I was stationed at Pendleton for a number of years and have some insight that may be useful. The first way that the housing market is affecting military families is that most are entirely shut out of the market and cannot afford to buy a home here anymore. When I checked into the base in the late 90s many officers and quite a few middle to senior enlisted Marines owned homes. By 2003 homes were out of range for all but the most senior enlisted Marines with equity from prior purchases, and many junior officers that I knew decided not to buy because of high prices. Big mistake as prices boomed further – by 2005 prices were out of range for virtually all Marines regardless of rank.
These days military families checking into Pendleton do not even consider buying a home unless they have prior equity. This is not a huge chunk of the buyers out there. I have no idea what the stats say, but if I had to make a really uneduated guess I’d say that out of the 40,000 Marines at Pendleton, perhaps 300 would buy homes in any given year before 2003. Consider the whole county, including the Navy, and maybe the number was closer to 1,000 homes/year. Whatever it was, I bet it is now down by at least 90%.
Now, the cost of housing is different from the cost of living. The military provides housing pay and cost of living allowances and they are higher for Pendleton than other areas of the country. They are actually adjusted by zip code. It is still expensive here, but there is no reason a family who does not own a house should be suffering because of housing costs.
