If you do one thing to celebrate Veteran’s Day this year, let it be listening to this episode of Hustle Humbly. Our veterans have selflessly served our country and now we can return the favor by serving them. As our guest says today, “Realtors are the gate keeper’s to home ownership” and we need to take that seriously especially with our veterans. Our jaws were on the floor learning the ins and outs of VA home loans and debunking so many commonly accepted myths. We loved welcoming veteran and agent, Samantha Catterall and one of her lender partners, Liz Going.
Liz Going is a Local Mortgage lender who has made it her mission to serve those who have served. Liz has never served but comes from a family with a long military history including several family members who have served this country, and is passionate about being an advocate for her military borrowers in the marketplace. Liz has earned several VA accreditations including the Certified Veteran Mortgage Advisor title, and has become one of the top local VA lenders in the state of New Hampshire. Through advocacy and educational courses for real estate agents, Liz shares in an effort to promote Veteran Home Ownership in the state of New Hampshire and help bust the myths surrounding the VA loan.
Samantha Catterall, a true New Hampshire native, enlisted in the Vermont Army National Guard after high school, specializing in supply. With a degree in Business Administration and a flair for Interior Design, Samantha transitioned into real estate two and a half years ago. She is currently a Realtor with Keller Williams Coastal and Lakes & Mountains on the Legacy Group Team. Notably, half of her clientele are fellow veterans, a testament to her understanding and connection within the veteran community. Rooted in the Granite State, Samantha weaves her military discipline, education, and design sensibilities into a successful and community-focused real estate career.
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The following is a rough transcript provided by Otter.ai.
Katy 0:04
Unlike let me tell you the next loan I’ll be using when I.
Speaker 2 0:09
But I would also like to mention that VA loans closed at a higher success rate than conventional loans did last year by almost 10%. Really, I
Katy 0:20
thought this was going to be more boring
Unknown Speaker 0:24
that’s an FHA guidelines don’t FHA, my VA
Katy 0:28
This is blowing my mind right now that there were no loan limits and no PMI.
Alissa 0:36
Hi, y’all, welcome to hustle humbly. It’s Alyssa and Katie. And we are two top producing realtors in the Baton Rouge market.
Katy 0:42
We work for two different companies where we should be competitors. But we have chosen community over competition.
Alissa 0:47
The goal of our podcasts is to encourage you to find your own way in business to stop
Katy 0:51
comparing yourself and start embracing your strengths.
Alissa 0:53
Hi, Alyssa Katie. It
Katy 0:55
is episode 223. And today, we are celebrating Veterans Day talking about VA Home Loans. Perfect
Alissa 1:03
timing.
Katy 1:04
I know I can’t wait. And we have guest multiple we were just saying it’s the first time we’ve had two guests at the same time. So Samantha and Liz, I’m gonna let you guys introduce yourself. Tell us who you are, where you are and what you do. Well, first,
Speaker 2 1:17
okay. So my name is Liz going. I’m a loan officer with Prime Lending. I think I’m supposed to disclose my NMLS number for regulatory great, go for it. Yeah, tell us what you’re not 18156. And my views are don’t represent those of Prime Lending its affiliates and whatever other compliance, I have to say.
Katy 1:37
So how long have you been there? So
Speaker 2 1:39
I have been with prime lending for a little over a year and a half now. But I’ve actually been a loan officer for about five years. And I made the pivot about two and a half, three years ago to really focus my business on VA. Because in New Hampshire, we’re very small state, but about 10% of our state is either active duty or veterans. So that’s a really underserved population in our state, very, very close knit state as well. So I wanted to make that change, to help veterans have a better home buying experience here in New Hampshire.
Alissa 2:11
That’s amazing. That’s a lot of veterans in one place is a
Katy 2:14
lot of veterans in one place. Do y’all have a? Well, we’ll get into that, I guess. Do you have a base? There are multiple bases or what’s the story? Why
Speaker 2 2:21
are there so many so there are so there’s a there’s a National Guard base in an army base in Manchester as well as in Concord. There is also the Portsmouth Naval Shipyard. So we get some people over there. A
Speaker 1 2:34
lot of my clientele are recruiters and they have different recruiter offices all over
Katy 2:39
the state. Okay, makes sense. Okay, Samantha, tell us about yourself.
