Holiday PCS orders still come with a report date. What shrinks is the number of open offices around it. Movers book up. School offices close for winter break. Lodging gets harder to extend. Title companies and county recording go quiet on and around the holidays from Thanksgiving through New Year’s. So when you plan, count staffed days, not calendar days.
Our team likes to run a holiday move in order: orders first, then the gate. The housing office before any off-base signature. Lodging as a planned tool. School records while the losing campus is still open. Then closing dates, VA occupancy if you’re not here yet, and a file you can open from a hotel room. If you don’t know your installation yet, start with NAS Jacksonville or Naval Station Mayport. If you’re buying before you arrive, use our out-of-state PCS sequence.
Table of Contents
Listen to this episode: PCS Orders Over The Holidays? A Jacksonville Relocation Checklist — The Jacksonville Real Estate Podcast
Quick Facts for a Holiday Report Date
Start by putting your report date on one page. Under it, write the gaining command and the installation your orders name. Jacksonville is a city, not a gate.
Two gates, one allowance area. NAS Jacksonville sits on the west bank of the St. Johns, on more than 3,800 acres about nine miles south of downtown. Naval Station Mayport sits on the Atlantic side, at the mouth of the same river. Both use Jacksonville MHA FL058, but they don’t share a drive. Use the gate questions above, then drive at the hour you’ll actually go. Times change at 0700.
BAH is a housing allowance, not a rent quote. For calendar year 2026, with dependents: E-5 at $2,181 a month, E-6 at $2,241, E-7 at $2,283 and O-3 at $2,364. Confirm your paygrade on the BAH rate lookup before you budget, and don’t assume it changed from last year. The allowance isn’t taxable, and it isn’t your mortgage payment. Taxes, homeowners insurance, flood insurance, HOA dues and any CDD sit outside it.
Open days are your real timeline. Scheduling household goods, a housing brief, school withdrawal, inspection, appraisal and closing each need someone at a desk. Count those days to your report date. Our PCS to Jacksonville briefing is the ordinary-month list. Layer the holiday closures on top.
Orders First, Then the Gate
Don’t book anything off a rumor. Read the orders: report date, gaining command, accompanied or unaccompanied, and any limit on when household goods can move. A sponsor’s text isn’t orders. If your orders are still pending, it’s fine to look at houses, but hold off on signing a long lease or wiring earnest money.
Write the gate down once. NAS Jacksonville means a west-bank housing search. Naval Station Mayport means the Atlantic side. A house that works well for one is often a tough daily drive to the other.
Get three dates from transportation. Earliest pickup, earliest delivery, and the days that office is closed. Note who gave you the answer. If the truck arrives after your report date, you have a lodging gap. Don’t fill it with the first holiday lease you see.
Housing Office Calls Before You Sign Off Base
At Mayport, call housing first. Inbound personnel are asked to contact the Housing Office before making off-base commitments. The Housing Service Center number is 904-270-5738, and the current address is on the Navy housing page. Start at the Naval Station Mayport installation page, then call. Ask which pages of your orders they need, whether they can brief you before you report, and what they need before you sign off base. If they can’t give you a vacancy answer this week, wait or use lodging rather than guessing at a list length.
NAS Jacksonville is a different office. Housing there is privatized through Balfour Beatty Communities. The leasing office is in Building 960 on Ballard Street, 904-908-0821. Read the Military OneSource housing page for NAS Jacksonville first, then ask what needs to happen before an off-base lease or purchase contract. The two offices don’t share a vacancy list or a holiday schedule.
A few things to avoid. A same-day lease “because of the holidays” before you’ve made that call. An application fee on a house you haven’t been cleared to pursue. A deposit to a personal account. If the office is closed when you land, lodging buys you time.
Off base, check the school zone too. Duval, Clay, St. Johns and Nassau are four separate districts, so verify the campus for the parcel. A listing line isn’t a zone. If an older close-in neighborhood like Riverside is on your list, read our guide to living in Riverside before you write, and drive it at your commute hour. Near the river, flood risk is a parcel question, homeowners and flood are separate policies, and older roofs are where quotes tend to stall.
Temporary Lodging Is a Tool, Not a Failure
Your report date and the day your house is ready don’t always line up. Lodging is the bridge between them. Needing it doesn’t mean the move went wrong.
