Housing: Off-base housing - Military Housing, rentals, home buying, real estate, VA home loans - Army Times

Housing: Off-base housing

Military personnel arriving at a new duty station must report to the local housing office for housing referral assistance before they rent or buy housing off base.

The housing office often is the best source of information about housing availability in the community. The office serves as a liaison between the military community and civilian real estate agents and landlords. Defense Department policy calls for the services to look to the local community first to provide required adequate housing and provide aggressive housing referral services in base housing offices.

In many cases, installations have information about housing available in the civilian community on their Web sites. Also, base legal offices often are willing to review real estate contracts before members sign them.

Defense officials have begun to deploy the Automated Housing Referral Network across the U.S. to provide a central Web site for information about available houses for rent. AHRN is accessible from any computer, but only to military members, Defense Department civilians, housing offices and registered property managers and landlords.

Contact: http://www.ahrn.com