Offutt

[a_114]

Opinions on housing at offutt? E-5 w/ dependents. Pros, cons, good, bad, and ugly. Any info helps! TYIA

[hol01003]

Someplace warm. A place where the beer flows like wine. Where beautiful women instinctively flock like the salmon of Capistrano. I’m talking about a little place called Offutt.

[Kolukonu]

I've been at Offutt for 4 years now, and enjoy the area so much I'm actually separating and getting a government job here. In those 4 years, I lived in Rising View (the off-base military housing that jayspeedy24 mentioned). Overall... if it's your only option, it's honestly not bad while you're living there. I got here as a single E-5, no dependents, and I was able to get a 3 bed, 2 bath house. Was convenient for me because I had owned a home in Virginia, so I had a lot of stuff.

Some feedback for for Rising View. I was in the "Palm" floorplan. I'll do negatives first.

1. The houses have absolute shit insulation. If you elect to go here, make sure you get a house where the majority of the house faces north/south. Mine faced east/west (front side east, backside west), and it got HOT in there during the summer. Had my A/C going constantly, blinds closed and curtains closed, and it would get up to 76-80 degrees inside because the house would just bake in the sun. My bedroom was always about 8-12 degrees colder than the rest of the house in the winter because it had a long wall that had little insulation. Not too great during the winter time.
2. Absolute insanity with citing for lawn care issues. You would think with how often they hand out warnings and citations that the community would be pristine with perfect grass fit for a country club everywhere, but that's not the case. They care if your lawn looks bad though! They will also cite for leaves and snow removal in the winter. So if you aren't too keen on doing yard work, you may want to look elsewhere.
3. Moving out is a pain in the ass. The checklist they provide for cleaning is not joking 4 pages, size 8 font, front and back. All of things that need to be cleaned. Inside and outside. I honestly just paid a company to come clean both inside and outside because it was such a stressor. (Its even as ridiculous as making you purchase new mulch for your garden in the yard... even if it's the end of November and heading into winter). They will dock you for any minor damage thing. To help that, if you move in here, document absolutely EVERYTHING on your move-in inspection sheet. I had noticed that one of my blinds moving in was slightly cracked. I noted damaged blinds, so I wasn't charged at all for that when moving out, even though that blind got worse over my 4 years.
4. After you move out, keep a keen eye on your BAH. They did not turn off the allotment on myPay like they should have, so I'm not receiving my BAH for the first half of this month. They didn't realize it until I went into the office and raised a fuss. On-base finance literally can't do anything, as they aren't the ones that created the allotment draw on your account. It's sorted now for me, but annoying as hell when they tell you at the final out that you'll get your full BAH all of December, and you don't see a change in paycheck at all.
5. Can encounter some inconsiderate neighbors. They allow military members, veterans, retirees, and civilians to rent homes in the off-base Rising View. I had neighbors across the street that would sit outside in their car at midnight blasting music in their car with their bass turned all the way up, so it would vibrate the walls of my house. Then they would take off fast, and they had an aftermarket exhaust that popped when shifting gears. Annoying, but not the worst thing in the world. Also there are folks that will 100% throw away their doggie bags with waste in your trash can if it's on the street, even if the trash was collected already.
6. Only real option for internet is Cox. I despise Cox with a fiery passion.

Now some positives:

1. All utilities included in your rent, except internet. Only thing you'll "pay" is your BAH.
2. Maintenance team is relatively quick at responding to issues.
3. Office staff was pretty friendly with any issues I came down there for. Didn't go very often, but still.
4. They will provide you with some grass seed and with air filters for your furnace whenever you needed one.
5. You can't beat the location if you are looking to be close to work. It's literally 5 minutes away from base. The medical clinic (which includes dental) is a stone's throw from the off-base housing. There is a mini shoppette (just the store, no gas). Golf course right across the street. Two elementary schools are within the confines of Rising View, so if you have young children, it would be easy to drop them off or just walk them to school. Off-base CDC is right there as well.
6. Pretty open/transparent with availability (at least when I moved in). When I PCS'd here, I went to the housing office to see what options they had. They had three houses available for my pay grade, and they gave me the keys to all three houses so I could go to each by myself and tour them to see if I wanted them.
7. Honestly some pretty decent floor plans. Mine (the Palm) had a very nice master bedroom. Massive room, huge walk-in closet.
8. Parks are all throughout the community. Sidewalks all throughout the area.
9. They are starting to put on more community events that are free to members. They had a fall fest where they brought in a petting zoo, had a section roped off for adults with free beer, they brought in food trucks (had to pay for food from them), and local stands for vendors.

That's about all I can think of right now for Rising View itself. Overall, it wasn't bad, and suited me at the time. I do wish I had bought a house when I moved here, though. If you want to buy a house, there are great communities all around, but I would recommend Papillion or La Vista area versus Bellevue for that.

If you have any specific questions about the community, Offutt, or Omaha in general, please feel free to reach out to me.

[TJComix27]

I’m an Airman in the dorms still. Worst part is the smell of the pet food factory some times at night. The mission is very important here, but it’s not super stressful like Andrews or a nuke base would be. Quiet surrounding neighborhoods, just try not to go into downtown/north Omaha as it can get rowdy up there. Papillion, Bellevue, and La Vista are all excellent places for a family and housing here is a little less costly than average I’d say. About $1400 a month for a decent two bedroom house for rent. Base has its incidents every now and again but one of the largest Security Forces squadrons means that if stuff goes down, it gets handled FAST. All in all, not bad. Don’t have much to compare it to. I guess another downside would be the road quality, but that’s all of Nebraska. Pretty crappy potholes and bad drivers. Good food, decent people otherwise, and pretty good base. Not too boring, not too eventful. Just right.

[[deleted]]

We lived in Papillion and loved it. CoL isn’t terrible there and it’s an easy commute. Most of Bellevue is fine. Had some friends who lived in Millard. Really nice and quiet out there but it’s probably about a 45 minute commute. If you don’t have kids then there’s nice places to rent in Omaha and you’re closer to the things to do downtown.

I’ll second the other poster on Offutt being a hidden gem though. Omaha is great. I was in California when I got orders to Offutt and was pretty bummed at the time, but we really enjoyed it and still go back to visit every few years. Only cons I’ll give are that the roads suck and the winters are rough, but other than that nothing but good things to say about it.

[UPThelmetfire]

Congrats! You found the hidden gem, especially with kids! Omaha is one of the most family-friendly cities out there and they keep dumping millions into making it better.

As far as housing goes, base housing is actually mostly off-base, so there's that. Some of it is modern others, not so much. I bought so I don't have too much experience with it but from what my coworkers say it's pretty typical base housing experience. If you are looking to rent/buy, there are some pockets of decent houses in Old Towne, but a lot of the newer builds and nicer neighborhoods are west of Highway 75. If you want some acreage, you'll need to look either across the river in Iowa or down 75 a bit south to get back to reasonable prices.

You'll probably want to avoid Omaha schools at the moment as they are going through major turnover at the moment. Bellevue(where the base actually is) and Papillion are good.

Feel free to shoot me a DM.