Don’t guess the money. Ask transportation and the housing office about vacancy, nightly rates, per diem and how many nights your orders fund. Write down what they’ll cover and what you’ll pay after that.
Three good reasons to use it. A closure delays your housing brief. Your shipment misses the first days after you report. Or closing slips because a lender, an appraiser or the recording office lost a business day. Ask whether the rate changes after the funded nights and what cancellation costs. And if someone pushes a long lease on check-in day because “the holidays wiped out inventory,” treat that as a sales line until the housing office says otherwise.
If your report date and the housing-office calendar already collide, reach out to our team and we’ll read the dates off your orders with you before you sign anything off base.
School Records and the Compact
Pull school records before the losing school closes for break. Ask for the last day someone will be there to release them. Scan the birth certificate, immunization record, report card and any IEP or 504 plan.
Read the Compact, then ask the campus. The Military Interstate Children’s Compact covers enrollment and placement for military children, and Florida participates. The Compact site has the details. A gaining school shouldn’t sideline a child just because a holiday closure delayed records. It doesn’t guarantee a specific campus, magnet seat or teacher, though. Ask how that school applies it, and write down who you spoke with.
Confirm the zone first. School assignment follows the parcel. Duval magnets and choice seats are applications, not automatic. Clay, St. Johns and Nassau each keep their own calendars. If a lease only works because one campus has to take your child, wait to sign until the zone is confirmed. For an IEP, ask what a December or January handoff takes, and get a name.
Younger kids. The Compact doesn’t cover child care. Don’t assume a base seat is available, and ask whether that office is open the week you report.
The Closing Calendar When Offices Go Dark
If you’re renting and not buying, feel free to skip ahead to the remote file. Buyers, stay with us.
Get closed dates in writing. Ask the inspector, lender, appraiser, title company and county recording desk which days they’re closed. A Friday clear-to-close that doesn’t record until the next Wednesday isn’t a Friday closing. Mark Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and the days around them.
December and January are different tax years. Send both dates to your CPA before you slide a closing for convenience, and include any sale at your last duty station that closes in the same season. You won’t find a home-sale exclusion dollar amount here; that’s a CPA question.
Homestead looks at January 1. It’s based on ownership and residency that day, filed with the county property appraiser. The standard deadline is March 1; confirm it on your county’s site, since a weekend can move the office date. A late-December closing can meet the test if the house is your permanent residence. A closing after January 1 can’t, for that tax year. If you later turn the house into a rental, Florida generally treats that as abandoning homestead, but section 196.061 of the Florida Statutes exempts members of the U.S. Armed Forces. Confirm with the appraiser how it applies to you.
Questions for your lender this week. Can underwriting and the appraisal finish on the open days you have left? Remember, the appraisal isn’t your inspection; read how a VA appraisal differs from a home inspection before you waive either one to save a holiday week. Ask when your rate lock ends and who can sign if you’re in transit. Don’t schedule a closing on a day the title company already said it’s closed. And never send a wire based only on an email. Call a known number first.
Want help putting everything on one calendar? Our PCS relocation desk is a good place to start, and our 90-day PCS to Jacksonville plan lays out the timeline.
VA Occupancy When You Are Not Here Yet
VA financing requires that you intend to live in the home as your primary residence. It doesn’t require you to sleep there on report day.
Ask your lender about the window. About 60 days is the usual reasonable period lenders talk about, and a date more than 12 months out generally isn’t treated as reasonable. If your duty puts the family past what that lender will allow, settle it before the offer. You don’t have a VA purchase until the lender says the date works. The VA home-buying process lays out the sequence, but the number of days isn’t the same on every file.
Who can satisfy occupancy. On an active-duty PCS, a spouse may occupy when the service member can’t yet, and in qualifying cases a dependent child may. A friend or a future tenant can’t. If you plan to rent the house out, say so before you apply, because that changes the loan.
Get it in email. Who can satisfy occupancy, what proof the lender wants, whether a power of attorney can sign, and what changes if you close in December and the family lands in January. Our guide to VA loan occupancy timing is a local walk-through, not a substitute for your lender’s conditions.
What to Pack in the Remote File
If the only copy is on the moving truck, you don’t really have it. Keep one folder on your phone, shared with the adult who may need to sign while you’re on duty.
