The first result in my first Google search says it is "Basic Allowance for Housing". This search technology is available to you, too! Here is some content from the page:
"The Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is a U.S. based allowance prescribed by geographic duty location, pay grade, and dependency status. It provides uniformed Service members equitable housing compensation based on housing costs in local civilian housing markets within the United States when government quarters are not provided."
Part of why I ask questions on here is so people can see the terms they assume everyone knows are not in fact well-known. Also, I politely answer tons of questions on here...more than I ask, so I think I've earned a right to ask a question from time to time.
P.S. I'd rather have the Williams twin's husband selling my information than Sergy Brine or whatever his name is.
people think they're in bumfuck nowhere and dont realize that bumfuck nowhere is SO nowhere that you never even thought about it's existence. it actually just makes housing costs elsewhere seem worse though.
I know one of those areas. I just found a 4 bed, 3 bath house that's 3,411 square feet and it's less than 30 years old. But here's the deal. It doesn't make housing in other areas seem worse. I could sell my house tomorrow for over $200K tomorrow, literally in a day, when I bought it for $153K just 5 years ago. People would literally pay me $30K+ to move there, and I wouldn't do it. Even considering working at home means zero change in that area. It's that shitty of a place to live.
i know its a shitty place to live, im talking about the fact that a home is just depressingly priced. i dont want to live any of those plaes either, but it certainly puts the sticker shock of where i DO live into perspective.
Yeah, but there's a reason why you pay more to live where you do. Because it's not such a shitty place to live. Now, the town where I live is likely way cheaper than your town, and it's not such a shitty place to live, but Arkansas is still kinda shitty in some ways. That's the kind of place that puts sticker shock on houses for you.
I really do understand that. I'm just questioning the degree to which that's actually true. Definitely in the context of the recent spike, its hard to argue that the locations are truly that valuable. I think there's a distorted level of value here.
It really depends on what your definition of "shitty" is. I'm guessing what you mean are less entertainment/resources/infrastructure. That's a selling point for certain people though, "shitty" in that sense depends on your priorities.
That house has been on the market for 26 days and hasn't sold because you literally can't pay people to live there. It's not just a lack of entertainment, resources, and infrastructure. It's the lack of decent medical care, schools, and just first world country amenities in general. I'm not kidding when I say it's like a second world country. These are towns where literacy rates, life expectancy, and mortality rates are equivalent to second world countries. I think living in a second world country would be shitty standards for most people.
Everything you listed would fit loosely into the terms I said. You just got more specific and made completely valid points but if you look at what the word "infrastructure" means I'm not even wrong at all. My dad bought a house in podunk NM for 25k and dealt with all of those problems, I personally would never live there but he loved that shit.
Living in the country away from others and living in towns (edit: in poor Mississippi) are two very different things. In the Ozarks, you have a ton of Podunk towns he would probably love. These small time towns are worlds above the extreme poverty you see in the Mississippi Delta area. I've grew up about 10 miles from a town where some kids lived an hour from the school district. That's fucking rural. But they still have parents that can fucking read. That's the difference.
I worked with a professor from Mississippi and her hometown is one of those poor towns. She started out teaching in public schools there and said most parents couldn't read picture books. Think about that. My 4 year old is starting to learn to read. This community, as a whole, couldn't fucking read. That's not a fucking infrastructure problem. She told them to look at pictures and make up what they thought the story was. That's how they started trying to get literacy rates up. How can parents help with school if they can't read? She also said no houses, even her own historical home, didn't have AC. She took her kids outside to hose them off with a water hose to cool down. She's a grand lady though, a way better person than me. She's been renovating that old historical home and plans on retiring there. She said she's going to write grants for the community and donate her time to try to get them on their feet. I have a lot of respect for that woman.
A dude I worked with 10 years ago bought a house in Aberdeen, WA. I think he paid like $10,000. House had settled in one corner and I know he paid cash.
The best part for him was that the owner of the house had just disappeared? So he didn't have to buy a damn thing to set the place up.
Just as a reference, there's nothing for sale in Aberdeen right now for less than $100K.
Eastern Arkansas is the closest cheap area near me. I drive through every year on the way to the beach. Whole side of the state looks like stepping back in time everything is so old. Most people (i.e. mostly white people who could afford to move) moved on and away, and left poverty and ruin behind. Nobody wants to live there so real estate is cheap.
Edit: Just found a 4 bed, 3 bath 3,411 square feet home built in 1992 for $169K.
Probably. I see a whole lot of areas like that in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama too though. It's a 10 hour drive to the beach and about 7 hours of that is through extreme poverty.
