Moving often is a part of Military Life. Do you rent or sell your off post home when you PCS?

MAJ (Join to see) That is a very hard question to answer because it varies from location to location and with larger economic trends. I've had friends do very well renting homes and I have had friends with horrible tenants who destroyed the home. I saw that you are at Fort Benning; considering it is a large base you may be better suited for renting than someone at a smaller base with less turnover. My advice is crunch the numbers and see if you could actually make any money selling. You can try and sell "for sale by owner" and cut realtor cost (usually 6%) or use a new site like https://www.solopro.com/ to cut selling costs. If you can't walk away with any money, then maybe consider renting until you're at a point you can. But make sure to get a really good management company.

We are comfortable owning two homes and renting them out. One is at Fort Leavenworth and has a constant flow of personnel attending school. I have had new renters every other year or every year for a long time. No concern there. Our second house is at JBLM in Washington State. It is in a great area next to post and only 10 minutes from the gate. Location is key if you are going to keep it and rent it. If you are just looking to buy and sell, you need to be willing to take a loss in the closing costs in the front and back. We prefer not to and instead have someone else pay our mortgage every month. We intend to keep the two homes well into retirement and use them to keep up with inflation. We don't expect to make a huge profit, but we expect it to remain even with the market. A safe investment in our world. I doubt we will get more than two. You need to know what you can afford to go empty and for how long before you even think about buying and renting out.

True, some people buy a house at each duty station. It is has both opportunity and risk. I remember one of my former bosses telling me that two of his houses were vacant so he was paying out of pocket from his savings account. He ended up selling one of the houses. Others have done very well.

The challenge about buying a house through a Realtor is the fees at closing. On average you have to live in the house for about 5 years to make up for the cost of closing when buying and when selling the house. Have a long term plan beyond your PCS date and a contingency plan in the event the army moves you out early.