Many Veterans serve their country and then return to civilian life. One of the best benefits that a veteran can avail himself or herself of is the advantages to using a VA home loan to finance or re finance their next home. Veteran’s home loans are often given at attractive rates, and can be easier to obtain than a regular commercial loan. Also because it is a program reserved for use by Veterans and funded and Guaranteed by the United States Government, it can be an attractive item for sellers, often people seek those people that are pre qualified for a Veterans Home loan because they tend to be good risks to sell a home to.
There are a lot of benefits in chosing a home loan over a traditional commercial loan. There are a lot of different things that you can enjoy with a VA home loan that are sometimes not available with a conventional loan. Some of the benefits you may realize if you qualify for a home loan are: easier standards to qualify for, no prepayment penalties, often no mortgage insurance is required because the loan is guaranteed by the government, income and credit standards are often more flexible, and many times there are no down payment requirements.
One of the misconceptions that exist is that the VA makes the loans, the VA does not loan any money for housing, they merely guarantee the loans, and private lenders make the loans on all VA guaranteed home housing loans.
To qualify you must obtain a certificate of eligibility. If you have never had a VA loan before, you have to get a certificate of eligibility. You can request one in person from any VA office, or you can contact a VA office through the Internet to get a certificate of eligibility. You can also apply online directly to the VA to get a certificate. Once you have a certificate of eligibility then you can sometimes pre qualify for a home loan for up to $417,000 dollars. Fees for a VA guaranteed home loan tend to be low, they are regulated by law to be between zero and 3.3 percent of the total loan amount, which partly depends on your current veterans status. The fees, if any, are added into the loan there is no out of pocket fee expense.
