Face Your Off-Season PCS Move with Confidence!

It's that time of year: the off-season PCS cycle. You should embrace an off-cycle move!

There are so many reasons to be grateful for packing and unpacking over the colder months. Well, colder for most PCS destinations. Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and Guam folks, carry on with your warm off-cycle move. For the rest of us, here are a few tips.

Face Your Off-Season PCS Move with Confidence

Face Your Off-Season PCS Move with Confidence!

Renters, Buyers, and Sellers, Here’s What You Need to Know About an Off-Season PCS

The planning process isn’t complete unless your first stop is MilitaryByOwner. Here, you’ll find the answers to so many of the questions that are standard for a PCS. Your curiosity will get the best of you, so embrace your interest and take a few minutes and see what the current inventory is offering for homes available to rent or buy.

Within the options, you’ll get an understanding as to how far your BAH will go. Commute times, education opportunities, and square footage are three major planning features that factor into your next home search, and they’ll be detailed in the listing. Sellers, there are multiple resources on how to get your house into the best shape for a sale.

Renters

Keep watch over any rental listed with MilitaryByOwner, and move in quickly if a property meets your major criteria. Although you won’t have as much competition as during the traditional moving season, fewer military families are moving, so taking your sweet time to make contact isn’t an option.

First-time renters, an off-season PCS is a great time to start learning the best ways to become a savvy renter and one that landlords will fight over. There won't be as much competition, so there might be room to negotiate monthly rental payments or fees such as a pet deposit. Start here:

Pet Owners

Military families living on base have another set of rules to live by. It's common for base housing companies to place restrictions on the type of animal or breeds you can have in military housing. They also have limitations regarding the size and number of pets brought into base housing. Pet owners who rent, get excited, since most rentals listed will at least consider your pet. Many homeowners are pet-friendly and willing for their renters to bring in their extended animal family. But, to convince them that your pet is as clean and quiet as you say, you’ll have to walk the pet walk and give the owners the proof they need. Shot records, receipts for flea and tick prevention, and even certificates of completion for dog school could be helpful.

Traveling with your best animal friends is no easy feat. The extra layer of planning includes everything from a bottle of water in the car just for them to securing hotel rooms that accept pets. Check out:

Home Buyers

There's a lot to prepare for if buying a house is a goal for your next duty station. Seasoned buyers and first-timers alike have a lot of work to do before the pack-out date. Preliminary online research, contacting the best real estate agent in your area, and finding financing are big tasks that are going to require time and patience. MilitaryByOwner has broken down the pertinent information into easy to read, yet packed with information ebooks for home buyers. Take a look at:

Home Buying Off Season

Homeowners Who Are Landlords

If you’ve never been a landlord before, especially long distance, there's so much to learn. It’s a huge lifestyle change to be in charge of not just the house you live in, but also administer the rental property you’ve left behind. How do you know if landlord life is right for you?

And, if you’re a perpetual landlord, are you attracting the best tenants? Pro-military landlords know that the quality of tenants either makes or breaks the experience of a landlord, especially if you do the property management yourself. Here's some help:

Home Sellers

Home sellers, there are unique challenges to selling in the winter months, but bonuses, too. For example, knowing the correct way to stage a home and hold an open house during foul weather is a skill not easily learned. Do you know who already knows how to overcome seasonal obstacles? An experienced real estate agent.

An off-season PCS is an ideal time to invest in researching the real estate professionals that will serve your needs best. As they are also likely working through the quieter months of the real estate cycle, they’ll have more time to invest in your marketing and ultimately, the sale.

More Helpful Information

During a PCS, not everything is related to the physical property. Moving also means looking for new friends, childcare, schools, and all of the other amenities that make a new town feel like home. Military Town Advisor is a MilitaryByOwner partner and has combined direct advice and reviews from military families across the country detailing the neighborhoods and businesses that are near your next duty station.

Here’s an example of a review of one of the top researched businesses any time a military family moves: a hair salon! A reviewer from Fort Bragg, NC, says about the local The Fringe Salon:

“GREAT salon with all around friendly atmosphere. Clean, professional and friendly! My stylist, Kimberlie, is a military spouse who took my botched head of hair and made it beautiful again! Free parking on road along business. Prices are competitive and reasonable for area. Location is a bit hidden from main road, but easy to find. Spacey area so you're not on top of other clients.”

Dozens of bases are reviewed, so it's likely your next destination has a tip or two to help the family settle in.

Life is always better when both spouses are content with their new location. Spouse employment and education opportunities are topics that are also available for research at MilitaryByOwner. Continuing education or career changes are challenges that many families encounter. For a head start on the newest path of military life, check out:

Looking back at all of these resources, it seems as though MilitaryByOwner couldn’t have anything left to offer a family moving during an off-season PCS cycle. But be sure to subscribe to our updates, as we've got many more articles, blogs, and ebooks about all things moving and real estate related.

We hope your off-season PCS is amazing. Taking time to get familiar with all of the carefully researched and written content MilitaryByOwner has to offer will only help!

Author

Dawn M. Smith

Dawn is a real estate and military life writer who has a serious HGTV habit. When she is not writing, her teen daughter, Army husband, and golden retriever keep her busy through chauffeur duties, travel planning, and long dog walks. Dawn is pleased to share her experiences with MilitaryByOwner readers who are hoping to simplify military family journeys of all kinds. Follow Dawn on Pinterest for more ideas and resources and visit her site at Dawn M. Smith Custom Content Creation.