View Full Version : defence force housing?!?!
hi everyone, :wave:
My hubby is thinking about joining one of the forces, we are just in talking stage,
We, at the moment own our own home, I love it and dont want to move,
But if he does join, and we have to move to annother state, ( myself and 2 kids)
What happens with living arrangements?
do we have to find our own place? or do they supply a rental or something?
I honestly have no idea, I am asking this question for when he is in initial training and after.
Any advice?
I'm not to sure what happens for initial training, I think you just stay where you are now.
Then when he gets his first posting, you will get a house. There have diffter rent bands for diffter Ranks. For a rent band 1 house we pay $326 a F/N
(Thats what a Sgt pays at this time from next year, every one in rent band 1 pays that. well maybe a little more by then).
If Dha have no house left or none in that Area that your posted to, you fine your own house to rent then they pay so much of the rent and you pay the rest. Hope that helps .
Thanks that does help, Im not sure if I am cut out for all the moving though.
And I dont want to give up my house as we are just about finished renos.
but we will have to see what hubby comes up with.
Thanks.
Can't you rent your house out? That way you don't have to sale it.
Where is he up to in joining?
He is seriously thinking of joining and asked me to seriously think about it, he has not joined yet.
Yeah I could rent my home out, but I want to live in it. we have had it for 3 years now and have saved and done all renos on our own.
I love living here,
I will have to read over all the papers we got from them 1st.
I feel like a sookie la la.:o
It would be a hard one. I've sent you a PM.
If your DH gets in .. that'll be great.
DHA (Defence Housing Australia) don't have the greatest reputation with defence spouses but we haven't had such a bad run with them.
When you get your posting, you will fill in necessary paperwork and will be provided access to Homefind which is a website. You'll get to look online at houses available a few weeks prior or after your removal date. There aren't always houses to look at and sometimes you might move without a house and be in temp accommodation and hope a house becomes available. If not you then look for a rental house and go RA.
My friends I know who own houses end up renting them out. If you own a house within a certain distance of the base, you have to live in it but if it's outside the radius then you can get DHA housing (so I believe).
There's so much to know about DHA etc
There are some defence families forums / msg boards so if you need to ask more questions, the ladies would be happy to oblige.
pennylane
17-03-2008, 07:20
good luck with making your desision.
My DH is re-entering the RAAF next month.And after his initial training DD and I will be moving to Wagga Wagga to be with him as thats where RAAF members live for a year to train.
For his initial training you will be expected to stay where you are currentlly living.They wont house you because theres no gaurantee your DH will pass the course (they have to pass basic training to continue through to become members) so they wont spend money on people until they are definately members of the defence force.
But you could move there and stay in a private rental if you wanted to but i wouldnt bother,especially if you wanted to go into defence housing after his training. and besides that he wont even be allowed off base for 4-6 weeks anyway so you would be alone in a strange town.And once he's allowed off base it will only be for weekends so its better just to stay where you are and then move after he's done basic training :yes:
Also dont stress too much about moving as they have people come and pack you,move you and unpack you again so that should take some stress off of you.
good luck
LivinOnAPrayer
21-03-2008, 08:06
What a great thread. DH is in final stages before basic training. Just waiting on a big wig to sign off on some medical issues. They have told DH he'll be going to kapooka (sp??) by May!
I was wondering about housing too. And all my questions seem to have been answered!! Its sooooo good we can chose the house we want, as we're probably going to be posted to townsville and theres a particular area i REALLY dont want to live in.
I love that they pack and move you too lol. thats the worst bit.
lexi11, yes you get to choose the house you want but that's only if there are houses available. I know it sounds exciting and it is but the choices aren't that great at times and what you see on homefind, dimensions are deceiving. You may not even have any to choose from or may have one and can wait until more come online.
My advice is .. if you see a house you and your partner really like, then lock it down because if you wait, someone else will snatch it up.
ie we saw one house online and locked it down. A few months later were told we couldn't have it as the person wasn't discharging (turns out both partners were in defence, one discharging, the other staying in). So it was back to square 1. They put another house on homefind and although it wasn't 3yrs old .. more like 10yo, didn't have a spa bath lol (very disappointing), wasn't brand new looking, didn't have a full garage, we decided to lock it down. We are pleased at this because we are in a lovely area and closer to the base. When we drove by the first house, we realised that was a good thing it didn't turn out in our favour. The houses are so close together and don't look very big. We are on a corner block, have heaps of room front and back and although I don't have a spa bath and a 3yo house, i'm totally happy.
LivinOnAPrayer
21-03-2008, 17:02
A spa bath!!! lol, wow, the defence force treat people well lol. That would be so nice. But i see what you mean. I am pretty excited, even just to move from where we are. Thats why DH is joining, so we can get out of here!!!(and for the health benifits as our DD is a 'sick kid', so thats a really huge push factor).
Did you do any research on the area you moved to? Im a bit worried we'll pick a dud neighbourhood lol. our luck.
Aparently we're entitled to be close to a hospital and have air con cause of DD's health, so at least we know we'll be comfortable
If you're DD is considered 'special needs' and you've done all the paperwork prior to relocating, you might get a bit more help and be close to a hospital and even have aircon although not all houses have aircon. Depends on the locality. Otherwise it'll be a hard push to get something suitable.
