General chance of CONUS/OCONUS after FRS

[kookylukey]

I know the golden rule is there is a 42% chance for anything and everything. However, if anyone is currently in the FRS (Sierras or Romeos doesn't matter) and can give me a general vibe of if people are staying if they want to stay or going overseas if they want to? Yes, I have already asked my HT instructors, but they all say it was different for them in that their FRS coast seemed to not really matter for their fleet squadron. And then asking other students is just the blind leading the blind.

For example, say you select Sierras San Diego/West Coast, if you are trying to stay in San Diego is it pretty easy to settle in/buy a house/find a nice long term rental or is everyone holding off life plans until they get to their fleet squadron? In other words, are a significant portion of people getting sent to Japan or Guam even if it was at the bottom of their dream sheet? Again yes already I'm already counting the caveats of "well your class might have everyone that wants to stay rabble rabble", but you can always get a general consensus of how likely something is. That's all I'm looking for.

There's been rumblings of the waits for the FRS getting longer and with the length it is already I'll be looking at 4+ years wherever I go (assuming I can stay put).

 

[Odominable]

Not for nothing I’d manage your expectations buying a place in SD right now (that you’d want to live in).

 

[SynixMan]

I'll defer to the current peeps, but when I winged in 2012 you knew if you were going to Guam/Japan ahead of time and the FRS was just an I-Stop. They "tended" to keep people on the coast they went to for FRS.

We bought in Norfolk in 2012 and sold in 2019, after renting it from 2016-2019 and basically breaking even on rent and sale price. With mortgage rates where they are and house valuations post-covid, finding something worth buying will be tough on LTJG pay in Norfolk. Doubly so for San Dog.

 

[kookylukey]

Not for nothing I’d manage your expectations buying a place in SD right now (that you’d want to live in).

For sure, I just picked SD as an example since it technically has the most options out of the FRS with either SD, Guam or Japan for Sierra's and then Hawaii, SD or Japan for Romeos.

I'll defer to the current peeps, but when I winged in 2012 you knew if you were going to Guam/Japan ahead of time and the FRS was just an I-Stop. They "tended" to keep people on the coast they went to for FRS.

We bought in Norfolk in 2012 and sold in 2019, after renting it from 2016-2019 and basically breaking even on rent and sale price. With mortgage rates where they are and house valuations post-covid, finding something worth buying will be tough on LTJG pay in Norfolk. Doubly so for San Dog.

Yeah it's seemed to change lately with not finding out about overseas until the FRS unfortunately (I could still be wrong on this though). And one or two of my instructors in HTs were sent from San Diego to Norfolk, but allegedly that doesn't really happen anymore.

Not sold on buying, but trying to not repeat Pensacola, where I got an apartment in between NASP and Whiting and just kept re-upping it because I didn't know if I would have to move to Corpus. Which I guess is a non-existent problem for everywhere except Jax. Also though, by the time I get winged, I'll only have 13-14ish months before getting O-3 pay. So while that's still a concern, the LT pay bump is not going to be far behind PCS.

 

[JTS11]

Are you single? Others will surely disagree with me on here, but I'd highly advise you not to buy a house as a boot JO. There are anecdotal cases where dudes made out alright, but a lot of other cases where they got jammed.

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

This is arguably the worst time to buy a house right now.

 

[hscs]

I wouldn’t. All it takes is for a completer to go long term med down for any reason (eg tear an acl), and the Navy will fill the hole and not care about whether you own a place. Of course, you can always be a landlord if you’re set on buying. That comes with it’s own costs and demands - like who will manage it while you’re underway and ship goes comm out (on purpose or not on purpose).

 

[kookylukey]

I'll take the "buying a house" part out of the title, wasn't looking for real estate advice. Was looking for more info on the landscape of getting out of the FRS so I can have a better idea for my preference sheet.

 

[croakerfish]

If you are going HSC you only have two OCONUS squadrons. One is big and one is small. The change to selecting Guam and Japan out of the FRS means that there is literally no possible way to advise you on your chances of going there. The timing factor is just too big.

 

[FormerRecruitingGuru]

I'll take the "buying a house" part out of the title, wasn't looking for real estate advice. Was looking for more info on the landscape of getting out of the FRS so I can have a better idea for my preference sheet.

You can't have your cake and eat it too. It would be like me asking "Hey guys, I plan to knife fight someone (ignore this part, lolz), which knife should I purchase and use?" and not get pulled into a lengthy battle on ethics, 42%, and law.

 

[TheBirdy]

Not a part of the whop whop gang, but the FRS class before mine all stayed on the East Coast with the exception of one dude. My class, half of us got sent West, other half stayed East.

What I’m getting at is it’ll be nearly impossible for someone to give you an accurate answer. Put down what you want, hope you get it. Expect your absolute last choice, in terms of dream sheet. That mindset has served me well so far in my career. Also, unless you have EFMP/COLO and know you’ll stay in one place, I would not buy a house prior to your fleet squadron assignment (especially in this housing market).

 

[kookylukey]

You can't have your cake and eat it too. It would be like me asking "Hey guys, I plan to knife fight someone (ignore this part, lolz), which knife should I purchase and use?" and not get pulled into a lengthy battle on ethics, 42%, and law.

When was I trying to have my cake and eat it too? I was asking if people ahead of me in the pipeline are settling down in their FRS stations like I know some of my P8 FRS peers are doing. And instead all I get are people like yourself just commenting “worst time to buy a house”, doesn't help at all.

When I ask instructors, there’s guys that went from Jax FRS to Japan and then in the next breath say “oh but it’s changed for you guys”, but no one I talk to can pinpoint what exactly has changed.

 

[kookylukey]

If you are going HSC you only have two OCONUS squadrons. One is big and one is small. The change to selecting Guam and Japan out of the FRS means that there is literally no possible way to advise you on your chances of going there. The timing factor is just too big.

Yeah I’m aware of the ultimate timing bomb. There have just been rumblings of you can only select Guam out of San Diego and then a month later it changes to Norfolk. So I’m really just trying to read between the lines a little to figure out if there’s any truth to either or if it’s more of someone in each FRS just wanted Guam really bad and they just gave it to them.

 

[Meyerkord]

no one I talk to can pinpoint what exactly has changed

The part that has changed is now you don’t know if you’re going OCONUS until you get to the FRS. Before, we found out in HTs.

GENERALLY, people who end up on the west coast for the FRS can get the west OCONUS options (Japan, Guam, Hawaii) and GENERALLY the same is true for the east coast (Rota)

There will always be outliers.

Don’t buy a house until you get to your first duty station if you’re worried about getting OCONUS’d against your will.

 

[kookylukey]

The part that has changed is now you don’t know if you’re going OCONUS until you get to the FRS. Before, we found out in HTs.

GENERALLY, people who end up on the west coast for the FRS can get the west OCONUS options (Japan, Guam, Hawaii) and GENERALLY the same is true for the east coast (Rota)

There will always be outliers.

Don’t buy a house until you get to your first duty station if you’re worried about getting OCONUS’d against your will.

Thanks, this is all I was looking for. Was really just trying to gauge if the west/east oconus orders were a hard new rule or if it was still generally more of the same like you describe just shifted right.

Again never planned to buy a house, I’ve just seen people do it already and was curious if they knew something I didn’t.