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Military BAH rates increase or decrease? 2008 BAH rates now available!

The long awaited BAH rates are now available for 2008. Money

This is the time of year everyone is waiting to see if they will get more for housing. But dont worry, if your BAH went down, you dont get less for housing, that is locked unless you fall into a couple of circumstances. But if the rate went up you will get the higher amount now if you are still at the same duty station. If you are moving in 2008 you will get whatever the rate is for that new duty station.

Depending on where you are at in the country, the rates can jump by a few hundred dollars to only a few dollars.

BAH rates are determined by rental data not mortgage data. Rental rates can vary from 2% to 5% each year in some areas, to 5% to 10% in other areas.

For Colorado Springs military personnel, the 2008 BAH rates went up or stayed the same depending on your rank. The only year that they went down since 2000 was last year for 2007. This year they are back up to where they were at for 2006.

2008 w/Dependants Chart

*Rank*	*2007 Rates*	*2008 Rates*
E01	908	909
E02	908	909
E03	908	909
E04	908	909
E05	1046	1013
E06	1165	1165
E07	1231	1231
E08	1303	1303
E09	1381	1398
W01	1166	1166
W02	1260	1260
W03	1348	1348
W04	1393	1418
W05	1445	1498
O01E	1245	1245
O02E	1335	1335
O013E	1401	1430
O01	1060	1030
O02	1162	1162
O03	1345	1345
O04	1467	1532
O05	1552	1663
O06	1565	1677
O07	1583	1696

For more information:

Basic Housing Allowance : Frequently Asked Questions

Posted by Kristen Senn * Colorado Springs Military Relocation * on 12/11/2007 01:09 PM

Comments (5)

bah, colorado springs military, military relocation

This post has been included in Colorado Information El Paso County, CO Information Colorado Springs, CO Information

5 Comments on Military BAH rates increase or decrease? 2008 BAH rates now available!

DEC

2007

Thanks for sharing. I don't think our military is compensated enough for what they do.

Interesting. I didn't know that it was based purely on rental rates. That makes sense then.

It's been a while since I've worked with active duty military... Do they still have VHA or is that a thing of the past? I looked, thinking it might be on the same site as the link you provided, but I didn't see it.

DEC

2007

Dena - Thanks, we dont think we are either!

Mariana - Yep, it a complicated complication but purely based on median rental prices. As you know, sometimes, the mortgage payment can be close and other times not close at all. Also, BAH rates are only suppose to cover a portion of your home payments...something like 80%? Not necessary cover all that is part of renting or buying i.e. rental insurance, utilities.Thats not listed on the FAQ but I did read something about that once. When you live on post/base, you normally pay nothing for utilities and nothing for rent (although with the privatized housing you do now...but it is supposed to equal the BAH rate for that area). Its normally a much better financial deal to live on post/base. Although in DC are rent was $500 less than our BAH and with utilities we came out actually ahead each month. However, we were lucky to find something so cheap....$2100 a month!

Margaret - I asked my husband about VHA and he said he said it used to be the way they calculated the housing allowance...more based on neighborhood not where you were stationed, thus if you chose to live in a more upper class area...you could get more. He said they had a hard time with keeping up with it all and changed the way they came up with the BAH. Here is a blurb about it from the FAQ:

"More importantly, BAH eliminates the so-called, “DeathSpiral." Under VHA/BAQ, members who scrimped on housing, and then reported low housing expenditures, only reinforced, or drove down, already low allowances. This mainly occurred among the most junior members, whose limited disposable (after-tax) income may have forced them to accept inadequate housing and then report low costs on the member survey. The Services also recognized that the VHA/BAQ created a similar, but opposite, bias for some senior officer/enlisted grades. Under the old system, if a member opted to use a greater share of disposable income for bigger or more expensive housing, relative to the local market, and reported this expenditure on the VHA survey, it tended to "inflate" reported costs and thus allowances. BAH eliminates both these low-end and high-end biases."

Thank you, Kristen. I was just putting together a post about Ft. Meade, and I didn't know if that was still a factor, since I couldn't find it online.

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