Military Housing, rentals, home buying, real estate, VA home loans - Marine Corps Times

Living within the allowance

SAN DIEGO — Southern California’s sun-splashed, sandy beaches attract sun worshippers and surfers — Navy Lt. Jared Gianquinto included.

While hundreds of apartments and rental bungalows dot the beach communities, Gianquinto ruled out rentals when he decided to set permanent roots in San Diego in 2005.

“The housing allowance I was getting, I didn’t want to spend on rent,” said Gianquinto, 30, a dental officer assigned to the aircraft carrier Ronald Reagan.

“I originally wanted to live at the beach,” he said. But beach living is costly, and price tags of more than half a million dollars send monthly mortgage payments well north of $3,000.

His wish list wasn’t elaborate: “Something where I would be able to get my surfboards in and out,” the avid longboarder said.

He chose a one-bedroom, 650-square-foot condo near downtown and a 15-minute drive to the Reagan’s home port at Naval Air Station North Island in Coronado. His Golden Hill neighborhood has two side benefits: a parking space and room for his surfboards.

Gianquinto’s condo is smaller than the two-bedroom townhouse unit that the Basic Allowance for Housing is supposed to cover for single O-3s. “It’s not big, but it’s adequate for my needs,” he said.

His monthly allowance — now $1,940 — helped steer him to properties. “I wanted to live within my BAH,” he said.

His allowance fully covers not only his rent, but also his utilities and homeowner’s association fees.

The San Diego BAH rose in January from last year’s rate of $1,809. Such annual increases are just added bennies to Gianquinto.

“My budget is so fixed right now that any extra goes into savings,” he said.

A proposal from a Pentagon study group would raise the monthly BAH for single service members to 95 percent of the rate for personnel in the same paygrade with families. That would mean a monthly increase of $169 for singles in San Diego — which would only be more gravy for Gianquinto.

Not that he’s complaining now. The allowance “can always be better,” he said, but “it allows people to live decently.”