Speaker 1 2:43
So my name is Samantha Catterall. I am a real estate agent with the legacy Group at Keller Williams. I was a veteran myself or I am a veteran myself. I was in the Vermont Army National Guard. And I went into human services after that and didn’t really like feel I was doing my best. So I jumped into real estate. And I’ve only been doing this for two and a half years. But I’ve been pretty successful, especially with like the VA being about 50% of the business. I do.
Alissa 3:17
Yeah, I think that’s fascinating. And to hear from a younger agent that’s getting right into it from that background and serving the your clientele you’re serving the people that you were working with, which I think is you know what they need the most. Absolutely,
Speaker 1 3:31
especially when it comes to like the disabled veterans, the PTSD, there’s a lot that goes into working with these clients that may have that significant PTSD. So knowing that they have someone they can, you know, get support from is huge.
Katy 3:47
Yeah, I bet having someone that shared an experience or that can talk to them about that. How long were you in the Army National Guard?
Unknown Speaker 3:54
I was in for six years.
Katy 3:55
Okay. Did you like, okay, it’s interesting, and I’ll just throw it in there. You know, my husband is a veteran. He was in the Army National Guard in Louisiana, but he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2002. So he’s in a construction specialty. So he had to go and build the base, you know, like after 911. That’s when their unit was one of the first ones to go. Then he was activated again, actually, I think even longer than that time during Hurricane Katrina. So right before and all the way through, like they were basically, you know, occupying New Orleans whenever the residents couldn’t be there for such a long time. So that was interesting. So I I’ve seen it from the the wife standpoint that I wasn’t with him when he was in Afghanistan, but I’ve been around long enough to know a little bit. So we love veterans. I love veterans. I’m married to a veteran. So I’m really excited to be talking about this with y’all. I do think they’re underserved. And sometimes there are some challenges associated with a veteran getting a loan and trying to get a house and maybe it’s hard to get those loans approved and those offers approved. So we’re definitely going to dive into that. Okay, so maybe can you start with the basics like who is eligible for a VA loan? Yeah. So,
Speaker 2 5:09
I mean, I guess I can take this one. Yes. So as long as someone has 90 plus days of either title 10 orders, or 30 days of title 32, which is title 32, is when your governor activates you, title 10 is when the President activates you. So as long as somebody has that amount of time served, they’re generally eligible if somebody has been in the National Guard, usually, it’s six years that they have to be in the guard, earning a specific, a specific number of retirement points. Or if somebody was medically discharged, say somebody was deployed for their first time to say Iraq, and they were a paratrooper right in their first jump on their first deployment, something goes wrong with the parachute, it malfunctions, they break their legs, they’re there, they’re removed from service, they’re medically discharged, they’re actually eligible because they went to war. And they obviously couldn’t finish what they were trying to do, you know, because of medical service, connected reasons. And then also surviving spouses of veterans who, you know, pay the ultimate sacrifice, or maybe one good example is a sad example. But, you know, the agent, orange guys from Vietnam, you know, they come back home, and, you know, they have these long standing medical issues. And as long as we can document the link between, you know, their agent, Orange exposure, leading to their unfortunate passing, that surviving spouse is also eligible for their home loan benefit just requires pre authorization from the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Unknown Speaker 6:38
The surviving pal, yeah,
Alissa 6:40
the surviving spouse is the their spouse would have had to pass away while serving, serving or
Speaker 2 6:45
from a service connected disability. You know, so you think about those really heartbreaking stories, you know, somebody comes back missing pieces, or with, you know, carcinogenic exposure while they were deployed. You know, if somebody comes back, you know, and they’re totally healthy, and then their spouse dies from like, Alzheimer’s, for example. You know, obviously, that’s not really service connected. But you know, it’s again, like Agent Orange exposure, for example, and they pass away later on, you know, that spouse,
Katy 7:14
they’re eligible. I have a strange question. I don’t know if this, what about suicide? I know, that’s such a big problem with veterans does that apply for? Do you know,
Speaker 2 7:25
it depends. So anytime a surviving spouse is applying for this kind of eligibility. With the VA, they have to go through a prior authorization process. It’s not something that we’re able to pre approve like that, you know, there are some forms that have to be filed, and the VA has to dig into their medical records. Sometimes I’m not going to say it’s a definite no go. But it’s really going to depend case by case, was there documented trips to the VA health center? You know, what I mean, these sorts of things, it’s really a decision that the VA is going to make.
