Grandma Mary, Dean, and Family,

Thanks for supporting your Military Family. I am hopeful more families will encourage their extended families to respond in support of this issue. Please keep checking back...we will have important updates in the near future. Joe Gladden

Thanks for sharing your situation with us and thanks for serving. We are very aware of how difficult this is and certainly hope you get some relief in the near future.

I would like to address a couple of points you mentioned. You are correct that a number of other Federal agencies to have "protection" for their employees. As Realtors we have worked with them and are very aware of the benefits. However, I am certain that there are no such benefits for military officers and can assure you that there is a substantial number of officers in predicaments similar to yours as we work with a number of them as well. We believe that all "career" Military Families should have benefits similar to the other Federal agencies for the reasons you specifically mentioned. We believe that such a program will be some time in coming...it won't happen over night and it won't happen without folks like you and and other Military Families becoming very active in the political process. One such way to do that is documenting your situation on this forum which we will use to hammer the point home with members of Congress and other interested entities. In the near future we hope to have a link on this site to every Congressional member's email, but in the mean time, you should call /email / write your home state's Federal Representative and Senators and encourage your friends and family members to do the same.

Thank you again for your comments and concern. I ask that you stay tuned to this forum for updates and send your friends here as well.

Joe Gladden, Managing Partner VR SAM

We are also in the same situation. We put our house on the market 7 months ago, as soon as we got orders, because we knew the market was bad. We are on our second realtor, have dropped the asking price over $10,000, and we have 4 weeks until we have to move. We are beyond desperate at this point.

Hi Colleen, I know how you feel, if you cant sell then you need to get a property manager involved to possibly rent/lease your home until you are able to sell it. I know it is difficult, we had a renter in our place in less than a month. In our situation it is less than our mortgage but relieves some of the financial burden we are faced with right now.
So if you absolutly are not going to sell before you leave get a property manager involved and it will save you from taking on all the cost of your mortgage. You can usually find one that will help you for around half to a months rent as payment and then like 10-15% of the monthly rent to keep up with the property and tennants and send the rent/lease from the tennants to you every month. They are local and its more difficult to depend on a renter if you are out of the area to deal with, especially if a repair comes up, the manager handles all of that, for a fee of course:}
It is helping us a little but sooner or later we wont even be able to keep up with ours and hopefully something will come out that can help us in our situation, or sell the house would be great. Wish you the best in your circumstances.
vshocker

Military Families deserve better than what there offerd. The stress that they are put through by orders to relocate and not help, but will help other goverment families that are not in harms way. This truly is unacceptable and wrong.

Thanks Joe for offering this Forum.


Grandpa Jack

Grandpa Jack,
Thanks for your comments, and thank you for serving! We will keep plugging away until we are heard! Joe

Okay, it's me again! I have read all your little articles about selling your house in a soft market.
We ended up dropping the price of our house by $10,000.00 and offered to pay closing costs out of our income taxes. We are in a huge financial hardship as we are going to have to pay to sell our house. Still haven't sold it. So... so... so.. rolleyes sad! We were actually hoping to get money from the sale to put into our savings. I can't believe that the service members and family members of the service members are put at such a disadvantage that we would have to use the money we get back from the IRS to help us "GIVE" our house away! I never actually thought I would be paying someone to buy the house that I worked so very hard for. It's very frustrating! It makes me want to cry….. because we have put over $15,000 dollars into this house when we could have just rented and put all this money into a savings account.

This is Joe responding to "4mykidslove." I apologize for the slow response but wanted to offer our encouragement on your difficult circumstances and to let you know that despite the slow progress, and long road ahead, we are working many avenues to get relief. Realistically, it will be a long haul.

We are constantly pinging on a number of military friendly media types, trade associations, military friendly non profit organizations and legislative folks.

I am hopeful that in the near future we will have an organized on line petition effort as well as an automated means of having everyone contact their elected officials through a mass email effort.

In the mean time, the most effective "bullet" we have is getting folks to encourage their friends, fellow military associates, family, and anyone who "gets this" very simple, obvious, issue to comment on this forum.

Hang in there. Don't give up hope.
Joe

Well...any letters to governement officials are met with the standard "thanks for your support" garbage and have not addressed this issue at all...

Do you really think they care Joe, I certainly don't!!! We can't even get the upper chain of command to pay attention.

Our BAH has been lowered to reflect the new duty station while the family still lives and pays for the home in the old duty station...that is something that could be corrected very quickly but do you see anyone doing anything...no!!!

Government officials are too busy helping out the banks and irresponsible borrowers to worry about keeping military families together or going under in this mess.

As you can tell, I'm sure, I am over it...security clearance be D*&^d...it seems the only option is to walk away and let the chips fall where they may.

Response to "hopeless." Do they care? Good question and I fully understand your frustration and anger. Fact is, we have to make them care! We are trying to make an impact with limited resources. We are attempting to start a grass roots effort and need you to send this concept to every like minded person you know for comment. The more comments we generate on this site, the better the chance of makeing an impact.

