This will be my 5th PCS, but the first time I'm actually looking to buy a home. I detach July and report in July to Camp Pendleton. So market is tight, and it's PCS season. There have been people in a similar billet to myself in the past that had bought a house, their HHGs were loaded, and then they got orders elsewhere. In one case they actually got sent OCONUS.

While rare, the last thing I want is to buy a house and be in that position. I don't even have paper orders yet, just word from the person that's going to write them that that's where I'm going.

Also, any recommendations for realtors in the area that are good with military?

In reply to 74OA Yeah. Though not sure how it would work with purchasing a house. I mean besides the bank loan, if I actually pay the sellers, they're not going to be just give it back to the bank. And I don't know that the bank would just sell the home for me.

In reply to bigtruckguy3500 ........which is why I suggest you talk to legal and get an informed answer. Who knows?

In reply to bigtruckguy3500 Nothing wrong with getting a realtor and a financing partner lined up to start the process. Do not put money on a house until you have orders in hand, at a minimum. You'll need orders to use a VA loan anyways.

A few years ago, my family was set to leave Base X with orders to Base Y. We had a realtor lined up and looked at several houses virtually (I was overseas and it was during the height of COVID madness).

The realtor was a godsend because she

A) gave us access to her MLS listings (what you see on Zillow/Redfin/etc is not going to have everything on the market)

B) would meet with us via Zoom regularly to talk about what we were looking for, the listings we liked, the various neighborhoods in our new location, and so on.

C) would walk through our favorite listings sometimes live on FaceTime and even show the commute to us to give us a sense of traffic in the area/major roads going to/from properties. She'd take lots of video and pictures for us, too.

D) was a bulldog for BS like shoddy renovations, smells, warped floors, etc.


We found her on a local-to-the-new-base military spouse website. She was a military spouse herself, so she was very understanding when I got extended a year and essentially backed out, even though she'd looked at a ton of houses and spent a lot of time on our house hunt. We ended up moving to the same area a year later but that wasn't a guarantee when we had to back out of all the house hunting upon my extension. We of course went right back to her and we found a great house through her services.

You don't pay a realtor til you close on a house and finding one that has experience working with the military will probably make any unforeseen changes easier to manage.

On the extreme end of your question, I would make sure once you get orders, if you decide to buy a house, you close after you have high confidence you won't get redirected somewhere. I'd also make sure your command and assignment team/detailer are made aware very clearly that you bought a house so they can factor that in if the idea of changing your orders crosses their desk. "The mission will come first" is always a thing but in today's military with retention issues being what they are, they shouldn't be as apt to screw people over with significant financial obligations. There's always that risk in our line of work, though.

I'll add that, if you are paying with a VA loan, you can back out of a purchase pretty late in the process - as late as closing, essentially. That's also a deterrent to some sellers to deal with someone using a VA loan among other reasons but going that route for financing your home purchase has some protections until you close. Good luck!

In reply to bigtruckguy3500 Thanks for starting the thread.

I did 5 PCSs in six years and finally left active duty. Reserve now.

We are actually in the beginning stages right now as well. We are working with a navy vet mortgage broker.

Looking to buy in May here in central texas. Using the VA loan for the first time as it's our first house purchase.