Military PCSing - 6 Steps To Make It EASY!
Military PCSing can be a very stressful time. Whether you're a single soldier or if you have a family and you're making a big move across the country or to just the next state over. All of these things happening once those orders come down can really really be a stressful time but it doesn't have to be. We’ll gover 6 steps to make your Military PCS easier on you and your family.
Military PCSing
1. Contact A Trusted, Local, Military PCS Specialist
Step number one to help make your Military PCS a little less stressful is contacting a trusted local specialist who understands the PCSing process. Why is this important?
If you just received your orders your mind starts racing with all of the things you need to get done. You also start doing an immense amount of research about the area near your next duty station. Talking with someone such as trusted members of our team across the country who are all military affiliated and understand what you’re going through can help give you an honest perspective of the local communities.
NOT someone who is just going to tell you every community is beautiful and you’ll love it there. Having an honest conversation about the good areas, the military friendly areas, the bad areas, the schools, and everything that is important to you with your imminent military pcs.
Don’t hesitate to reach out to our team. Shoot us a text or give us a call and we’ll do everything in our power to advise and support your next pcs.
2. Identifying Your Criteria And Location
Step number two in our process is identifying your criteria and location.
Our team looks at criteria as more than just bedrooms and bathrooms. There’s more to it than that. We talk about a home that best fits your lifestyle. That includes the community type, the local amenities and activities.
Yes, bedrooms, bathrooms and square footage are important but there’s plenty of homes that will meet those criteria for you. Are they in the right area? Do you have a family? Is it in the school district you want to be in? Does it have a yard or garage? Is that even something that is important to you?
One of our BIGGEST questions we talk about is proximity to your assigned base. What kind of drive are you comfortable with? Some military service members who do not want to live on post want to live within 15 minutes of work. Others may not mind a 45 drive or more.
These questions are all questions that we go through to identify a community that best fits your lifestyle. Once we go through these our team of local specialist can usually pin point communities that you may be really interested in living.
3. Setting Up Your Custom Home Search
Step #3 in our process is going to be getting your custom home search set up.
This isn't like going to any old home search website and searching through an entire database of homes. Based on your criteria and the questions we discussed in step number 2. Your custom home search will be set up so that you receive instant property alerts for new homes that hit the market meeting your criteria that was previously outlined.
Our custom home search portal also begins to learn which homes you prefer based on how you search in the portal. Which continues to help refine your search so that you don’t have to constantly keep going back to the general home search websites, put in your filters (criteria), and continue to sift through dozens of homes you may have already seen. This helps make your home search process faster and the home buying process more seamless.
Depending on market conditions and how fast homes are selling, this also helps you get notified the instant a home hits the market. If it’s a home you love, you can then act quickly if needed. You can then contact your trusted local specialist from our team to help begin finding out more information about that home and if it’s time for you to make a move!
4. Scheduling Your Visit To The Area
Step #4 is to schedule a time for you visit to your next assignment area or plan to arrive early if possible. A lot of this really depends on the needs of the military and your capacity to be able to do this, situation dependent. Being a team of Veterans, Active Duty, & spouses we've all been there and understand not everything is going to go according to plan.
Once you have had your call with a member of our team we can start to discuss and possibly schedule times when you're going to be in the area, if possible.
Upon your arrival, the goal is to get the boots on ground experience. There’s a ton of great information and videos online, such as our YouTube channel, but nothing is quite like physically being there and getting the right feeling from the right community.
Our team will also be able to help you get your feet in the door. Literally! We want you to be able to get your feet into homes that meet your criteria. Our goal is for you to really get a feel for size, location and condition. This will help you have a complete understanding of homes in your desired communities.
5. Getting Pre-Approved
Step #5 in the PCS process, if you’re planning on buying a home at your next duty assignment is to get financing secured. Getting pre-approved is a step that is often skipped over and this can hurt your process.
Taking the time to get pre-approved will help you identify your purchasing power. This way you’re not falling in love with homes that are not in your ballpark. If you qualify for a $500,000 purchase then it makes no sense to fall in love with an $800,000 home.
The way our team works is we like to reverse engineer the thought process when it comes to price of a home. Most often home buyers are looking at homes in terms of the listed purchase price. Our team like to talk in terms of desired monthly housing budget (expenses) and then work backwards to identify what that desired monthly budget is equivalent to in terms of purchase price.
We work it in this way because a lot of military service members like to purchase within or close to their BAH (basic allowance for housing). Depending on qualifications and BAH rate, it may not equate to the purchase power you may think. Let’s look at an example.
Let’s say you’re PCSing to Schofield Barracks in Hawaii with a pay grade of an E-5 with dependents and want to purchase a home within the BAH rate of approximately $3,000 (situation dependent with qualifying factors). We then reverse engineer this based on our conversation to say, ok…based on what you qualify for and to keep you within your desired monthly housing budget we’re looking at approximately a $550,000 purchase price without an HOA fee. If there is an HOA fee of $500 a month that brings your purchasing power down to $520,000. (This is ONLY to be considered and example and NOT exact figures).
Now we know exactly what we’re looking for in terms of financing.
Another reason for securing financing early on in your process is the documents. When PCSing you’ll want to always have your documents easily accessible. If your documents get packed up in your household goods this can really delay the home buying process during your PCS. You may end up renting for a little bit until they arrive and you can get access to them.
As we have said before, on our appointments we’ll discuss these factors as we go through our desired monthly mortgage calculator designed specifically for the VA Home Loan benefit. After our appointment you’ll also get access to this calculator to help you with your home search.
6. Managing The Process Of Your Military PCS
Step #6 our final step into making this a less stressful on you is managing the process.
What we mean by this is open lines of communication. So you've reached out, We had our appointment via Zoom, we covered all of these questions and more, and now we start to manage the timeline and process.
You’ll be sent a recap email from us highlighting the topics we discussed in this blog, access to our monthly mortgage calculator, set up on your custom home search, and be put in a group text with your trusted local specialist and lender from our team (if you choose to use our lender).
We pride ourselves on having outstanding communication.
What is outstanding communication?
Outstanding communication is being available for our military service members every step of the way.
Trusting our team with your PCS and home purchase isn’t something we take lightly. When you trust our team you get nothing but the BEST!
Military PCS
Did you receive orders and are preparing to PCS to your next duty station? Military PCS moves can be a very stressful time. We’re here to help make that less stressful. If you’re PCSing and considering using your VA Home Loan benefit to purchase a home at your next duty station then you’re going to want to reach out to our team of trust local specialists. Our team of Veterans, Active Duty Military, and Spouses who have helped many others just like you purchase a home using the VA Loan.
