Editor’s Note: Our monthly Military Community Resource Spotlight is an Q&A that provides information about organizations who serve military spouses and their families. The purpose is to connect military spouses with available resources designed to help them thrive in military life. This month’s military community resource spotlight is PCSgrades.
Organization’s Name: PCSgrades
Year Established: 2015
What’s the mission of PCSgrades?
Our goal is to provide THE platform for our fellow military families for solving PCS and relocation related issues by building the best service of trusted reviews BY and FOR military families.
We want to help families find the right information on what neighborhood to live in, what schools are best, what REALTOR to use, and what mortgage lenders are best so that PCS moves are less stressful and much smoother.
We also aim to provide the community a voice when they are moving and hold organizations accountable for how they interact and serve the military family.
What services does your organization offer?
Reviews on Neighborhoods, Real Estate Agents, Mortgage Lenders, On-Base Housing, and Moving Companies (coming soon) are all available to be read or submitted by military families and ONLY military families.
Active duty, veteran, guard, reserve, retired, or spouses are all able to sign up for free and find trusted information.
For all realtors found through the site, PCSgrades realtors also give a cash rebate back to the military family on the purchase or sale of a home (where allowed by law) equal to 20% of the realtor’s commission.
We also provide educational content on multiple moving related issues through our blog.
How does your organization specifically meet the needs of today’s military family?
We want to help people get the information they need when they move, and make sure that information is coming from other military families, and not fraudulent sources who are trying to grab for the military family dollar.
We provide a sounding board for military families to rate and review those businesses or neighborhoods and share that information freely with other military families.
What does your organization do differently than any other military community organization or resource?
We are the only service that verifies military affiliation before letting someone submit a review. We also let our families chose which professionals they want to work with based on other military family reviews, not some arbitrary stamp of approval. We also match or beat any other cash back program out there for military families searching for a real estate agent to buy or sell a home.
Shortly, we’ll be the first to allow ratings of on-base military housing and moving companies as well.
What is your most underutilized program/service?
Not a lot of people know that if they find a REALTOR through us, they will get a significant rebate at closing from any real estate agent they chose on our site. There are hundreds of realtors trying to serve the military community, but only ours are reviewed publicly by other military families AND give cash back.
Anything else you’d like our readers to know about your organization?
Our organization is truly built BY military families FOR military families.
The co-founders are former Active Duty and Reservists, and our team is comprised primarily of amazing military spouses who are excited about helping other military families.
We have multiply Military Spouse of the Year winners working on our team, as well as several more nominees who work on spreading the word and tackling issues from how to grade schools and moving companies, or advocating at bases around CONUS.
For more information about PCSgrades, connect with them on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