To update everyone on what our plan is, we are trying to build an on line petition that can be emailed to all members of Congress. It takes us time to get this together and appreciate your patience. Please check back for udpates on this. Joe

Joe, I very much appreciate your response however, I would like for you to know that I have been extremely proactive on this situation. I have contacted countless lawmakers, written numerous e-mails and provided info to every active duty or retired military member I know. I won't even get into the responses from certain government officials again...what a waste of time!!! What really got me was the response from all of the active duty personnel I spoke with. The standard answer is that "it's policy and there is nothing we can do about it."

I did a little research and found an article dealing with the BAH issue, now in and of itself was really no help but the NAV message did contain a contact name so we called and spoke to a commander and explained the situation. He essentially said nothing was being done about the BAH situation because no-one was complaining about it...I know why from my own situation...my DH went to his CMC and got the standard "it's policy" answer and he stopped there. I am going to include links to the article and the NAV message...maybe word will get out and people will at least start asking the questions that will raise awareness that this BAH issue is very real for many military families.

http://www.npc.navy.mil/NR/rdonlyres/5DDDD35C-7101-4690-84A4-3599C5F1E1BD/0/NAV08035.txt

http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/02/navy_bah_rules_080206w/

Am I angry and frustratedhuh No doubt about it but less so at the actual situation and MORE SO at the government entities that could care less and the mortgage holders and banks that care even less than that.

Have you ever heard the saying, "If the Army wanted you to have a family, they would have issued you one"? I am about sick over this situation. We cannot sell our home and because of that Daddy has to leave us until we can? Our 2 young boys have to go without seeing Daddy until we can sell our house? It doesn't make sense. Not only that, but we face the possibility of Daddy deploying to defend the country in Iraq...AGAIN. Shouldn't we be able to spend as much time together until that happens? We can't enjoy our time that we have as a family because we selected to purchase a home in America?!

Our boys are 4 and 1 and it tears my heart out that because we can't sell our house (it sounds so petty when you put it in perspective) Daddy has to move away without them.

I have experienced this three times in 20 years and we have just gone into contract on our fourth home in an area where there is not a strong military presence. Army being stationed on an Air Force Base.

I am going to say that you need to educate yourself. We received orders 361 days after arriving at our last duty station, 361 days after closing on our house. Yes we sold it, sold it in 18 days and did not lose money, because we sold it ourselves. I listed it anywhere I could. There is another free source, www.ahrn.com I put it in every paper in the area with a color picture, I showed it to anyone that wanted to see it and it was open house every day. If you are in a bad position you have to be proactive in your resources.

Now that being said, I fear that us buying another home may put us in a bad situation, but we may just retire when this assignment is over, it is three years, guaranteed and we put money down on it, so if we were to lose money on it, it would be painful, but not so painful that we would not be able to move on. Issues we faced moving was there was lliterally nothing there to rent.....no housing available to us at our rank. So you do what you have to for your family. I have three children, teens and one 10. We needed a house large enough for them, so again you do what you have to.

But this program has always needed to be in place, we have scrambled each time to sell our homes, unable to hire realtors because we too would have had to bring money to the table, money that was too precious to give, but if you find yourself in the position of having to sell, DO WHAT YOU HAVE TO IN ORDER TO PROTECT YOURSELF, and find a way to sell it, positive attitudes and proactive movements will be more affective then total negativity.

Im glad you were able to sell your homes but some of us just are not able. I have had my home on the market, listed it everywhere, even advert. I will pay you to buy my house with no offers. 2yrs past now and I still have no offers, when your property value drops out from under you there isnt much you can do. now I am trying to negotiate to either sign my home back to the bank, sale for less than the loan, or try refinancing or get lower payments that we might be able to cover our mortgage. My house value was around 230K-300K and now it dropped below 200K in value the mid of 2007. And the bank that I did the loan was suppose to refi me in nov.07 (credit builder loan) now couldnt because of this. So I dont know if I will have the house next month depending on what I can work out with the bank, country wide! We rented the house thinking to help relieve some of the financial stress but it has been a night mare to say the least and now were in the middle of eviction so things are just rosy. I have a large family and you cant rent a home the size I need so we have to buy, so we are put against the wall when it comes to this situation and nothing we can do but wait to see how it all plays out. Anybody interested in buying a home in florida...lol

We were stationed at Pope AFB and got orders, because of the BRAC. We have been down in Charleston for 8 months, have gotten a couple of phone calls regarding our house but nothing. Luckily I was actually able to find a job this time, that works with my husbands stupid schedule, that changes all the time. If I wouldnt have been able to work, we would have barely had enough cash for groceries. With the housing market taking a huge dump there is no hope in selling it. I've looked into HAP and they looked at the Pope area but it wasnt approved for assistance. The sad thing is, is that I know of a couple families who were stuck in the same situation. One of my husbands friends came down @the same time and his family is still stuck up in NC.