Identity and authority. Orders and amendments, including the report date and gaining command. Government ID. A marriage certificate if a spouse is on the loan or lease. A power of attorney only if the lender or landlord has agreed in writing to accept that form.
Money. A screenshot of the 2026 BAH lookup for your paygrade with dependents, so nobody mistakes the allowance for rent. Any earnings statements your lender asked for. Proof of funds for earnest money and any lodging you might pay for yourself. And one rule at the top of the folder: no wire based on an email you haven’t confirmed by calling a known number.
House and people. Mayport Housing Service Center: 904-270-5738; call before any off-base commitment. NAS Jacksonville: Building 960, Ballard Street, 904-908-0821. Add the lease draft or, if you’re buying, the contract, inspection, appraisal status, and separate homeowners and flood quotes. Remember, flood maps work parcel by parcel. Add the school packet, shot records, first-week prescriptions, and an emergency contact who isn’t on the truck. Then test opening the folder on a phone that isn’t on your home network.
The Checklist to Run This Week
Work through these in order, and resist starting with a house photo.
- Report date, gaining command, and gate: NAS Jacksonville or Naval Station Mayport.
- Count business days. Mark Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s and any other closed office day you’ve confirmed.
- Call housing before any off-base signature. Mayport: Housing Service Center, 904-270-5738. NAS Jacksonville: Building 960, Ballard Street, 904-908-0821.
- Transportation: pickup, delivery and closed days. Price any lodging gap with their numbers, and get per diem and vacancy answers from the source.
- Reserve lodging you can extend. No long lease on check-in day.
- School records, the Compact, and the zone for the actual parcel.
- If you’re buying: closed dates from the lender and title company, December versus January to your CPA, VA occupancy in writing, and an inspection kept separate from the appraisal.
- If you’ll own and live in the home on January 1, confirm homestead filing and the March 1 deadline on your county’s site.
- Test the remote file off your home network.
- Drive to the gate at duty hour. A weekend midday drive time doesn’t count.
And steer clear of three things. A signature that only works if a closed office sorts it out later. A payment quote that’s just the BAH number. A neighborhood picked from a photo while the gate is still blank.
Send us your report date and we’ll help you build the holiday calendar around it, from the housing call to closing day. Our PCS relocation page is a good place to start.
Related reading
- PCS to Jacksonville
- NAS Jacksonville or Naval Station Mayport
- VA appraisal versus home inspection
- PCS relocation
- VA home loans
Moving on Orders Over the Holidays?
Our highly trained team at Military Realty of Florida, led by broker-owner Matt Strickland, a retired Navy officer, helps military and civilian families buy and sell across Duval, Clay, St. Johns and Nassau counties. We’re glad to build the holiday calendar around your report date with you.
Call or text (904) 309-0609Episode Transcript
Holiday P C S orders still come with a report date. What shrinks is the number of open offices around it. Movers book up, school offices close for winter break, lodging gets harder to extend, and title companies and county recording go quiet from Thanksgiving through New Year's. So plan a holiday move by counting staffed days, not calendar days. Today, the order we run it in: orders first, then the gate. The housing office before any off-base signature. Lodging as a planned tool. School records while the losing campus is still open. Then closing dates, V A occupancy, and a file you can open from a hotel room.
Welcome to The Jacksonville Real Estate Podcast. I am Mike, with Matt Strickland, broker-owner of Military Realty of Florida. One rate line for context: Freddie Mac's weekly survey, for the week ending October fifteenth, put the thirty year fixed average at seven point four zero percent.
Orders first, then the gate. Do not book anything off a rumor: read the orders for the report date, the gaining command, accompanied or unaccompanied, and any limit on when household goods can move. A sponsor's text is not orders. Then write the gate down once. Jacksonville is a city, not a gate. N A S Jacksonville sits on the west bank of the St. Johns River, about nine miles south of downtown. Naval Station Mayport sits on the Atlantic side, at the mouth of the same river. Both use the same Jacksonville housing allowance area, but they do not share a drive, and a house that works for one is often a tough daily commute to the other. Drive it at the hour you will actually go; times change at zero seven hundred. One money note: your housing allowance is an allowance, not a rent quote. Look up your own paygrade on the official rate lookup before you budget, and remember that taxes, insurance, H O A dues, and any C D D sit outside it. And get three dates from transportation: earliest pickup, earliest delivery, and the days that office is closed. If the truck arrives after your report date, you have a lodging gap. Do not fill it with the first holiday lease you see.
