Do you have orders to Florida, Utah, or Tennessee? How about Washington, D.C. or North Carolina? Or Florida or Texas? If you do, you may have an additional reason to consider buying a home in your new city. Several of the nation’s top 10 places to buy are located near bases in these states. A recent Forbes report, “Best Buy Cities: Where to Invest in Housing in 2018,” highlights some of the nation’s most attractive housing markets. And several of them are near important installations, such as Hill Air Force Base (Ogden-Clearfield, Utah), Naval Station Mayport (Jacksonville, Florida), and others.
The Forbes list is based on several economic factors like home price, population, and job growth. Forbes keeps the list in perspective by giving rising home prices less weight in its scoring methodology and ranking a city higher for a good economy. The publicationdefines a “bargain market” as one with two important attributes: lower home prices compared to the national average, and a strong growth forecast. To rank the cities, the largest 100 metropolitan statistical areas (MSAs) with over 575,000 people were analyzed.
Top 10 “Best-Buy Base Towns”
To provide some additional housing market insights to servicemembers, Veterans First Mortgage has narrowed the Forbes list to the ten best-buy base towns by identifying those with proximity to military installations.
Click here for an infographic that shows you where these top-ranking markets and bases are found. You’ll also be able to quickly see Veteran population, average home price, average days on market, and more.
Top 10 Military Best-Buy Base Towns
- Orlando, FL
- Patrick Air Force Base (AFB)
- Cape Canaveral Air Force Station
- Naval Support Activity (NSA) Orlando
- Florida Army National Guard
- Provo/Orem, UT
- Camp Williams
- Tooele Army Depot
- Utah Army Reserve
- U.S. Army Recruiting Center, Provo (USAREC)
- Utah National Guard
- Jacksonville, FL
- Naval Station Mayport
- Jacksonville Military Entrance Processing Station (MEPS)
- Naval Air Station (NAS) Jacksonville
- Camp Blanding Joint Training Center
- Raleigh-Durham, NC
- Seymour Johnson AFB
- National Guard 230th Brigade Support Battalion (BSB)
- Raleigh MEPS
- Ogden-Clearfield, UT
- Hill AFB
- U.S. Army Dugway Proving Ground
- Nashville-Davidson-Murfreesboro, TN
- Arnold AFB
- Nashville MEPS
- Army Corps of Engineers - Nashville District
- Tennessee Army National Guard
- Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA
- Dobbins Air Reserve Base
- Navy Operational Support Center (NOSC) Atlanta
- Clay National Guard Center
- U.S. Army Fort Benning and The Maneuver Center of Excellence
- Fort Worth-Arlington, TX
- NOSC NAS JRB Fort Worth
- Texas Air National Guard
- Texas Army National Guard
- Texas State Guard
- San Antonio, TX
- Joint Base San Antonio (U.S. Army Fort Sam Houston, Randolph AFB, Lackland AFB, Martindale Army Airfield, Camp Bullis , and Camp Stanley.)
- Washington D.C.
- Joint Base Anacostia-Bolling
- NSA Washington
- Pentagon USAF
- Pentagon Army
- Fort Meade
- Joint Base Myer-Henderson Hall
Knowledge Gives You Homebuying Power
Buying a home while on active duty may be good for your long-term financial success. In deciding whether to rent or buy, it’s helpful to have as much information as possible. For example, you can get a sense of the homebuying competition in your next duty station by looking up National Association of Realtors (NAR) data for the average days on the market.
Servicemembers with change-of-station orders to bases near top-ranking MSAs may want to consider that using their VA home loan benefits to buy a home in their new cities may allow them to own a home with no down payment.
Ready to Get Started?
If you're ready to get started, or just want to get more information on the process, the first step is to get multiple rate quotes with no obligation. You can then discuss qualifications, debt to income ratios, and any other concerns you have about the process with the lenders.
