Real Estate Agents: How To Find Temporary Housing For Military Personnel

If you live in the same state as a well-known military training base, then you are probably inundated by calls from military personnel for temporary housing. As a real estate agent, you are expected to have answers, and have listings that fit with each soldier's pay grade. This can present quite a challenge if you are new to this type of request, but there are ways to find housing for military clientele.

Ask the Military Base Directly

The military training center has barracks for most of its soldiers-in-training, but drill sergeants and officers typically enjoy living off-base. The training camp will have several properties just outside the base's fence and a few located a little farther away. They may or may not have properties available for the temporary housing of transfer soldiers, but this is a good place to start since the housing director on base will know more about with whom they have contractual real estate holdings.

Check out Real Estate Agencies Dedicated Solely to Military Families

Within a fifty-mile radius of some bases there are real estate agencies who have dedicated their entire business to the temporary housing of military families. These military-only agencies do not broadly advertise their offerings because they only want to house military personnel and military families. However, because you are a real estate agent, you will be able to access these properties and show them to your military clients. One such real estate agency, Altus Crash Pads, is found near a base in Oklahoma.

Comb Private Classifieds for Proprietors That Cater to the Military

Just as there are homes and apartments near a college campus that cater to and give preferential treatment to college kids as renters, so there are private property owners that cater to and give preferential treatment to military personnel near a training base or camp. These proprietors are less likely to use a real estate agency because they want to save money on advertising costs and save the soldiers who rent from them some money as well. Although you cannot list these apartments and homes on your own agency pages, you can log the information and provide it to soldiers who are looking for a place to stay.

Work With Soldiers Looking for Long-Term to Permanent Residences

In this case, you might be able to sell a soldier on apartment or loft ownership. It is less expensive for him or her than buying a house outright, but still has all the benefits of home ownership and none of the drawbacks of paying rent to a landlord. If he or she knows that his or her post is going to last but he or she will eventually transfer, then buying and owning an apartment or loft is an excellent choice in the non-military sector of the real estate business.