First home purchase, VA home loan

[Fury220]

I don't understand this program fully...


...is this like a guaranteed loan program for military members with bad credit/no credit histories or something?


Weird.

 

[mule]

If you can afford to pay the down payment of a conventional, avoid the VA loan. The funding fee for the VA is around 2%. Meaning, if you bought a $150K house, you will pay $153K. This doesn't make your payment jump a bunch, but it is basically like handing the VA $3,000 for their time.

We bought our first house with the VA. We ended up paying $400 after closing when we sold it 4 years later. If we would have forgone the VA, we would have had about $5,000 in our pockets (Funding fee + 3% deposit). It is kind of a pay now or pay later thing.

Navy Fed is the way to go. They don't charge PMI and have a 3% down program. The only problem is that you have to be in the Navy or stationed at a Navy base. It sounds like the Navy thing won't work for you, but you can do an 80-20 loan and avoid the PMI that way.

Good luck!