Katy 7:54
Yeah,
Alissa 7:54
it does seem like for the VA loan, there would be some specific underwriting that it’s not a checklist of approval anytime, it seems like you’re always having to verify this information. I’ve had issues before where my clients had trouble getting the certificates that you mentioned, are those hard to get, or they just have a portal.
Speaker 2 8:13
So it’s, it’s actually really easy to grab them. So it really only all you need as a lender is you need access to the web, LG y hub, web, LG, whatever you want to call it, you need their social security number, and you need the year of their birth, and about 80% of certificate of eligibility are available instantly on their website through their portal. If it’s not, there are some gaps, where the VA just hasn’t caught up with paperwork. You know, in which case, you need to grab a copy of their DD 214. Or maybe they’re a current reservist and they’ve served their time. You know, maybe we have to get a copy of their retirement point statement and submit that to the VA. But overall, you know, 80% of the time, these things are readily readily available at the snap of a finger. There’s really no excuse, in my opinion for a lender to not pull that upfront.
Katy 9:02
For the lender to do it for them. Okay, tell us what a DD 214 is for the listeners and how like, when do you get that like who has that? When did when did they get that? Yeah, so
Speaker 2 9:12
a DD 214 is basically the military equivalent of your college transcripts. The name of the form is just DD 214. So the government they love numbers and acronyms, but they need their member for coffee, which includes their character discharge, because we just have to know we have to make sure that they weren’t dishonorably discharged. If you’re dishonorably discharged for the military, you know, chances are you’re not going to be eligible.
Katy 9:36
Okay. Okay. Now, I want to hear some of the benefits to using a VA loan and do you find that some veterans don’t even know that they have this benefit? That is that common that people just aren’t even aware? So what are the benefits to using one and is that like a commonly used thing or do we need to get that word out? So
Speaker 2 9:54
I would say a lot of veterans maybe know that it exists, but they don’t really know you know, the stumped, have it. I mean, I think Sam, you can attest to the experience when you’re being separated from service and the two days that you have to sit in class.
Speaker 1 10:07
They don’t they don’t tell you anything. So I know the biggest thing that other veterans say is, oh, I need to go to the VA to get that, when you don’t obviously have to go to the VA, you go to a lender who can specialize in VA loans.
Speaker 2 10:23
But yeah, a lot of the times they don’t know, they also maybe don’t know, some of the Kabylake that you that you can use your VA benefit more than once. You know, there’s a lot of things that veterans don’t know, because you know, that the knowledge, it’s just there’s just so much to know, when you’re being separated from service, that it’s just something that gets glossed over quick like, oh, hang on, just so you guys know, you have a housing benefit. Alright, we’re gonna move on to, you know, the VA Medical Center now.
Katy 10:47
Yeah, it’s glossed over. Yes. Okay. And
Speaker 1 10:52
the other benefit, too, is there’s no PMI when you use a VA loan, so you’re not paying that monthly PMI interest. And I actually just had a huge conversation with my broker. I’m known as the VA gal. So if anyone has any questions, they always call me or they asked my broker and my broker calls me. And he was saying that there’s a deal happening right now between two agents in our office. And what happened was the listing agent said, Oh, no, no, we would prefer it to be conventional over VA, well come to find out because he was going to be conventional, who’s going to be paying an additional $700 a month in his mortgage. By using his VA loan, he didn’t have that, because he wasn’t paying the PMI. And they’re like, oh, just call that girl Sam. And you know, she knows all about this stuff. She can explain it. Yeah.
