How early should I start buying a house before a PCS to Colorado Springs?

Why this is really a question about when to make contact

Most people ask this question as though the answer were a number of days before the report date. It is more useful to think about it as a contact date.

The day your orders come through, you know your report date and your destination. That is the moment the useful work can start, and almost none of that work requires you to be in Colorado Springs. You can learn areas, talk through commutes, get a straight answer on affordability, find out whether your VA entitlement supports what you have in mind, and decide whether buying at all serves what you are trying to accomplish. Waiting compresses all of that into whatever window your house-hunting trip happens to give you.

In my experience, families who reach out at the orders date end up making better decisions, not because they move faster, but because they have the information in hand while there is still time to change course.

What the early conversation covers

The point is a fully informed decision, which sometimes means not buying. Renting first is a legitimate outcome, and for some families it is the better one. If I can tell you that early, that is a good result, not a lost opportunity.

Early contact also gives you room for options that take extra time. A VA loan assumption, for example, typically takes longer than a standard purchase, so if that is something you want to pursue, it needs to be on the table early rather than discovered in month three. You can read more in Can I assume someone's VA loan in Colorado Springs?

What we are all really after is stability on the other end of the move. Everything before that is preparation.

How I think about it: Life → Wealth → Real Estate™

I use the same model with a PCS that I use with anyone else, and I run it in that order.

1. Life. What transition are you actually going through? Where will you work, how do you want to live, and how long do you expect to be here?
2. Wealth. Does this make financial sense, and how does it fit into a larger picture, including anything you already own?
3. Real estate. Only then do we talk about which home.

I do not tell anyone what to do. My role is to give you the questions worth considering and the information to answer them, so the decision is genuinely yours.

The test I use for whether buying makes sense

When someone asks me directly whether they should buy, here is what I look at. If you are willing to hold the home for at least five years, you are buying at fair market value, you have stable income, and you have an emergency fund, then buying is absolutely worth considering.

That five-year figure carries an assumption worth saying out loud: you can get orders at any point, so a willingness to hold for five years really means a willingness to keep the home as a rental if you are moved sooner. If becoming a landlord is not something you would be willing to do, the five-year test is not met, no matter how long you expect to be stationed here.

On the emergency fund, my rule of thumb for holding a home as a rental is roughly $15,000 in reserve. Not if something breaks, but when. If that number is uncomfortable, that is useful information at the orders date and painful information at closing.

The military benefits that shape your calendar

Three entitlements affect how a PCS home purchase can be timed. All of them are worth confirming with your own unit, since policy differs by service and approval is never automatic.

House-hunting permissive TDY. For Airmen and Guardians, DAFI 36-3003 authorizes a losing or gaining commander to approve up to 10 total days of permissive TDY to travel to or near the new duty station to secure off-base housing. It is non-chargeable, meaning it does not come out of your leave balance, but there is no travel pay or per diem — you fund the trip. A May 2025 guidance memo added something useful: those days may now be taken incrementally between the losing and gaining duty station rather than in one block, and the same rule now also covers packing and unpacking household goods. You need formal assignment notification first, and the regulation directs members to check with the base Housing Office before signing any rental, lease, or purchase agreement. Army families at Fort Carson run a similar benefit under AR 600-8-10; confirm the details with your S1.

En route leave. DAFI 36-3003 authorizes at least 30 days of en route leave with a PCS, as long as it does not interfere with your report date.

Temporary lodging expense. For a move to a duty station inside the continental United States, TLE rose from 14 days to 21 days effective November 27, 2024, and the days can be split between the losing and gaining station. That matters because it is your cushion if a closing date slides a week.

Read together, these give most families more flexibility than they realize. The incremental PTDY change in particular means you no longer have to spend all ten days in one visit, which is a real advantage if you would rather make one short scouting trip and save days for the arrival side.

What the Colorado Springs market looks like right now

Market conditions as of September 2026.

The local market has loosened, which changes the pressure on your timeline. The Pikes Peak Association of REALTORS® reported roughly 3,218 active listings in August 2026, about 7% more than a year earlier, with 812 homes sold, down about 5%, and homes taking an average of 46 days to sell compared with 40 days in August 2025. The Colorado Association of REALTORS® noted in its September release that the Pikes Peak median sales price was down about 1.1% while sales were down about 7.1%, with fewer showings and more price reductions across the region.

For someone PCSing here, that cuts two ways. You are less likely to lose a home to five competing offers than you would have been a few years ago, so there is less reason to panic about timing. At the same time, more homes sitting longer means more to sort through, and that is exactly the work that benefits from starting at the orders date rather than on day one of a house-hunting trip.

Colorado Springs is also a market where PCS activity is constant, with Fort Carson, Peterson Space Force Base, Schriever Space Force Base, the Air Force Academy, and Cheyenne Mountain Space Force Station all in the area. Report dates cluster, and so do closings.

A realistic sequence from orders to keys

This is the order I work in, not a fixed calendar. Compress it if your orders are short-notice.

1. Talk first. We run Life → Wealth → Real Estate™ before anything else. This is where renting-first gets a fair hearing, and where we figure out whether the real estate question is even the right question yet.

