VA Loans

meggyme · April 2013

The hubby and I are hoping to be stationed at NAS North Island in the next couple months and we're thinking about buying a house there. Has anyone ever bought a house with a VA loan? I'm still trying to figure it all out and determine how much money we'll need to save. We'd be doing the no money down option. Any information about VA loans or buying a house in general would be greatly appreciated.

spalko · April 2013

We bought our house one year ago with a VA loan and it was a pain. It was our first home so I can't compare it to buying with a non-VA loan but it is a whole lot of paperwork. They wanted to know where every penny in our bank account came from, we had to keep, at least, $3600 in our bank account at all times during the process, and if anyone gave us money, we had to get documentation from them stating why they gave the money, their bank information and all this other information to ensure that they didn't steal the money or something else crazy like that! At the time it was a pain but we now have a great house and a low mortage payment so I'll take it

kdb1986 · April 2013

My husband and i planned to use a VA loan for our first home but the deeper we got in the process the more reality was striking us, i think for our area at least the VA loan was not going to be a good option, first the house you are looking at has to be VA approved and many houses in our price range in the area we wanted and were looking werent being approved...what they look for , i dont know, but it was alot easier to get financed and move along in the process by using an FHA loan and saving our VA loan for when we wanted to move to a bigger place to start our family, same thing as the previous post, they were crazy , damn crazy when it came to either my husband or myself spending any money from our bank accounts, if i spent 100 on groceries i had to write a letter explaining why i did and where they were going and that i would still save money for a home, my husband was deployed at the time and gave me 200 for new tires, same thing, letters from both of us and all this crazy stuff, sounds like with whatever loan you will be writing lots of letters , so thats good to know. In the end, it is very worth it , we are happy with our home and can only laugh at the process, just know you are not alone to the headaches that it causes

rubeor5 · April 2013

the only bad thing about a va loan is the funding fee of 3%. however if your spouse or yourself has a 10% or higher va disablity the funding fee is waived. (your children can also attend college for free in certain states -- california is one in particular) that can add up to serious monies after a couple of moves. we have used the va loan process 5 times and it has gotten easier over the years. this last one was a bear not because of the va but just the tightening of the loan market in general. we had 100k+ in our account due to the sale of our previous home and we still had to verify every deposit over 1k during the process. very frustating.

understand that you do not have to be finished iwth active duty to get the va disabiltiy rating.

HisChamaoleGirl · April 2013

rubeor5:
the only bad thing about a va loan is the funding fee of 3%. however if your spouse or yourself has a 10% or higher va disablity the funding fee is waived. (your children can also attend college for free in certain states -- california is one in particular) that can add up to serious monies after a couple of moves. we have used the va loan process 5 times and it has gotten easier over the years. this last one was a bear not because of the va but just the tightening of the loan market in general. we had 100k+ in our account due to the sale of our previous home and we still had to verify every deposit over 1k during the process. very frustating.
understand that you do not have to be finished iwth active duty to get the va disabiltiy rating.

I'm going to have to ask where you are getting your info bc even though DH and I will both qualify for disability when we get out of the military we were told that you have to be receiving a disability checks in order to get that credit.

MrsS728 · May 2013

My husband and I are currently in the process of purchasing our first home with a VA loan. We've heard horror stories about VA loans and were totally skeptical, but our experience has been great! We made an offer on 5/4, accepted 5/11, already had the inspection and VA appraisal, AND commitment letter 5/30 (today!). We do have a decent down payment for our house so our funding fee is only 1.25% of the purchase price. One of the biggest things that helped us with the process was that the underwriter in In-House where our mortgage is held. In the long run I know that the funding fee sucks, but it saved us almost $200 a month on our mortgage with PMI and a better interest rate. I think it's worth trying. Good Luck!

VA Loans

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