Moving into military quarters - sell or rent our house?

goater78

I would rent your house out for a year and see how that works out.

Silvertabby

When we moved into RAF married quarters the other wives were initially very welcoming - until they saw me in uniform, when I immediately became persona non grata to most of them.  So, yes, life on base can be very cliquey - but as we were both members of the Sgts' Mess in our own right our social life revolved around that.  

Can't help with the renting conundrum, I'm afraid.  We were a little older than most when we married, so only spent two tours in quarters before buying our own home on our last tours of duty.  

Another option, which I don't think has been mentioned, would be to sell and then buy a new property near your new duty Station.  May depend of house prices, and packing up and moving every couple of years or so isn't for the faint hearted - but the RAF helps with the expenses, and many people do do that.  On the plus side, you don't need to worry about your tenants wrecking your house or getting stuck with a less than desirable married quarter.

Upzeecreek

unforeseen said:

High Wycombe? When I was posted there I turned down 3 quarters as they were so bad. In the end I managed to get PMC to post me back to Bentley Priory. 

They're still s**t holes! You'll probably find that you won't actually get a quarter at HW as there is such a shortage. You'll be at Medmenham( which are actually nicer!) 
I would definitely rent house out as you don't really want to come off the property ladder. When and if you do eventually sell there is no capital gain tax to pay for the  years you live in service accomodation. 

BikingBud

Jude57 said:

Why not speak to an independent financial adviser about the potential of investing your capital over a long period? Bear in mind that no portfolio is immune from decrease in value and that you may, for reasons beyond your control, need to release capital immediately, which would affect what investments might be best for you. It's vital that you and your partner understand the potential risks. You could also check the Investments board for information on how to find an IFA in your area.

I'd recommend you speak to someone from SSAFA about being a Pad spouse. It can be quite cliquey with a strict hierarchy - generally based on the serving partner's rank and, in my experience, the lower the rank the more snobbish the spouse is! There's also the possibility that you may have to leave MQ at very short notice. I mean within days or at best, a few weeks. If your serving partner is seriously injured or killed, or if your relationship ends, unfortunately the Army doesn't give much lasting support to widowed or ex-partners. Also consider how you'd cope if your partner is deployed for months at a time, or on extended exercise overseas. You'll have to cope with being alone in a fairly restricted living situation (you'll be aware that there are limits to what you can do with MQ decor-wise) away from your family and friends and although there's support from Welfare Officers, it's not unlimited and there's a certain attitude of 'suck it up, buttercup' prevalent too. The attitude being because your spouse has it worse than you in your comfy MQ.

If you or your partner have any serving friends with experience of MQ, pump them for information on the realities. Most people who don't have to live in MQ can't wait to get out but there are those who tolerate it pretty well if they have a long-term plan, as you seem to.

@jude57 - what century are you living in? If you've found this recently then I would offer that this was very much an issue with the unit you were attached to but then I realised that you are speaking about ARMY.

SFA are no longer managed by single services, there are very clear requirements to be met before they then list you as an irregular occupant, and you then pay a slightly higher rate but they will very unlikely evict you, especially if children are involved.

Decor and other changes are now significantly less restrictive and yes there is an onus to return to standard you do have leeway to personalise. 

Family and friends can visit and the OP could travel home! 

So OP apart from some unnecessary scaremongering, moving into SFA may or may not suit.

Do you currently have or are planning children? If you end up moving regularly then school stability is a key issue. Would it be better for them to remain fixed, ie you current home. If they are still very young this may only come into play once they get to age 12+.

With regard to the financial aspects think very carefully about selling, it may seem attractive to realise the equity but you need robust plans to retain an ability to buy back into the market.  HPI has left many leaving the forces in a difficult position, the pension lump sum used to cover house purchase.  Not any more, not by a long shot. 

It would appear that you can cover the mortgage and the SFA rent, ~£380 (doesn't change) and £300 from mortgage overpayment of £400 with some space.

If you can rent then be aware of all the implications/obligations/cost/liabilities and then smash the extra into the best possible savings vehicle you can, 

Murphybear

CharlieT130 said:

Jude57 said:

Why not speak to an independent financial adviser about the potential of investing your capital over a long period? Bear in mind that no portfolio is immune from decrease in value and that you may, for reasons beyond your control, need to release capital immediately, which would affect what investments might be best for you. It's vital that you and your partner understand the potential risks. You could also check the Investments board for information on how to find an IFA in your area.

We're already talking with an IFA regarding our investment strategy and have got the ball rolling with ~£15k of investments to be drip fed monthly. It's still very new for us so we'd rather take it slowly, see how the find perform and figure out our comfort / risk levels before putting £200k into stocks.

Jude57 said:

I'd recommend you speak to someone from SSAFA about being a Pad spouse. It can be quite cliquey with a strict hierarchy - generally based on the serving partner's rank and, in my experience, the lower the rank the more snobbish the spouse is! There's also the possibility that you may have to leave MQ at very short notice. I mean within days or at best, a few weeks. If your serving partner is seriously injured or killed, or if your relationship ends, unfortunately the Army doesn't give much lasting support to widowed or ex-partners. Also consider how you'd cope if your partner is deployed for months at a time, or on extended exercise overseas. You'll have to cope with being alone in a fairly restricted living situation (you'll be aware that there are limits to what you can do with MQ decor-wise) away from your family and friends and although there's support from Welfare Officers, it's not unlimited and there's a certain attitude of 'suck it up, buttercup' prevalent too. The attitude being because your spouse has it worse than you in your comfy MQ.

If you or your partner have any serving friends with experience of MQ, pump them for information on the realities. Most people who don't have to live in MQ can't wait to get out but there are those who tolerate it pretty well if they have a long-term plan, as you seem to.

Good advice, thanks. The pad spouse / cliquey thing is interesting so thanks for the heads up. We currently live out and are not involved with military life as a couple, other than the odd dinner. I suspect we won't 'fit in', but we'll give it a go and see what happens. I work full time and from what I've seen a lot of organised events are during the day so I probably can't get too involved anyway.

Thankfully partner is not front line so the risk of injury or worse is low (driving is more dangerous). It's RAF not Army if that makes a difference? Financially speaking, I'm not worried as my salary makes up about 60% of our joint income and my company are really flexible about how and where I work.

We've done two four month OOAs (deployments), including one in the deepest pandemic, which was... tough. I do know what to expect though and am hoping that being closer to military life will make it a bit easier.

That reminds me of my brother.  He was an aeronautical engineer in the RAF.  Neither he nor his wife liked the married quarters so they lived in a caravan.