2. Bring in a lender. If the first conversation says buying makes sense, this is the key step for understanding affordability and what your VA options actually look like. I am not a loan officer, so I will make recommendations if you do not already have a lender, and I work with whichever lender you choose. See How do I choose a lender for a VA loan in Colorado Springs? and Is there a VA loan limit in El Paso County?

3. Start learning areas and homes. Once those two check out, we start looking at homes, talking through locations, commutes, and the full monthly cost of each place — mortgage, property taxes, any metro district taxes, HOA dues, and insurance. I often do this on a map call, where we look at maps together and talk through the flow of your life: where you report, what your day actually looks like, what your family does on weekends. That conversation narrows the search far more than a filter on a listing site does.

4. Prepare for the visit. By the time you use house-hunting days, you should be confirming a short list rather than starting one. Most people find that after about ten homes, in person or on video, they know what they like — and along the way they learn the areas, the commute trade-offs, and how much the variable costs differ from house to house.

5. Time the closing deliberately. Your closing date is a choice with financial consequences. Your first mortgage payment is due on the first of the second month after closing, and a late-month closing reduces the prepaid interest you bring to the table. One pattern I have used with clients: look in March, close at the end of April, and the first payment is not due until June 1. Worth planning around rather than discovering afterward.

If you can't get here in person

Buying remotely is normal here, not exceptional. We do it regularly, and it is simply part of military life in this market.

When I tour a home for a buyer who cannot be here, I start in the street and scan the neighborhood before I ever walk up, pause and re-scan rooms so you can orient yourself, and carry a tape measure so you have real scale rather than a wide-angle impression. We cover the things video hides: air conditioning, radon, what the inspection is likely to turn up, HOA documents, and the contract and insurance deadlines. We overshare on purpose. Team Hobbs Realty has handled fully remote purchases and sales. More detail is in Can I successfully buy a Colorado Springs home from out of state?

What could change the answer

• Short-notice orders. If you have weeks rather than months, the sequence above compresses but does not change order. The lender conversation still comes before the home search.
• A VA loan assumption. Assumptions take longer than a standard purchase, so a timeline that works for a conventional closing may not work for an assumption.
• A home you still own elsewhere. Whether you sell it, keep it as a rental, or need entitlement restored changes both your financing and your timeline.
• A three-year tour. If you expect to be here a short time and would not rent the home out, the five-year test is not met and renting deserves a serious look.
• Market conditions. The figures above are a September 2026 snapshot. Inventory, days on market, and rates all move, and a tighter market would put more weight on early preparation, not less.
• Your own service's policy. PTDY, en route leave, and TLE rules differ by service and are subject to command approval and policy changes. Verify current rules with your unit.

When to talk with a professional

A lender should be the one telling you what you qualify for and how your VA entitlement applies. Your unit's personnel or S1 office, and the housing office at your gaining installation, are the authorities on PTDY, leave, TLE, and any local housing requirements — and the Air Force regulation specifically directs members to check with the housing office before signing a lease or purchase agreement. If you are weighing the tax side of keeping a home as a rental, that is a conversation for a CPA. I am a real estate professional, not a lender, CPA, or attorney, and I can help you connect with the right one.

About the author

Weldon Hobbs is a Colorado Springs REALTOR® and co-founder of Team Hobbs Realty. He is a member of The Platinum Group, REALTORS®, Colorado Springs' #1 independent brokerage, which pairs deep local expertise with premium marketing exposure. A U.S. Air Force Academy graduate and retired Air Force veteran, he and his family made more than 10 military moves. Since 2006, he and his wife, Kristen, have bought and sold their own homes, managed a portfolio of rental properties, and guided others through their own real estate decisions. He has also helped both family members and clients downsize, where the decisions are often complex and the process can feel overwhelming. Drawing on his background as a PMP® (Project Management Professional), he helps people break those decisions into clear, manageable steps.

Since beginning his real estate career, he has ranked in the top 7% by sales volume among the more than 4,000 members of the Pikes Peak Association of REALTORS®. He works with military families, seniors and downsizing clients, luxury and premium home sellers, and people relocating to Colorado Springs. He developed the Life → Wealth → Real Estate™ method, hosts the national YouTube channel Life & Real Estate Without Regret, and holds an MBA along with the SRES® (Seniors Real Estate Specialist®), MRP (Military Relocation Professional), and Certified Financial Coach credentials. More about Weldon

Sources

• Department of the Air Force Instruction 36-3003, Military Leave Program (7 August 2024), Table 4.3 (Permissive TDY) and paragraph 3.2.4 (en route leave), as amended by DAFI36-3003_DAFGM2025-01 (5 May 2025). static.e-publishing.af.mil
• Army Regulation 600-8-10, Leaves and Passes (house-hunting permissive TDY for soldiers).
• Defense Travel Management Office, "DoD Authorizes Additional 7 Days to CONUS Temporary Lodging Expense," effective 27 November 2024. travel.dod.mil
• Pikes Peak Association of REALTORS®, monthly market trends. ppar.com (August 2026 figures as reported by KOAA News 5, September 2026)
• Colorado Association of REALTORS®, market update, 15 September 2026. coloradorealtors.com
• Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, guidance on closing costs and prepaid interest at closing.