On Base or Off Base?

House hunting here is full of new rules and experiences. Without the guidance of our base housing office, we would 1- have a hard time affording local housing and 2- have no idea what questions to ask when we were looking at potential places to live. Here’s what we have learned:

Our first concern when arriving in Stuttgart was whether or not we’d even be allowed to live off post. The literature we received back in VA stated that the housing office could insist that we live on base. On base housing consists of basically six apartments in three story buildings. They call them stairwells. The only stand alone houses are Flag Housing – and we’re never gonna qualify to live there! There are advantages to stairwells: They all have US and European power outlets. They are rent free and utility cost free – they come with cable, phone, power, etc… And have an English speaking office that you call when you are in need of a repairman, etc. The downside is that there are actually 4 bases in the USAG Stuttgart area –and the base they assign you to live is almost never the base where you work. Your neighbors are all Americans (which is nice for making friends, but not exactly the experience of living in Germany for some of us).

Hubbz and I arrived hoping to embrace the full “living in Germany” experience, and to live off post – but we had friends who arrived just 2 months before us, that were told that they had no choice and were assigned base housing. There were too many vacancies on post, and, frankly it’s waaaayyyy cheaper for the US government to house us on post than help us live in town. They were disappointed, but ultimately this is a good outcome for their family. They have young children and the husband will be deployed frequently from Stuttgart, so the support they will have from military neighbors and the ease of moving in immediately is/was valuable. They got a newly renovated place, which Hubbz and I saw last weekend. It is really nice and spacious and they have made a lovely home there!

By the time Hubbz and I arrived in Stuttgart, the rules had changed. The base has changed the rule to instruct all families with soldiers with ranks E7 and below to live on base. So, right now, we couldn’t live on base if we wanted to!! (which we don’t). So, now we’re in the midst of navigating German real estate. We’ve learned a lot so far – but have yet to find our holy grail of apartments.