:08 amI’m not aware of specific areas that are off-limits to rent. The realtors only show you what is approved so there might be areas that are off-limits. If you live off base, it’s required for the landlord to provide bottled drinking water, no matter where you live.
Kristin
October 28, 2020 at 9:24 amI see you have recently visited Germany for some adventures while stationed in Naples. We have been matched for both.
WHAT WOULD YOU DO?!
I so so so appreciate your blog. We have no experience living out of the states; it is so exciting to think about but also a bit overwhelming. I really appreciate your perspective. Naples seems incredible…but so does Germany!
Shelbi Kelly
October 29, 2020 at 5:12 amI sent you an email, I would love to talk more and answer any questions. How exciting to be able to choose! We do have a car. There are a lot of big cars around here which I was shocked about at first. However, we rarely go into actual Naples and when we do we either bring our small car or use public transportation. You’ll get used to driving here!
Kristin
October 28, 2020 at 9:38 amfollow up question: did you ever get a car? we have 3 small kids (6 mo, 3, and almost 5), and currently have a van. I know the van is doable in Germany…but no idea about Naples/Italy. Would love your thoughts on that. Thank you in advance, Shelbi!
Kristin
October 28, 2020 at 9:51 amI am not seeing my original comment now! So, in the event that it did not go through (my laptop went wonky and I had to restart it)…
we were matched for both Ramstein and Naples. Essentially we have to tell leadership which one. I am so, so, so incredibly torn, for a million different reasons.
Do you have any insight/opinions/thoughts…. I see you recently went to Germany to visit.
How has it been with two littles in Naples? Our rent allowance is $1600, which I know is not much. I have looked a little into Bacoli based off of your recommendation and I have seen some nice apartments!
I could keep picking your brain, but I feel bad, so I will stop for now, haha. Thank you so much for reading all of this.