The best and worst rental markets for military families

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Not all military housing markets are created equal. For those service men and women who opt for off-base housing in the states, where you are stationed can be the difference between peace and prosperity or financial battles.

In honor of Military Appreciation Month in May, Trulia looked at which Military Housing Areas, or MHAs, are most and least affordable for active duty military members. We compared military housing stipend -- which vary by housing area, rank and whether or not you have dependents -- with local rental costs in order to estimate how affordable each military housing area is. We found:

•  For U.S.-stationed active duty service members, small rural towns offer the best value to live off base with their housing stipend, while rentals around bases in the Florida Keys, Fla., Chicago and New Orleans are least affordable.
• Bigger cities and top travel destinations tended to have the lowest share of affordable rentals for these entry level enlistees without dependents. For instance, areas well-known to be expensive such as San Luis Obispo, Calif.; Austin, Texas; and Cape Cod, Mass., had housing allowances that are only $100 to $200 higher than inexpensive places such as Huntsville, Ala., and Beaumont, Texas.
• Overall, military personnel in pay grades E01-E04 without dependents should not have a tough time finding an affordable home. Even in the least affordable military housing area for entry-level enlistees, San Luis Obispo, Calif., 8.4% of the listings are affordable.
• Higher pay grade military members will have no trouble finding an affordable home. Even in the least affordable military housing area for the third highest pay-grade (E07) without dependents, Chicago, 38.4% of listings were affordable.

Having a dependent generally decreases affordability and also changes which military housing areas are affordable or unaffordable in relation to one another. We will go into further detail about this later in the report. We ranked military housing areas by how affordable they were (as measured by the percentage of rental listings on Trulia that have rents lower than 75% of the housing stipend) for entry-level enlistees in paygrades E01-E04, which comprise the majority of enlisted workforce. To find out how affordable a military area is near you, check out our interactive map.

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Best and Worst Rental Markets for Service Members in Pay Grades E01-E04 with Dependents

The equation changes drastically for service members with dependents – who need more bedrooms and space and have to deal with another government-calculated housing stipend. In other words whether or not you have a dependent impacts affordability differently for each military housing area. Note: the number of dependents you have does not have any effect on how much stipend you receive. Those living with 4 dependents receive just as much of a stipend as those living with just 1 dependent.

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Affordability is lower in many housing areas for those with dependents than those without dependents, even though having a dependent increases the allowance amount. To gauge affordability, we looked for listings with four bedrooms or less in our calculations for those with dependents and one bedroom and studio listings for our calculations for those without dependents.

• The median rent for listings with four bedrooms or less is 162% higher on average than the median rent for one bedroom and studio listings nationwide. However, for those in paygrades E01 through E04, the housing stipend only increases 31% on average nationwide when you go from not having a dependent to having one, thus decreasing affordability.
• Again, smaller rural towns such as Saginaw, Mich. and Terre Haute, Ind. tend to be the more affordable than expensive cities and luxury vacation enclaves such asFlorida Keys, Fla. and Cape Cod, Mass.

Kent Nishimura / Getty Images

Despite the usual housing stipend being fairly generous, affordability can vary quite dramatically depending on where you are based, what pay grade you are in, and whether or not you have dependents. No two military housing areas are created equally when it comes to affordability, and military members should pay close attention to how much money they could receive and where they should live.

To see the full report and methodology, click here.

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