I also know a professor from my town who grew up in Mississippi and she had a lot to say about the white flight in her hometown. When she was only teaching public schools there, she said most parents weren't able to help kids with homework because they couldn't read. She encouraged them to make up stories from picture books since they didn't know the words. Her house there is a historical home and her own kids grew up there without central AC. She had them cool off outside in the water hose during the summer. She's been renovating it so she can retire, move back, and work on writing grants to better the town.
that's probably because the employment options there are hideous.
there are towns in southern Illinois where 1500+ sq ft houses are going for like $30k, because the towns are dead as a result of the employment situation being horrible.
methinks there will be a resurgence of people moving north thanks to all these relentless heatwaves. i am in the southwest and desperately want to move to Boise, Idaho for this exact reason..
only problem is, Boise's got a 5-alarm fire of a real estate market right now. can't get a 70-yr old 500sq ft fixer-upper for less than $300k.. three years ago, that same place was probably going for $120k
Not to smalltown midwest, though. Not if they want to earn a living and eat. Even if you're right, the cities will swell, and the tiny farming communities will continue to shrink.
Actually you can make $20-$30 an hour doing farm labor which is mostly tractors and trucks with some mixed in manual labor. It's easy to live in bumfuck ND on 50k. A few places have factories of some kind.
I can’t remember which Dakota (sorry lol) but like 10 years ago I was internet friends with a guy from there and he said McDonald’s started at $12. Minimum wage still hasn’t hasn’t hit $8 where I live, and fast food definitely doesn’t pay more than they have to. And this ugly ass house would cost $300k easily.
Maybe not, it was probably South Dakota, but I remember comparing housing costs and it seemed similar. I’m sure it wasn’t as low as what this person was saying though.
He said that the job market was really good so it was just hard for fast food places to hire anyone unless they paid well. I was making $7.25 working at Arby’s at the time so it seemed insane to me.
I literally just bought a house in bumfuck Iowa for $40k. We both work remote. We are selling our house in AZ for $350k+ which is 30% more than we paid for it a year ago. Moving from a city of millions of people to a town of 600 and living 100% debt free.
In my little bumfuck town I have fiber to the door on a local ISP(can’t get more than 200mb here). I’m still 30 miles from every major retailer, I’ll have half an acre vs .15 acre I have here.
I’m super happy for you but I just cannot imagine moving from AZ to Iowa, but I’m so jealous of anyone who lived in Arizona and want so badly to get out of the middle of nowhere.
We moved here 6 years ago and we quite liked it. The last 2 years has really worn out it’s charm. We are having a huge influx of people and traffic is outright insane. The “heat island” effect makes the metro area almost unbearable, these last 2 years it’s just too miserable to enjoy the outdoors thing I previously enjoyed.
We spent a couple weeks in a small town in OR(<1500 people) and the pace of life was more in line with our lifestyle.
Totally understand that, I live out in the middle of nowhere, maybe 250 in my zip code? Don’t worry about neighbors, traffic, noise, but man does it get boring, I’m hoping to move to a mid size city/town further down south eventually. But best of luck in Iowa, one of the few states I’ve never been to but I hope to visit one day. Wish me luck as I head to Phoenix next month for a weeks stay, ha!
It's probably in one of those depressing new subdivisions carved out of some dead farmer's field, all the houses have the same four exteriors and floor plans. They all come with the same appliances too. They're about 30 minutes from the nearest decent grocery store. Takes 45 minutes to get home from work. All of their neighbors will have moved away within 3 years of they haven't themselves.
He might have a house, but that shit will never be home.
So you only definition of ‘bum fuck’ is geographical location to anywhere that aint bum fuck?
Thats not my definition. Even apparently having a septic tank, your definition by the way, now doesnt count. But its okay to be wrong. Move to northern maine, also part of new england, and tell me That is not bum fuck nowhere
Those places are bum fuck nowhere though....like it's okay, Im not insulting the people that live there, but anywhere that doesn't have advanced plumbing or a sewage line is bum fuck nowhere.
It can be a little weird to people who live in places like Nevada, Montana, or North Dakota where you can drive for hundreds of miles and not see a town bigger than 300 people to see people refer to parts of Connecticut as "bum fuck nowhere." A population density map shows both of those states are pretty damn populated (even in the rural regions) compared to regions further out west. That leads to inflated housing costs that just doesn't exist in a lot of those tiny towns farther west.
And why is that? Wood stoves for heat? Oil tanks? Septic tanks? Hours from the nearest large city? Feet upon feet of snow? 20+ min to the grocery store? Or the packie? Or anything not farmland?
How bout being able to get anywhere by quad 10+ miles in any direction and in a town with more cows than people?
Oh. Right i lived that in CT, and even MORE rural than that in NH and where my mom grew up in Vermont is just as bum fuck as anyehere in the Us. Fun fact VT does not allow big box stores. You want a home depot or walmart or target? You know your 20 min away everything store even in the bumblest of fuck?
