Hey everyone. I'm trying to come up with a list of reasons why more military members should be investing in real estate and would love your input. I'm specifically looking for distinct advantages, attributes, or points that would help convince more service members to get started. 

Example: the VA loan is a distinct advantage that service members have. Being able to buy real estate with zero money down is an absolute advantage that we have.

What other advantages or attributes do we have that help with being successful investors? 

Get creative! 

PCS moves give a chance to justify new home purchases regardless of how short the period of time was since purchasing the previous property (ie FHA and VA primary residence restrictions)

Steady government salary makes it easy to qualify for a loan.

BAH in an area gives an easy benchmark for rental prices and what renters you will get at those set prices (ie rank of renters).

Renting to military brings a level of protection as the chain of command can force rent to be paid if a soldier becomes delinquent on rent. Plus there are programs like Army emergency relief (AER) to help a tenet pay rent when they can't make ends meet.

Buying around a post gives the opportunity for qualified renters that choose to rent instead of buy due to convince instead of insufficient funds.

Buying at each duty location gives geographical diversification of rental properties.

@Stuart Grazier Service members who contribute to their Thrift Savings Plan (TSP) specially those who have served and contributed for a longer amount of time can take out a TSP loan for a max of 50% of their total account balance. The loan monthly payments will be deducted from your pay automatically each month. The current interest rate hover around 2.225%. This is a great benefit since you are able to access your retirement funds at an earlier age. Additionally, you are borrowing from yourself and paying yourself back with interest. Below are some rules I pulled straight from the TSP.gov website. Service members investors can go to the website and find out more details.

I am currently accessing this benefit. I giving myself a general purpose loan for $23K which I will use as a downpayment to purchase a property. I will offset the monthly payment coming from my monthly check with the cash flow from the investment property. This benefit has allowed me to acquire more properties while I wait for the season period in other investments & pull my all cash investment out and repeat the BRRRR.

There's also a Residential loan. For more information on this loan visit the tsp website. 

General Loan Rules

There are two types of loans: general purpose and residential (for the purchase of your primary residence). The general purpose loan has a repayment period of 1 to 5 years; the residential loan has a repayment period of 1 to 15 years.

• You can have only one general purpose loan and one residential loan at a time.
• You must wait 60 days from the time a loan is repaid in full until you are eligible to apply for another loan of the same type.
• The TSP will deduct a $50 fee from the proceeds of each loan issued.
• Your loan will be disbursed pro rata (i.e., proportionately) from any traditional and Roth balances in your account.
• For complete rules, and to understand the potential impact of your loan on your retirement income, read the TSP booklet Loans.

@Jose L.  I did not know this and also can this be applied to a non primary residence? Thanks.

@Dimitri Paspalaris  

There are two types of loans.

A residential loan can be used only for the purchase or construction of a primary residence. The residence can be a house, condominium, shares in a cooperative housing corporation, a townhouse, boat, mobile home, or recreational vehicle, but it must be used as your primary residence. The residence must be purchased (in whole or in part) by you or your spouse. 

You can obtain a residential loan for constructing a new residence or purchasing an existing residence. You cannot use a residential loan for refinancing or prepaying an existing mortgage, for renovations or repairs, for buying out another person’s share in your current residence, or for the purchase of land only. You may have only one general purpose loan and one residential loan outstanding at any one time. 

This is a per-account limit. If you have both a civilian account and a uniformed services account, you may have one of each type of loan for each account.

- PM me and i can send you the PDF Loan information guide.

Great inputs so far. Here's a few I thought of...

Service members have lots of opportunities to save large amounts of money that they can then use to invest....if they are smart about it. Deployments to tax free zones, TADs to schools, and PCS do it yourself moves are all great capital builders. 

Another is the network that we are able to build around the world. Moving every 2-3 years gives tons of opportunities to build networks at each duty station that will then be able to help with real estate investing. Plus, most of them are incredibly trustworthy since they are service members themselves; lots of partnership opportunities as well. 

@Stuart Grazier   check out my blog post about the pros and cons of investing near military bases! 

https://www.biggerpockets.com/blog/cons-investing-...

It may help outline some of the advantages and disadvantages for military investors. This is a POINT-COUNTERPOINT article so if you want to see the entirely other side of the argument, click the link at the beginning of the article !