Share List The VA loan program is pretty awesome, but many VA-eligible borrowers don’t understand what makes it so great and underestimate its value. We are going to do a head-to-head comparison in this article to compare the VA loan program and the conventional loan program and their relative qualification requirements. There are three aspects […]
Share List VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 11 Chapter 11 in the VA Lender’s Handbook is about the VA appraisal, which is an important thing for any VA borrower to be familiar with. The Handbook is written with lenders in mind, which means they often use technical terms that borrower may not be familiar with and […]
Share List VA Lender Approved One thing you might not know about the VA loan program is that each and every lender that offers VA loans must be approved by the VA to do so. This adds another layer of vetting to ensure that only reputable, honest, and competent lenders are working with veterans on […]
Share List Legal Instruments & Escrows – VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 9 Summary Chapter 9 of the Handbook covers a lot of important information. It’s all about legal instruments that are acceptable to use on the loan, limitations on the title, land sale contracts, encumbrances, liens, escrows, insurance, and taxes. There’s a lot of […]
Share List Since Low VA Rates is itself a VA lender, this article might seem a bit self-serving, but in reality this is a question that every borrower should ask themselves. While Low VA Rates certainly fits all the criteria in this article, we’re hardly the only lender that does. We would love it […]
Share List Special VA Loans – VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 7 Summary This article is intended to give you a brief summary of the information contained in Chapter 7 of the VA Lender’s Handbook. After reading this article, you should have a good idea whether it’s worth your time to read all of our […]
Share List VA Loan Refinancing Options – VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 6 This article is a summary of Chapter 6 of the VA Lender’s Handbook. We’ll try to hit on the important things that the chapter covers here, but Chapter 6 is a particularly valuable piece of the Handbook and has a lot of […]
Share List How VA Loans Are Processed – VA Handbook Chapter 5 Knowing how your VA loan is going to be processed is good information to have to go into your first meeting with your loan officer. You can be more prepared for that meeting with all the documentation you will need and a lot […]
Share List What Are the VA Minimum Property Requirements? The VA Minimum Property Requirements (MPRs) are the standards that the VA imposes on any residence that is going to be purchased with a VA-guaranteed loan. From the VA Lender’s Handbook: “VA Minimum Property Requirements (MPRS) provide general acceptability criteria for properties which will become the […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 17 Part 9 Much like when the VA imposes sanctions on a program participant for unfair or unethical marketing practices or contracts, sanctions can also be imposed on any VA loan program participants who do not comply with all of the laws that relate to housing. These […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 17 Part 8 The VA is willing to impose sanctions such as LDPs or even monetary penalties for a lender who is discovered using contracts or marketing methods that are either unfair to veteran borrowers or considered unethical. From the Handbook: “VA may impose sanctions, such as […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook: Chapter 17, Part 7 So far in Chapter 17, we’ve focused on sanctions the VA may impose on lenders, but in this article we’re going to focus on a sanction that the VA is not allowed to put on lenders. True to the form of the last three […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 17 Part 6 In rare cases, a lender is debarred and suspended from the VA loan program. This situation (along with those in the two previous handbook articles) does not happen very often. It is almost a guarantee that you won’t have to worry about your lender […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook: Chapter 17, Part 5 Much like the way we covered automatic authority in the last article, we’ll be covering Lender Appraisal Processing Program (LAPP) authority in this article. We’ll do a quick refresher on what LAPP authority is, why it’s great, how lenders get it, and how lenders […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 17 Part 4 In a post long-distant, we discussed “automatic authority” in the context of the VA loan program: what it is, why it’s great, and how lenders get it. In this article, we’re going to revisit automatic authority and talk about how lenders can lose it. […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 17 Part 3 As you may already know, the VA has strict standards for lenders offering VA loans. These lenders must first be approved by the VA to offer VA loans, and they have to regularly certify that they are still fulfilling all of the VA’s […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 17 Part 2 One of the more common sanctions the VA will impose on a program participant is either a full or partial exclusion from participating in the VA loan program. We’ll be covering all the details the Handbook has on excluding participants from the […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook: Chapter 17, Part 1 Scams are everywhere. Fraud is everywhere, and people who are interested in scamming others can be attracted to the VA loan program because since it’s already such a beneficial program, they can make a too-good-to-be-true offer and have a good chance of being taken […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 16 Part 4 The first thing we’re going to do in this article is explain the term “declarant”. From the name, you can guess that it means one who declares something. In the context of common interest communities such as a condo project, the declarant […]
Share List Deciphering the VA Lender’s Handbook Chapter 16 Part 3 If you’ve been following this series, you may remember a couple articles ago when I mentioned that purchasing a condo with a VA loan can be annoying. The next few articles are going to make it abundantly clear what can make the purchase […]