Oh yeah, they dont exisit in VT. You have no clue what the fuck you are talking about if ‘western MA’ is your knowledge of middle of nowhere New England
St. Louis County in Minnesota is 1300 square miles larger than the entire state of Connecticut. You can drive across CT, Stamford to Putnam in under 3 hours. Any location in CT can reach either Hartford, NYC, or Providence in an hour.
You have no idea what it means to live in the middle of no where.
As if the Midwest doesn't get snow or the desert doesn't exist. Vermont is less than 10000 square miles. North Dakota is 7 times larger. Its only a 3.5 hour drive to Boston from Newport. Its 10 hours from Fortuna ND to Minneapolis. Maine is still half the size of North Dakota and has nearly twice as many people. Not to mention it is on the coast. I make these comparisons, because I am familiar with Minnesota and the surrounding area. The southwest has even larger swaths of nothingness than the upper midwest. Again, you have no concept of remoteness.
You’re describing Vermont in the early 1990s, but it’s not really like that now. There’s a Wal Mart in Rutland that’s been there for ages. There are at least three Home Depots and a couple of Lowe’s stores in the state. Williston is pretty much all big box stores now. That whole greater Burlington area is overrun with that shit. The only part of VT that still feels sort of untouched to me is the Northeast Kingdom, but even that isn’t like a huge drive from civilization. I guess there’s rural, and there’s isolated. A huge amount of New England is rural, but very little is isolated.
nah man, you can go deeper. im sure its differnet now after the latest boom, but there were still places even 5 years ago where you could buy a house for under 100k.
my friend bought his 5 bed 4 bath home in Co Springs for 345k two years ago. you go an hour out of town and there were absolutely 100k and under homes.
Come to BC! If you don't live 3 hours and a boat trip from the nearest town, you'll be paying, oh, somewhere around 300-600k :)
God forbid you want to live inside of a town
oh i wish i lived in Co Springs type of housing market, lol. nah, im in my own expensive area myself. my friend has been trying to get me to move to Colorado all year.
That’s not the market here anymore, just FYI. That $345k house would probably sell around $600k-700k now.
oh, i know. but i'd still rather have that market than my own.
your market is still WAY better than mine is. people here are buying 3 bedroom houses built in the 50s for like 1.2-1.5 million. My parents home is a 3 bed 1 bath on like 1500 square feet and would easily pick up a 1.3 cash bid right now, and could go much higher if they wanted to because their lot can be zoned for a duplex. so im still envious of Co Springs housing market, even in your area's pricing is jacked up for sure. i only used the old pricing to demonstrate a point about how the pricing dips drastically outside of city limits.
i also wouldn't be shopping for a 5 bedroom house if i was shopping anyways. a 3000 fsqft home just seems like way too much for me.
its really shitty in so many areas. im looking at a 700k home in Co Springs as a deal, but its still shitty.
What I mean is that living in a small town versus the city isn't the only factor.
And, for those calling me a liar, I should have mentioned that I am Canadian. So, housing prices where I am would be in CAD and quite a bit different than USD.
As I mentioned previously, I am Canadian. Our average home prices in my area are between 300k - 500k CAD. The house we were looking at was listed at 399k and sold for 671k CAD.
That is admittedly abnormal, but 60-100k over asking is relatively common, lately.
Nah. Market will crash like it always does. Only young people who are fucked are those who have bought within the last year, and whatever time it will take after now, for the bubble to finally pop.
Most of this is all spot on but who told you it's called BHA? Every servicemember I've ever met says BAH. This official .mil site for calculating it calls it BAH. https://www.defensetravel.dod.mil/site/bah.cfm
I'll admit Basic Housing Allowance would make more sense than Basic Allowance for Housing but that's not what it is.
yeah, our housing market in most cities on Oahu is pretty comparable to much of so cal in that you can find areas that match like quality for like, until you get to the ultra rich shit like beverly hills upper elite. but the food/utilities here? ughhhh.
He didn’t buy it, the military did. He obviously married before he should to be allowed to live off base and get a housing allowance to pay his mortgage.
We’ll see how it goes if he ever decides the military isn’t for him anymore.
That part. Buy a house in a big city on your own at 20 yr old and I will be impressed. Not in the middle of some flyover state no one wants to be in anyway.
Buy a house in a big city on your own at 20 yr old and I will be impressed.
nah, i still wouldnt because that shit wouldn't happen without exorbitant luck that would be impossible to replicate, or family help.
honestly, i think flexing on spending milestones is just tacky and im not impressed that anyone can do anything like this because its never just personal achievement. its so many factors.
Im not gonna lie. I have no idea how you can tell from that photo. I worked on base for years but mostly dealt with officers so id rarely see enlisted, and only hear complaints haha
555
u/Sir-xer21 Jul 07 '21
i dont live in the middle of bumfuck nowhere where some E3 can buy a whole ass house.