Military Families Have To Incur More To Own A Home Than The Civilians
It is all-familiar for military families to relocate every three years. Buying a home is a weighty decision for everyone but military families the buying decision is influenced many other factors. These families are frequent movers demanding them to up-root and to re-root to new places making it difficult for them to buy a home. This is one of the reason why most military families prefer renting rather than purchasing a home. But that isn’t even the bigger issue – the real issue is that research shows that housing is becoming less affordable for the military families than the civilians.
“Peace — that was the other name for home.” ~ Kathleen Norris
What It Costs A Military Family To Buy A Home
In most parts across the nation, it’s much cheaper for these families to live in military bases than buying or renting outside. Even with the “Basic Allowance for Housing”, landlords in military bases are often other military personnel who know exactly the BAH of various ranks and they would charge the rent accordingly. Buying a home on a monthly makes a perfect financial sense for most of these families but the problem is that their job doesn’t allow to stay in one base more than three years. Just like any other families, these families would like to have a specific decent place where they will call it home. Financially speaking, it is not financially a smart choice for a military family to buy a home.
Housing Becoming More Expensive For Military Families
Stats shows that, service members can expect to pay up to 31.5% of their income towards mortgage. This is twice the value which civilians normally pay. This research was conducted by Zillow and BAH for families not living in the base as well as all ranks and branches of the military were considered. Renting doesn’t prove to be a better option either as services member are expected to pay up to 41.6% of their incomes on rent payments. Civilians just pay 30% of their income towards rent payments. It’s good to note that the situation is not the same everywhere. For example, service members in San Diego must pay as much as 65.5% of their incomes on mortgages or 59.6% on rent. But in At Fort Hood, Texas, they will just pay 15.1% of their income towards mortgage payments.
Service Members Want Better Homes
It’s clear that most of these would want to have bigger and lavish homes like anyone else but the conditions are not in their favor. Remember military families have to pay off mortgages, taxes and insurance whenever they want to move. The good thing is that most service members access VA loans which don’t require down payment.