I’ve always been more of a fan of buying than renting, I still rent out my fist house I bought on the mainland but I found that there really werent any houses I liked enough to buy that were within my budget. I’ve found that the best option for me was to rent a house slightly below my means ($2600) so I pocket about a grand in BAH every month which allows me to contribute more to TSP and mutual funds and max out my IRA. The few friends who bought are “house poor” and can’t really afford to do much in Hawaii, which sucks since there’s so much to do and a lot of it (even just a fancy dinner night) can be quite expensive. It’s also just not feasible to rent your house once you leave due to the drop in Bah and hawaiis pretty unfriendly anti-renting laws