There are myriad reasons why the rates are lower for a primary residence vs an investment property, but simply put, if the mess hits the fan, what property are you going to let go first, the one you're living in or the one that you rent? 

Hit the ground running as fast as possible!

@Macy Stevenson you’ll definitely get stationed where you’re needed especially given your AFSC, the people that are commenting are correct that you won’t be able to move off base until you hit a certain rank until then you can continue to do research on possible locations you can go and that the real estate market is like at those locations, with time and intel on your desired locations and after you’ve had some service time and grade under your belt then you may be able to PCS to your preferred location, at least you have time on your side per se to prepare.

I’d recommend hitting up some of local meetups.  

If you have time, I would see if you could hit a few investor or real estate meet ups in the area.

For example, the current drop in oil prices has hit North Dakota hard but has had little impact on Nevada.

I'll hit you up, I'd love to check out the for sale by owner!  

Hey Everyone - I am interested in all of the aspects of real estate investing and am specifically focusing on the northern Colorado market (Fort Collins, Boulder, and Denver). 

Hey Everyone,Andy Graves here and I'm very glad to have found this site. I've been working as a project manager for a general contractor in NYC for the last 20 years. I also have a  background in carpentry in my youth...

Each cycle hits a peak and then a decline.