Housing: Off-Base Housing - Military Housing - Military Times

Housing: Off-Base Housing

Service members arriving at a new duty station must report to the local housing office for referral assistance before they rent or buy housing off base.

The housing office serves as a liaison between the military community and civilian real estate agents and landlords. Defense Department policy calls for the services to look to the local community first to provide required adequate housing and provide aggressive housing referral services in base housing offices.

In many cases, installations have information about housing available in the civilian community on their Web sites. Also, base legal offices often are willing to review real estate contracts before members sign them.

Defense officials have established the Automated Housing Referral Network across the U.S. to provide a central Web site for information about available houses for rent. AHRN is accessible from any computer, but only to military members, Defense Department civilians, housing offices and registered property managers and landlords.

At press time, AHRN was available in the continental U.S. and at 17 Air Force locations in Europe. By the end of December 2010, it will be deployed at another 16 Army locations in Europe and four Air Force locations in the Pacific.

Contact: www.ahrn.com.