House hunting leave rules?

[barney]

i am an ad lt awaiting nav training in Dec. per the rules i was offered up to 10 days for free leave to go house hunting with the wife. the obvious catch is that i pay travel/lodging and such. basically it is free leave, as ya'll already know.

anyway, us this a good idea to go down there, can i save money by taking space A or is that just not realistic for a 10 day trip to randolph.

ok-or can i take the 10 days house hunting free leave predate from my RNLT date plus 8 days permissive TDY so it is actually 18 days pre RNLT date. which would all be paid for because it is travel time. also they give like 7 days to drive so really it would be 25 days worth of paid travel. I know this is not right, and i know that something important happens on my RNLT date but what-the overiding questin here is how to best makismize the dollar and time.

search function was accomplished

thanks dudes

[ 20. August 2006, 06:01: Message edited by: Toro ]

[F-15E WSO]

You get 10 days house hunting if you do it ahead of time, or 8 days if you do it in conjunction with your PCS. Commander may give you more time off -- I don't know.

Don't think of it as free leave. Think of it as time the boss wants you to take and try to get squared away so you're ready for training.

Finance will pay you based on how far you have to travel. If they say it takes 3 days to get from where you are to Randolph, that's how many days per diem you'll get -- even if you take a week to get there.

Random google search provided the below from militaryhomesforsale.com

Permissive TDY for house hunting

As a service member, you are entitled to Permissive TDY for house hunting. You can take this either prior to your PCS or after you arrive at your new duty station. If you choose to house hunt prior to your PCS, you can receive up to 10 days Permissive; if you choose to house hunt after your PCS, you can receive up to 8 days Permissive. This must be requested with standard leave paperwork and signed by your supervisor. These Permissive TDY days do NOT count against your leave.

[Guest elroy]

Barney

When you get your orders to show up here I would consider contacting housing here. It nice, but they will lie to you about availability. Check back with me when you get them. If you can get down here and tell them straight up that you know that there are x amount of houses open and keep on them, you will get a house.

You may or may not have a class start date something like 3-5 days after you get here. In that case, forget that 8 days...you have to do indoc and get ready to start Intro to Nav. Once the train gets rolling there is little time.

In the end your CC where you are at will be your best source of advice.

[war007afa]

Or you could just take leave...not like you're going to get to do it that much for the next year of your life while you're in training anyway...

[Toasty]

If you have completed or are ineligible for IFT, you'll probably start class within 3 weeks of arriving (unless you can convince the NIFT Flt/cc that you need more time to get a house). If you still have to do IFT, you'll have all the time in the world to househunt.

A friend of mine has a great house just south of the base on 1604. There are some great new places off-base to buy a house.

[R-Dub]

Originally posted by toastychicken:

There are some great new places off-base to buy a house.

Is the real estate market really that good in San Antonio to buy a house and turn it in one year? Is that pretty typical for dudes at Randolph?

[Guest elroy]

I would say no. There are few guys that did, but they were casual here or from the area. I just went straight for base housing. Its really not that bad, probably the best that an 0-1 is gonna get anywhere.

[drewpey]

those houses south of base though, will easily resell to anyone later on really. Wish I could have gotten offbase to do so...a nice developing neighborhood.

If you have done IFS/have PPL then you should come down early and try to get it before classing up. If not, you will basically have time to house hunt anyways, as you get your first 10 days free in lodging once you report...after that you have to pay the $20 a night or whatever it is...

Someone in NIFT could help you out though if you know what your RNLT date is, they can tell you when the soonest class will be starting. I imagine in December though, the rush will be over, and you will be shoved into a class rather quickly.

[barney]

I will be IFS complete in a week-my RNLT date is 5 dec. class start date is 14 dec.

so if i understand correctly i can take the 7 days to PCS show up on say the 29 of november and report in. then they would give me 8 days to find a place. that would bring me to the 5 of dec. so would training start on the 5 or not until the 14?

el roy-

you say living onbase is not that bad. i have a wife, so what kinda options do you think would be our best. pros/cons to being on base. training is only 10 mos. right?

thanks

[drewpey]

if you are IFS complete and awaiting your class start date, you will show up for about an hour a day, start working on a checklist to make inprocessing easier. On top of that and PT in the morning a few times a week, you pretty much have the rest of the day to keep yourself out of trouble.

A lot of the people that showed up looking for houses didn't get time off to go house hunt, mainly because they had plenty of time to do this after muster.

For your sake though, I would definately show up a bit early...you'll want to get settled in before class starts.

[Guest elroy]

I like housing on base. I have little/no complaints. Better than driving 10-30 mins to get to base just to sit in line for another 20. And if you really need to get away from base that bad (which is a common thought) you might consider a different career choice. It takes me 4 mins to get into my truck, drive really slow through housing, spill coffee on myself driving over the bumps, find a parking spot and walk into the building. Training is about 10 months. Plus casual before and/or after. Some guys end up staying here for up to a year afterwards (mind you they go to SERE and Little Rock for example but...) The first couple of months go slow, but by the time you get to Intermediate it starts to feel pretty downhill.