Re the spa bath, keep in mind DHA leases privately owned houses but also owns houses themselves. The house we are in and the one we would have got are also privately owned and leased by DHA.
Re reasearch, yeh i just google and check real estate in the localithy we will be in just to get an idea of house standards. Show the kids the school they will be going to.. google maps is awesome for that sort of stuff. Gives us some comfort.
and for the health benifits as our DD is a 'sick kid', so thats a really huge push factor).
Can ask what Health benifits?
AlirasMummy
21-03-2008, 20:24
My partner is in the Navy, and i'm sitting in temporary accomodation as I speak. They moved us from Syd to Cairns and we only had one choice of housing which we weren't shown until the day we got up here.
Luckily it's a very nice house 4 beds, air con, large yard etc so much better than Sydney.
The standard of housing is usually pretty good. In fact higher standards are being phased in over the next few years. And the cheap rent really helps! $130 a week, i'm not going to complain for that price!
LivinOnAPrayer
21-03-2008, 21:39
I know, how cheap is that!! Cant get that any where!
We mainly want the df health cover. We dont have health insurance, and ive heard df is so good. DD has had a few operations (next one in 13 days!!!) and has alot of development issues, and we live 900k from her childrens hospital so it'd be nice to have services locally.
We pay about $330 a fortnight which is still very good.
For the price you pay for rental you still get good housing IMO no matter what others say about it and there are alot of complaints lol.
Lexi with health cover only the serving member gets free medical and dental, his family doesn't but like I've mentioned previously you can apply for 'special needs' which then can maybe give more choice in housing close to a hospital. Not quite sure on the finer details but you need to do it prior to your posting.
if you are posted where u live u can stay in your house.
If he has to move somewhere else u can stay in your house and he can stay on the base of where ever he has to move to and he will be flowen up a couple of times a year.
The talk at the moment is the govt is looking at bringing back in the free family cover, which would be great, but who knows they change there minds alot...
We are in tsv atm and they dont have a peadiatric nephroligist so we have applied for our son to be special needs for posting reasons but in saying that when i spoke to dco qld health will actually pay for us to go to brisbane for the checkups as its there service that isnt available.. everyones circumstances are different though.
I must say the rental prices are awsome we couldnt servive in "civi" world atm but thats life, hope everyone gets what they are after xx
tootiredtosleep
25-03-2008, 20:55
Defence Housing is .. interesting .. the last 3 married quarters (defence houses) that we have lived in have been with other defence houses and not in any street directories... it's really hard having to explain that my street does exist, even though it's not written anywhere!
Basically its like renting privately, they are meant to do inspections, and take forever to fix things. We pay rent each fortnight and $7 for water. Gas, phone and electricity are not included (some people have asked me if they are??)
Most of our places have been nice, ive grown accustomed to ensuites, double garages and lots of cupboard space!
I know in a few of the major bases there will be an allocated GP for families to go to and even dental but how they work it I have no idea. It will only be a few bases .. like Townsville, Robertson Barracks in Darwin, and I think Kapooka or wherever there is a base down that way. So majority of families won't have the free service. I haven't heard about 'free medical for families' except for what i've mentioned.
As for DHA .. we've always been pretty happy although cupboard space / storage space is always lacking. Ensuites seem to be more of a standard now though.
Our house is that badly built that i know the contractors by name now and see them once a month to come fix up something else wrong with the house.
The house is only 4 years old , so far we have been flooded out more then once the bottom room and the garage,
The lounge room has a cracked pipe underneath it but the only way to get to it is going through the lounge room wall.
and it turns out that we were missing pipeing outside.
And i wont start with the electrictiy or the plumbing
so all i can say is grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr to defence housing.
We are in Brissie and our married quarter is also four years old and almost every month something else goes wrong. But after 10 years we're sort of used to it now.
:laughing:
Kelly
Speaking of Kapooka ;) Has anyone been in their married quarters recently? We just got the posting order to head there and I'm really interested to know what the MQ are like?
Kelly
kady1978
29-06-2008, 10:50
Speaking of Kapooka ;) Has anyone been in their married quarters recently? We just got the posting order to head there and I'm really interested to know what the MQ are like?
Kelly
LOL nup - all I've seen is the actual soldier training accommodation which sucks! However I have been told married quarters is good there, as is the child care etc.
porridge
29-06-2008, 21:41
this is a really good thread! DH is looking at joining RAN... just waiting on forms from his reserve company so he can send off his application. I'm really scared (and excited... but mostly scared). Does family get to move closer after the initial 4-6weeks training? or do we have to wait the 6 months until posted somewhere?
When my bro joined the RAN he had 11wks of training but that was like over 15yrs ago lol. Maybe it's shortened I'm not sure but you don't get to go down there unless for a weekend or the passing out parade.
You won't do a move until he gets a posting and the LSP comes out (List of Sailors Postings).
What area does your DH want to specialise in ?
porridge
03-07-2008, 13:20
KJEmum - he wants to be a seaman officer... on patrol boats? I don't know much about it though :o no one in our family has really been involved in defence, except at a reserve level.
I feel a bit clueless... are there sites for families to have a look at that have more info that's not just about training and joining?
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