Where Housing is Least and Most affordable Military Families

Where Housing is Least and Most Affordable Military Families
Not all military housing markets are created equal. For those service men and women who opt for off-base housing in the states, where you are stationed can be the difference between peace and prosperity or financial battles.
Today’s military members move, on average, every 2 to 3 years from one base to another and frequently get deployed away from base. This instability makes homeownership tough for active duty military members and is a big reason why they frequently resort to renting rather than buying a home.

We compared military housing stipend — which vary by housing area, rank and whether or not you have dependents — with local rental costs in order to estimate how affordable each military housing area is. We found:
1. For U.S.-stationed active duty service members, small rural towns offer the best value to live off base with their housing stipend, while rentals around bases in the short term housing charlottesville va, little creek naval base housing, military moving rhode island and military bases washington is in short supply and expensive.
2. Bigger cities and top travel destinations tended to have the lowest share of affordable rentals for these entry level enlistees without dependents. For instance, areas well-known to be expensive such as sell my house fast el paso, military housing portsmouth va, military by owner alexandria va, fort belvoir temporary lodging and norfolk naval base housing had housing allowances that are only $100 to $200 higher than those in inexpensive places such as fort myer base housing.
3. Overall, military personnel in pay grades E01-E04 without dependents should not have a tough time finding an affordable home. Even in the least affordable military housing area for entry-level enlistees, sell my house fast el paso, military housing portsmouth va, 8.4% of the listings are affordable.
4. Higher pay grade military members will have no trouble finding an affordable home. Even in the least affordable military housing area for the third highest pay-grade (E07) without dependents, military moving rhode island, 38.4% of listings were affordable.
5. The median rent for listings with four bedrooms or less is 162% higher on average than the median rent for one bedroom and studio listings nationwide. However, for those in paygrades E01 through E04, the housing stipend only increases 31% on average nationwide when you go from not having a dependent to having one, thus decreasing affordability.