Actual question about living on/off base

cnhelbert

I was jw from you ladies who are married and either live on or off base as to which.do you think is better? We're not really sure whether we are going to live on base yet so I just wanted to get some opinions about why you do or dont like it. TIA

AmandaSC1988

LOL..I love the title! Ha!


Well, when H getsback from deployment we don't plan on living on base.  The base housing at H's base, well...plain and simple,  I don't like the houses. They are ugly and old.  We can get so much more for the money if we live off base.

What you need to do,,, You need to look at how much BAH you get, and what you can get off base for that.

LetsHikeToday

I think it depends on the cost of living in your area and how much you get for BAH. If the cost of renting a house here was more than BAH, we'd live on base.

Right now, we pay about $200 less for rent than we get for BAH but at the same time, we pay all bills like water and electric and it puts us over. 

If we moved somewhere like Sand Diego or Hawaii, we'd live on base because of the cost of living.

crownsuperstar

H currently does not live on post and really hasn't for a long time.  When we move we do not plan on living on post either.  We have found really cute houses with more space and newer that are much cheaper than what we would have to spend on post.  With BAH we will have enough for the rent and all of the bills. 

Like Hike said, I think if we were to go some where cost of living was much higher then we might consider it but since that will not be the case this time we are choosing to live off post. 

kara811

Hike and Crown both make very good points so just adding to that. I also look at it this way, from a financial standpoint, military housing is more worth it to those members(especially with a family/kids) that are lower in rank because they get less BAH since everything is provided/paid for in housing. For us, it's just H and I and our puppy so we chose not to go with housing. We also like to have our own space/world away from the "military," we get the sense of living a more "normal" life this way. I will say, whatever money is left over with our BAH though goes to utilities or other bills so we aren't saving anything which I know why some people choose to live out in town. I think we'll probably always live off base(unless living in housing is clearly a much better choice), we also did in Japan.

Also, you'll find that not all housing are on base. In my area, majorite of it are actually off base, although close(some right outside), but this way you won't have to worry about things like going through the gate security daily, etc.  

Sammy0709

It definitely does depend on where you are.  So far my experience has been that, yes, it is.  However, the only base I have been to was in the middle of the Mojave desert.  A lot of the houses that we looked at would have cost our entire BAH to pay for rent + utilities but, could have used a lot of work.  A lot of the rental agencies off base were kind of untrustworthy too.  The trade off for us was a nicer place, a smaller yard, a community pool that was only open to people who lived on base, and a dog park that was pretty nice.  However, we do plan to live off base when DH gets home simply because we are going to try to live close to the larger towns in the area so I have more options for employment.  Like I said, that's just my experience at one base.

Beachy730

As others have said it really depends on the base and COL of the area.  Some bases don't even offer base housing, and might have public privatized housing instead where its run through a non-military agency and they have to give military priority.  At our last command we lived in PPH because we were there such a short time.  We bought a house at our current station so we didn't consider base housing.

Each base is different with what kind of housing they offer and who qualifies for what.  In our PPH it was a townhome, and while we were only supposed to qualify for a 2 bedroom because we had no kids they let us get a 3 bedroom because of H's rank and availability.

I would find out the BAH and call the housing office to see what your options would be for base housing.  Also look at AHRN to see what off base housing is like based on cost and go from there.  And don't trust anything on Craigslist that looks too good to be true.  

divinemsbee

Everyone else has made really good points. My FI and I aren't married yet, but we'll continue to live off-base here, for many of the reasons Amanda stated. We simply don't like the base housing here that much and can afford something much newer, larger, and nicer on his BAH. This might change at our next base and once we have kids, because I like the idea of being on base with our kids, especially if he's deployed. At the two other places he's been we would probably have lived on base in one of those places (Maxwell-Montgomery, AL) because I'd prefer to live there to living in the city.

The other thing we take into account is how long FI's going to have to drive to get home. He doesn't like a long commute, which limits us in certain cities, but in others we can live pretty much anywhere. 

cnhelbert

Thanks for everything to consider. FI's base does offer on base housing, just very basic pretty ugly houses. And I've heard that they have spider issues (not ok!). Lol

I do really like the idea of living of base and away from military life. So I guess we'll just have decide. We still have 9 months until the wedding so we have plenty of time! 

Kaybye7

I highly recommend living off base, my fiance and I live off base, own our OWN home and don't deal with the high amounts of drama from other dependents. And we don't feel bound down by the whole military lifestyle.