Hi,
When you are trying to load your local instance within the Visual Experience Composer [EEC turned off] are you seeing any console errors relation to
- X-Frame-Options
- Content-Security-Policy
When I was testing AEM via localhost in my own sandbox I noticed console errors relating to X-Frame-Options [more info].
Nevertheless, I would recommend installing the VEC Helper Extension [Chrome] which will bypass both the console error when editing within the VEC.
Hope this solves the problem for you.
Best,
Joshua Eisikovits | Global Lead, Platform Support | Customer Experience | Adobe