Katy 11:44
I mean, fair, that’s
Alissa 11:45
a question I have. Because the only thing I mean, I think one of the biggest things I hear is like it offers them 100% financing. But you can put money down, right? Absolutely. Yes,
Speaker 2 11:58
you absolutely can 26% of veterans do actually make a down payment, even the Wow, do and that’s a statistic from the Department of Veterans Affairs themselves. Also, a lot of the times VA loans have lower rates. I’m not going to say all the time, because as you guys know, interest rates are like a science. There’s 32 things that go into one interest rate. You know, but but generally VA loans. You know, it’s a government insured loan. So you know, the interest rates a little bit better, no downpayment. If a veteran wants to they can, if a veteran wants to make up an appraisal gap on a purchase, they certainly can, you know, and then another thing too, is that there’s no loan limits. So up here where we’re filming in New Hampshire is up in the lakes region. And we have some absolutely beautiful million dollar homes up here on the lake in the mountains in the ski resorts. You know, a veteran with full entitlement has no loan limit. So you could actually probably buy a $2 million lake house up here in New Hampshire as long as you can qualify for the payment for zero money down. And no PMI and no PMI. It
Katy 12:58
just has to be your primary residence though, right? Yep.
Speaker 2 13:01
Can’t be a vacation home can’t be a second homes got to be your primary.
Katy 13:05
I had no idea. There were no loan limit.
Alissa 13:07
I wish that was gonna be my next question. Yeah, well, everybody’s
Unknown Speaker 13:10
stoked about that. How do we not know
Alissa 13:13
this?
Katy 13:13
I’m like, let me tell you the next loan I’ll be using when I can. Lucky. I didn’t even know there wasn’t. This is blowing my mind right now that there were no loan limits and no PMI. It seems like,
Alissa 13:28
though, especially like I have a client right now. And this is a question I have to hit there. He’s a veteran, they have a VA on their current home, they need to move and get a bigger home now that they are having children. He wants to use his VA. So you can only have one VA out at a time correct and correct. No
Speaker 2 13:53
incorrect you can have, you can have multiple VA loans at a time. It’s a common misconception that you can only do one at a time. What it all comes down to is entitlement and how much entitlement you have remaining. And how much
Katy 14:06
does that mean? Yeah.
Speaker 2 14:09
So entitlement, this is going to be so entitlement is basically it’s the VA is guarantee of 25% of your loan amount. Okay, so that’s the benefit that lenders get. And that’s really, I guess, if we want to back up to what a VA loan is, it’s basically just the Department of Veterans Affairs guaranteeing 25% of the loan amount to service members in the event that the lender writes the loan in a way that meets their criteria in their handbook, which is called the 26 Dash seven. So with that entitlement, like I said, your first house note, you know, no loan limit, if you have full entitlement, if you have some entitlement remaining on your old house that you used, right? There’s this thing called bonus entitlement, which is kind of cool. So there’s some math calculations involved. I can send it to you guys if you want a great calculator that I use to calculate that it’s technically the lenders job, you guys don’t have to worry about it as real estate agents just know that that there is bonus entitlement and that it’s worth talking to the lender to ask if they can buy a second home with zero money down. It can you give
Katy 15:14
me like an example just like a basics numbers one cuz I’m like, I don’t think I get it.
Speaker 2 15:21
Okay. The say that you bought a house and you bought it for 100,000. Okay? The VA guaranteed 25% of that $100,000 purchase. So you had used $25,000? Your VA entitlement, okay. Okay. That’s your basic entitlement. After that, you can go ahead and you can calculate, calculate the bonus, which is I’m gonna have to write this down and write a math equation for you because it’s wasting.
