Buying first home, active duty with va loan and housing allowance

Member since 2020 · 2 posts · 0 votes

I am active duty and moving to AZ, My wife and I have 2 kids and are looking to buy our first home when we get there. I figure buying would make more sense because my housing allowance over the next 4 years would pay off about $54k off the home. I can either sell and make that money that back if housing market stayed the same or more if it goes up. If it goes down i can hold it and rent it for cash flow. If i sell i would like to use that chunk of cash to get started on owning rentals. I was hoping some smarter people would be able to give me some advice of what they would do under similar circumstances. Thank you

0 Reply

19 views

3 Replies

Jump to latestLatest

Sort by

Jonathan BombaciBusiness Member
Real Estate Agent · Lowell, MA · Member since 2019 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
6y
I’d say use you va allowance to try to buy a 2-4 unit property. That way you could be making money while living there and if the market goes down and you can’t sell, one of your concerns above, you can just rent out your unit and make more $. Plus if you relocate to another state it should make enough to hire a Property Manager to take care of the property for you.
Are you renting an apartment or SF house now?
[email protected]978-710-8611
Candor Realty4.760 Reviews
Website View Page
0 Reply
Account Closed
Rental Property Investor · Central, FL · Member since 2016 · 950 posts · 821 votes
6y
Originally posted by @Tyler Burgan:
I am active duty and moving to AZ, My wife and I have 2 kids and are looking to buy our first home when we get there. I figure buying would make more sense because my housing allowance over the next 4 years would pay off about $54k off the home. I can either sell and make that money that back if housing market stayed the same or more if it goes up. If it goes down i can hold it and rent it for cash flow. If i sell i would like to use that chunk of cash to get started on owning rentals. I was hoping some smarter people would be able to give me some advice of what they would do under similar circumstances. Thank you

Trying to get my math right. So your BAH is 1,125 a month?
If you do a VA loan it takes extra time to pay down since you don't have a down payment requirement and also have a VA funding fee that adds to the debt.

Depending on what bass you are moving to I think the best bang for your buck is a 2-4 unit using the VA. That allows you to live for essentially free. You could then take the BAH and save that and invest in more properties as rentals.
There’s a million ways to do it but either way make sure your spouse is on board with the plan.
0 Reply
Tyler Burgan
OP
Member since 2020 · 2 posts · 0 votes
6y
For the last 4 years my bah has been $1300/mo but we have lived on base the whole time where they just take the whole amount as rent/utilities. When we move to AZ my bah should be about $1600-1700, I tried to get my wife on board with buying a duplex and renting a side, or even just air bnb’ing a room but she just wants us to have our home to ourselves and shes not really onboard with my plan. The only way I can pursue this would be to have our own single family house to appease her. Thats why I was thinking of just buying the house and trying to raise the value so when I get out I can sell and use a portion of the profits as a down payment on a new home and the rest for a downpayment on rental properties and try to work from there. Or else keep the house and when I move rent it out to start this journey, either way Im looking at about 2-4 years until I can actually begin this process.
0 Reply

Join the conversationCreate a free account to reply, vote on answers and follow this thread.