Similar situation in my house. Husband got put on assignment in February 08. Only way he knew that was he researched it himself, not notified by anyone else. While awaiting orders to arrive we have been with 2 different realtors starting at the end of February. First realtor was a waste. Was listed with them for a month and a half and only had one scheduled open house that did not happen. Cancelled and went with our current agent. Have had one open house since listing with her and no luck on finding a buyer yet. Husband finally received orders two weeks ago and has to report in three and a half weeks. We have options that have been made to us but they all include taking a huge loss on the house (Cannot do that!!!). As we have planned now, husband will report to the new unit and apply for geo-bachelorhood so that we aren't drug into debt trying to afford this house and a place for him to live there. As is, when he reports, we will be losing out on some BAH because the new post is at a lower rate for his pay grade. And I can not work out of the home due to the fact that summer is coming and our four children will be at home. WHAT CAN WE DO?

DSD, I would love to know more about "Geo-Bachelorhood", as that sounds like what we may be forced into doing.

I am a realtor in Houston, and my husband has orders due to his office being closed here. He is the flight chief for the medical recruiters here in Houston (the medical mecca of the country), yet they have chosen to close the office to save money. They will instead send recruiters from San Antonio TDY to recruit out of the Houston area...military intelligence is sometimes an oxymorom.

Although we are fortunate to be in one of the hotter housing markets, we are still struggling to sell our house. Ours is 22 years old, and we have hundreds of new houses being built around us. It just seems crazy to me that I will have to take money to closing in order to sell, when we were really hoping to make some money for the next move.

I work with clients all of the time that have "relocation packages" that provide them with a buyout of their present house AND help with closing costs on their new house. Here we are trying to bear this burden on our own, and we're coming to terms with the fact that daddy might have to move without us. There is a staggering difference between the BAH that we earn here in Houston, and what he'll be earning. It's about a $450/mo difference. So not only will we be earning less when he moves WITHOUT us, but we'll have to fork out money in order for him to live somewhere too! We have two sons, ages 13 and 8. The 13 year-old will be starting high school in the fall, and it sure would be nice for him to be able to start at our new assignment.

We've considered the whole renting thing. There are two problems with this:

1) We have a VA loan which states that your house has to be YOUR primary residence.

2) Since I am a realtor, I've seen numerous times what a headache being a landlord can be.

We've decided that we don't want to refinance just so that we can rent the house to someone who might take really poor care of it and cost us more money.

Our military, defenders of our country, deserve a little support when faced with these issues. Other employers are more than generous with relocation...why not our government for us?

Just to put my 2 cents in! I was up for orders in April of 07. I put my house on the market in the beginning of March 2007 and still havent sold it after a year and 3 months and 3 realtors! Not to mention we dropped the price to make out even with no profit at the end of March. I don't know what to do. I am on recruiting duty half the country away. I'm 24, married, (no kids, because we are not stable enough now with the situation) and 2 dogs. I am living at home again with mommy and my husband and dogs. She is at wits end with the whole situation. We will have to start looking for a place to rent soon with no money to rent with! We've tried getting renters for our house (anything helps) with no luck. If we don't sell our home SOON we will be living on the streets I'm afraid. I've called so many people, talked to my COC and nobody has any answers. I will take the advise on here and write my congressman...until then our fingers are crossed.

My name is Melanie House and I am the widow of John D. House, KIA 1/26/05. I am a Southern California homeowner and I am definitely struggling. After my husband was killed, I bought a 3 bedroom townhouse in Simi Valley for my son, James, and I (he is 3 and 1/2 now but was just one month old when his father was killed). My family, friends and in-laws all reside in Simi Valley. When I bought my place in 2005 the market was decent as well as my mortgage. I refinanced 2 years ago for a better rate. Now I am at the point of a huge jump in rates and my negative amortization loan being over. My mortgage just went up $1,500 last month (making it over $2,500) and it has been a huge hardship. Especially now with the market the way it is, my house is worth less than I owe on it. I would appreciate any information if there is anything out there for help.

For everyone who is participating in this discussion...we realize that a fix to this very bad situation is slow. However, we have now been contacted by three news media organizations who intend to write articles on the very high rate of foreclosures among Military Families! My guess is that there many more who are beginning to recognize this "train wreck." We believe, and are very hopeful, that once the media gets engaged, other Military Families, the general public, and FINALLY the elected officials will become involved. Now is the time to call / write your Congressmen / Senators. Tell your friends / family to document their feelings on this forum. Thanks, and hang in there!

We are going to begin monthly updates on our efforts via our VR SAM e-newsletter. If you would like to sign up, please see the sign up tab on the left of this forum.

Especially on Indpendence Day, we at VR SAM want to thank you and your families for your service and sacrifices! We will keep working to better your benefits! Joe