@Smokin Joe
It ain't the house. It's uprooting your family from everything and everybody they know. It's creating chaos and what had been up until then,regularity.
I know I work in a different industry, pete, but I see an awful lot of people who have no assumption of regularity in their lives. Yep, military folks know they're going to be moved around. Why not these other jobs? After tobacco farming was pretty well wiped out in MD (just the Amish, now), not much growing but corn and soybeans, and a lot of good farmland is sporting bedroom communities, now.
Across the country, the factory closes, the industry focus moves, and people do, too. It's that or welfare.
Sure, it sucks, and they have a choice. Stay in DC and find a different job, or move where the work is.
At least DC had a decent real estate market, unlike a town where the oil boom is dying or the plant shut down.
In Kansas alone, Agriculture, food processing, and food are $63.8 billion a year.
https://www.agriculture.ks.gov/docs/default-source/ag-marketing/ag-contribution-2018-with-retail-ethanol-combined-update-final.pdf?sfvrsn=2ffa84c1_4That doesn't count the states next door.
In MD, $2.2 billion
https://www.farmflavor.com/maryland-agriculture/In VA $70 billion, but that includes the evil weed (tobacco).
Go where the work is or find different work. (That's what we get told in the oil patch when the price drops and the rigs go in the weeds.)