Best Strategy To Maximize Upcoming Military Moves

[Ryan Silvis]

Long-ish post, but thank you for those who take the time to read it and share their thoughts! 

I'm currently Active Duty and stationed in the National Capital Region. I'll be leaving Active Duty in July of 2024, joining the Florida National Guard the next day, then in August 2024 I'll be in flight school in Alabama. From February to May I have the opportunity to do an internship in Jacksonville, FL while still on Active Duty. I currently have two homes, one in TN (100k of equity at 2.25%) and one in VA (25k of equity at 3.65%). I also have roughly 150k in a retirement account (separate from my 401k) that I can re-purpose to real estate if the numbers make sense. VA loan is no longer an option because the first two houses soaked up that allotment, so I'll be looking at conventional or FHA from here. I do have 800+ credit score, so the hope is that I'll qualify for a pretty friendly mortgage rate (as friendly as they can be in late 2023/early 2024 anyway).

I'm trying to decide what overall strategy makes the most sense for me right now. I would like to expand my portfolio as much as possible, but obviously don't want to buy just for the sake of buying. At the end of the day, the one place I know I want to buy is in Jacksonville following flight school. I'll be moving there for the long haul and certainly don't want to rent long-term. The decisions I have right now are:

Do I look at buying something in Jacksonville in February? It would only cost me about $3k for 3 months of a medium term rental, so that's not much of a factor here. Due to my short time there, I don't think buying a BRRR or fix and flip would make sense here. Possibly a duplex would make sense though, what do you guys think? I'm not super attached to the idea of buying at this time, but I wanted to hear other people's thoughts.

Do I look to buy in Alabama in August? If so, what should I target? The rental market around that base is excellent due to flight school being there, so that's a major plus. I'll be there for roughly a year so targeting a BRRR seems like a viable solution here, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. Right now there is essentially zero multi-family available, so that appears to be off the table unless something changes. I'm also willing to not buy here if the math doesn't add up, but I would always prefer to not rent if I can avoid it. The goal right now would be to hold this property for a long period of time and take advantage of a healthy rental market.

Thank you in advance for sharing your thoughts!