Housing office calls before you sign off base. At Mayport, inbound personnel are asked to contact the Housing Service Center before making off-base commitments: (904) 270-5738. Ask which pages of your orders they need, whether they can brief you before you report, and what they need before you sign. N A S Jacksonville is a different office: housing there is privatized, the leasing office is in Building 960 on Ballard Street, (904) 908-0821. The two offices do not share a vacancy list or a holiday schedule. Three things to avoid: a same-day lease, quote, because of the holidays, before you have made that call; an application fee on a house you have not been cleared to pursue; and a deposit sent to a personal account. If the office is closed when you land, lodging buys you time.
Which brings us to lodging. Your report date and the day your house is ready do not always line up, and lodging is the bridge between them; needing it does not mean the move went wrong. Do not guess the money: ask transportation and the housing office about vacancy, nightly rates, per diem, and how many nights your orders fund, and write down what they will cover and what you will pay after that. Three good reasons to use it: a closure delays your housing brief, your shipment misses the first days after you report, or closing slips because a lender, an appraiser, or the recording office lost a business day. And if someone pushes a long lease on check-in day because the holidays wiped out inventory, treat that as a sales line until the housing office says otherwise.
School records and the Compact. Pull records before the losing school closes for break, and ask for the last day someone will be there to release them. Scan the birth certificate, immunization record, report card, and any I E P or 504 plan. The Military Interstate Children's Compact covers enrollment and placement for military children, and Florida participates, so a gaining school should not sideline a child just because a holiday closure delayed the records. It does not guarantee a specific campus, magnet seat, or teacher, and it does not cover child care. Confirm the zone for the actual parcel first: Duval, Clay, St. Johns, and Nassau are four separate districts, and a listing line is not a zone.
The closing calendar, for buyers. Get closed dates in writing from the inspector, lender, appraiser, title company, and county recording desk. A Friday clear-to-close that does not record until the next Wednesday is not a Friday closing. Remember that December and January are different tax years, so send both dates to your C P A before you slide a closing for convenience. Homestead looks at January first: it is based on ownership and residency that day, filed with your county property appraiser, with the standard deadline March first. A late-December closing can meet the test if the house is your permanent residence; a closing after January first cannot, for that tax year. Two lender questions for this week: can underwriting and the appraisal finish on the open days you have left, remembering the V A appraisal is not your home inspection, and when does your rate lock end? And the wire rule, always: never send a wire based only on an email. Call a known number first.
V A occupancy, when you are not here yet. V A financing requires that you intend to live in the home as your primary residence; it does not require you to sleep there on report day. Ask your lender about the window: about sixty days is the usual reasonable period lenders talk about, and a date more than twelve months out generally is not treated as reasonable. On an active-duty P C S, a spouse may occupy when the service member cannot yet, and in qualifying cases a dependent child may. A friend or a future tenant cannot. Get it in email: who can satisfy occupancy, what proof the lender wants, whether a power of attorney can sign, and what changes if you close in December and the family lands in January. You do not have a V A purchase until the lender says the date works.
Last, the remote file and this week's checklist. If the only copy is on the moving truck, you do not really have it: keep one folder on your phone, shared with the adult who may need to sign while you are on duty. Orders and amendments, government I D, the housing office numbers, the lease draft or contract, inspection and appraisal status, separate homeowners and flood quotes, the school packet, and that wire rule at the top. Then run the week in order: report date, gaining command, and gate on one page. Count business days and mark the closed ones. Call housing before any off-base signature. Get transportation's three dates. Reserve lodging you can extend, no long lease on check-in day. Pull the school records and confirm the zone. And test that the file opens on a phone that is not on your home network. This episode is education, not tax or legal advice; allowances, office rules, and deadlines change, so confirm them with your installation offices and your lender.
The full written checklist is today's post at militaryrealtyflorida.com. Send us your report date and we will help you build the holiday calendar around it, from the housing call to closing day. Call or text Matt Strickland at Military Realty of Florida, (904) 309-0609.
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For education only. BAH rates, housing office rules, lodging allowances, VA occupancy requirements, school policies and tax deadlines change. Confirm them with your installation offices, your lender and the official sources linked above.