Real quick: find out how we pay only $201 per month on our mortgage.
Last week we talked about continuing to educate yourself about the military. This week is a fun one to educate yourself on: the VA Home Loan. It’s very easy to obtain and will save you tons of money! If you are military and don’t know about the VA Loan then you’ve come to the right place!
Requirements: If you are active duty or an honorably discharged veteran then you are eligible for the VA Home Loan (if you did not receive an honorable discharge then you are not eligible for this loan…sorry! 
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You also must live in the home you purchase for at least a year. They will be checking your orders to be sure of this, so don’t think you can just tell them you’ll be there for a year if you’re not and think you’ll get away with it.Benefits: You will not be required to put anything down on the purchase of your home with the VA Loan. The way it works is that the VA guarantees the bank its money in case you default on your payments. What happens is if you foreclose then the VA will buy back your house from the bank you used and then will turn around and sell it. You will get to just walk away (I don’t recommend you default because it will greatly screw up your credit and it will be very very hard to fix it).
My favorite feature of the VA loan is that you can buy up to 5 houses, after you have lived in each one a year and have moved for each house. For example, lets say that you used the VA Loan to purchase your current loan and have lived in it for at least a year, but then Uncle Same decided to tell you to move to another state. You don’t want to sell your house because the market has made you upside down so you’d rather hold on to it and rent it out for the time being. No problem! Just move to the next state and you will be allowed to purchase a new house with the VA Loan again!
You cannot, however, buy a second house in the same state you bought any other house that you used the VA Loan for. For example, if you purchased a home using the VA Loan in Honolulu, Hawaii and have lived in it for over a year, you cannot buy a second home in the state of Hawaii with another VA Loan. Make sense?
How To Get The VA Loan: It’s very simple, really, and I don’t think I have to reinvent the wheel here. EHow has plenty of how-to’s regarding the military and the VA Loan is one of them.
What we did with our duplex was set up our VA Loan with USAA (which I don’t recommend! Working with USAA’s mortgage department was a NIGHTMARE!!!). Since our real estate agent and USAA were both very schooled in the VA Loan we didn’t have to do any further research. They simply did everything for us. I recommend you just find a great real estate agent who already knows all things military. It really does help.
Seasoned military people, Did I miss anything?
No related posts.
We have used the VA loan and will be using it again here real soon! Love it!
Isn’t it so awesome?! You can also use it on duplexes or even a four-plex as long as you live in one of the units. We bought a duplex and are only paying $201 per month on the mortgage because of our tenants downstairs who are renting. I’ll be explaining this in a post some time down the road. Love the VA loan!!!
We are going through Chase and it’s STILL a nightmare!! (USAA wasn’t an option for the condo we want) I think a mortgage is going to be a pain no matter who you deal with!!
I didn’t know you could buy up to 5 houses in different states! That’s great! Now that we’ll be living in the States again, we’d like to start buying houses… We’ll see what happens! 
Isn’t that an awesome deal?! We didn’t know this at first either, but then we recently refinanced our mortgage to lower the interest rate and the lady who did all our paper work with us was VERY savvy on the VA loan and she was the one who told us this. So I jumped online to research it more and sure enough, it’s true! It’s so perfect for those of us who are still active duty and move so much. Have fun buying a house!
Do you know how long you have to have been in the military to be considered a veteran? my husband was in the army for 2 years, a friend has told us you had to serve 3 years, but I wasn’t sure if this was right…
As long as he was in and was honorably discharged then it shouldn’t matter how long. At least that’s what my real-estate agent told us and she’s done countless Va loan transactions. You can always call the bank you want to use to find out or a real-estate agent who’s savvy on this kind of thing.
Thanks so much! We hadn’t persued it and now we will!!!
You’re so welcome. Go for it!
We went through USAA for our first home loan and had no issues. In fact, they were quicker to process the paperwork than the bank we are currently using to obtain the mortgage for our next home.
We researched the VA loan for this purchase but are going through a bank with a traditional mortgage since we are building. Very exciting!
That is exciting. When we went with USAA it took months and months to get anything done, no one would answer our calls, and every deadline was surpassed. It wasn’t until our real estate agent started getting rude with everyone that they finally started to pull through. We’ve talked to many friends of ours who had the same problem with USAA so I just assumed that they were not good to go with. It’s nice to know that someone had a good experience with them. Thanks for letting us know!