gds.1971,determined by the average rent on the local economy, is this the case here in Japan?

Question

We the taxpayers are not paying for average rents. The average rent here is not what the people are charging for military people. Average nice place, Japanese size about $1200.00 a month USD. The military people are renting american size places that go for anywhere from $2000.00 to $4,000.00 a month. One of the reasons, a lot of these rentals are on beach front properties that get $4000.00 a month with american size and american appliances. The places have to have inspections and have to meet codes, american size, american toilets, refrigerators and so on. So if what you say is fact. Than as I suggest, we the taxpayers are getting taken for a ride. Overseas duty gets more pay and other things as well. If you are overseas you get extended leave to visit home, or you used to. There is way too much money being spent all of the world for this and it is a lot more then the $250 million you stated being spent on some airport. Thats my point of the post, accountabilty by the government.

Answer 1

That sounds about right. Local landlords know how much BAH a person is getting and that is what they charge.
We were in Portugal with NATO I asked the realtor showing us houses..how much? She told me however much we got for BAH.
It didn't matter how much bigger one was than the other, or how much nicer one was than the other.

They were all the same price...our BAH.
It's not fair to us and it is not fair to the people who live in the area because it drives up rent for everyone.

As far as the inspections. The government makes sure their people do not get themselves in a bad situation. The same reason why units have formations to check and see if everyone with a car has insurance...and it's partly because alot of young military don't know any better.

We are in Hawaii now and our BAH is $2400 a month. The base housing we were offered was AWFUL! We went off post and found a 3 bedroom townhouse for $2100. Two of the bedrooms are tiny, there are no a/c units and no dishwasher. We almost had to get a storage unit for some of our stuff because the place is so small.

Money just doesn't t go very far in some places.

Answer 2

no, you don't get extened leave for anything, only between duty stations if you extend your overseas tour.

and yes, they have to meet american codes because why would the gov put americans in a dangerous built house? it should be at least up to american codes if the government is sponsoring someone to live in it.

and not every place has it, when i was in greece it did, when i was in london it didn't.

if you do some reasearch on your own, you will see that it is way cheaper for the gov to pay for housing off base than to build and maintain onbase housing.

and what, i am living out of the country and suppsoe to live like a bum? its not like i have a choice to buy a house when overseas or anything or invest my money in property.

i am stuck renting, that is a loss to me in the future. and i have no oportunity to invest in property overseas also.

plus heck, my wife was held up because of visa reasons for 6 months before she could even live with me in the UK.

seems like tonite you got a vengence against the military, try joining and just see how great we all have it.

Answer 3

There is a ceiling on OHA. As an O1e in Japan, our OHA was 190,000 Yen(aprox. $1800/month at that time). That was the max amount they would have given us for rent. If we chose to find a place more than that, we would have paid out of pocket. All but 2 of the places we looked at were at or below our OHA. BUT.. most of them were far smaller than what Americans are used to. We couldn't find anything much bigger than 1,000 sq. ft out in town, but we got a Tower apt on base that was darn near twice that.

The military provides what IT considers adequate housing to all its personnel. The plain fact is, the Typical Japanese home falls short of that standard. COLA is given to help offset the costs of living OCONUS. That is one of the reasons why they are building more on base housing across theboiard as well as tighteningthe rules for Family members being allowed to join the SM. For the Navy, COM7THFLT has put a limit on the number of dependants that are allowed, in part to help ease the congestion. now families with more than 2 children will have a harder time getting command sponsorship. Smaller familes need less space, therefore are able to find housing cheaper.