Unlocking Military Home Buying Capital Gains Secrets Revealed

All right so I gotta shout out to my boy Jimmy Jimmy taught me this I've been in real estate for 5 years I bought my first house with my VA loan 23 years ago I'm on my 6th house now right I served 20 years in the Navy and I didn't even know this I always thought that in order to avoid capital gains That I had to live in it for 2 years out of the last 5 Well here's the thing If you bought the property while you were on active duty it changes to 2 out of 15 Holy smokes wait wait wait That changes the game So you're telling me that when I bought my townhouse in in uh Chula Vista In two thousand and four that was my second purchase and I would have held that as a rental had I known this deal because I thought I'm never going stationed back to San Diego again and I don't want to rent it out and then have to pay capital gains later so I'm out right I might have held it as a rental So I bought that place for 2 71 today it's worth seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars So my wife and I bought it together as a married couple up to five hundred thousand dollars Tax-free right Holy smokes Had I known that rule 2 out of the last 15 it would have been a game changer Now here's the thing I would have had to sell it about two and a half years ago because I got out of the Navy five and a half years ago So if you buy it let's say at your ten year mark right You buy a house at your ten year mark you live in it for 2 or more years and then you get orders away you turn it into a rental it appreciates and the owed amount goes down and then You ten years later retire from the military and you get out and you're not ready to sell it yet maybe the renters are in it or whatever right When you approach that 3 year mark of being out you must sell inside of that 3 years in order to use the 2 out of 15