Benefits of VA Loan
30 Year Fixed
A VA loan is perhaps the most powerful and flexible lending
option on the market today. Rather than issue loans, the VA
instead pledges to repay about a quarter of every loan it
guarantees in the unlikely event the borrower defaults. That
guarantee gives VA-approved lenders greater protection when
lending to military borrowers and often leads to highly
competitive rates and terms for qualified veterans.
Far and away, the most significant benefit of a VA loan
is the borrower's ability to purchase with no money down.
Apart from the government's UDSA's Rural Development home
loan and Fannie Mae's Home Path, it's all but impossible
to find a lending option today that provides borrowers
with 100 percent financing.
VA loans also come with less stringent underwriting standards
and requirements than conventional loans. In fact, about 80
percent of VA borrowers could not have qualified for a
conventional loan. These loans also come with no private
mortgage insurance (PMI), a monthly expense that conventional
borrowers are required to pay unless they put down at least
20 percent of the loan amount.
VA loans offer a few other bells and whistles:
-
Down payment as low as 0%.
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Competitive interest rates that are routinely lower than conventional rates
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No prepayment penalties
-
Higher allowable debt-to-income ratios than for many other loans
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Streamlined refinancing loans that require no additional underwriting