Katy 15:49
I’m happy to wait for the math. Let’s pause for equation. Sam, do you want to take deontae conversation while I write down the math? Tell us what. Okay, while this is doing the math for me, have you had clients use a second VA loan? Have you had any experience with
Speaker 1 16:09
that? So I have they have used it a second time, but they don’t have a home at that time with a VA loan there either. You know, they sold it years ago, and they’re just renting and then they’re going back and trying to use their loan. Again, that’s really the only time that I’ve experienced it. So I’ve
Alissa 16:27
read because I’m trying to figure out how to navigate this contingency, because they have a VA loan and the house they’re going to be buying is going to be more expensive. So they want to still use their VA loan. But let’s just say it doesn’t work out. You know, they have to sell this one to get rid of this one before they can buy. I’m trying to figure out. I mean, I know we’d have to be contingent, I suppose. But what if we closed and they knew that you had every intention of selling that house you
Katy 16:57
like is there a basically is there some type of timeframe where you’re like, okay, as long as you get rid of a refi? or what have you, we’re keeping the first house as an investment and you just we’re gonna refi that after you buy the like, I guess these are these are lives question,
Alissa 17:12
right? Would you have to refinance the first VA away? Before you could buy the second fee? Do you
Speaker 2 17:18
can do a one time? You can do a one time?
Alissa 17:21
What’s the word? refi?
Katy 17:23
Like a recap,
Speaker 2 17:25
you could do a one time reinstatement of your benefit one time. Okay, where basically, you know, you keep everything the way that it is. You restore your entitlement to zero. Back to Full entitlement. You could do that one time. Okay,
Alissa 17:41
I know that sounds very important. And I’ve never heard of
Katy 17:44
it. Me neither. So I think are you ready to give us the entitlement story lists?
Unknown Speaker 17:48
Yes. All right. So
Katy 17:49
I’m working on it. Right? We’re on the edge of our seats right now. Okay.
Speaker 2 17:53
All right. So for example, here, so if we live in New Hampshire, okay, where we live in New Hampshire, our max loan amount, our county loan limit here, which doesn’t apply to VA, right. But it does apply to conventional, it’s $726,200. If somebody’s used 25% of their or 25%, right on that $100,000 house, they’ve got 25,000 that they’ve already used in outstanding entitlement. So that means that they have $156,550 left of remaining entitlement that they can use for the VA. And remember that 156,000 That’s only that’s only 25%.
Alissa 18:30
It’s 25% of your max loan amount.
Speaker 2 18:33
Exactly. So if we multiply the 156 550 times four, that lands us at a max purchase price with 0% down of $626,200. Does that make so
Katy 18:45
they have the $100,000 house now they can buy a $600,000 house and still no money to have VA okay, and that
Speaker 2 18:53
would exhaust all their entitlement. You know, so if they wanted to buy something that’s less, they’re just going to leave a little bit more on the table. Now say they want to buy a house that 700,000 Right, you know, 626 isn’t enough for me, and they want to buy $700,000 price. The cool thing is, is that the veteran only needs to bring in 25% of that difference between 626 and 700. And that’s their downpayment. So that’s pretty tight. Like what one and a half percent mental math.
Katy 19:22
Okay. Okay. Yeah, no, I’m with you. What I have just now learned is that you need a VA intelligent lender.
Alissa 19:30
Yes, for sure. That can double check these things and understands entitlement and bonus entitlement. So what if they are it does the VA have a problem with the fact that they’re buying a bigger home, they have a VA loan on their other home that they’re not going to be living in anymore? No,
Speaker 2 19:45
as long as the veteran has occupied that as their primary residence. That’s fine. For example, I have a client who owns a house up in New York, up in Plattsburgh New York, and he rents it out to other army guys and he has a primary he used to live there when he served. Now he lives in New Hampshire. He bought us he bought a house, use his VA benefit again. So he’s got two VA loans right at the same time. He’s got one that he rents out to his army buddies and he has his primary residence here in New Hampshire with his family. fascinate,
Katy 20:14
I am fascinated. It’s fascinating. Wow, okay. Wow. All right. So that’s very interesting and kind of goes right into my what are the common agent or buyer misconceptions about VA loans? We’ve already debunked the you could only have one at a time. Are there other misconceptions that agents have or that even like veteran buyers have? Oh, yes. Usually, when
Speaker 1 20:40
I’m working with a VA buyer, the first thing I like to ask the other agent, when I find a property they want to look at is will this work for a VA loan? There are other programs with VA loans such as the VA rehab, you know, Liz can tuck into, you know, we can do a waiver. So the biggest things that I hear are it one one time I heard it has two prong outlets. It’s never going to work for VA. I was like, oh, that’s quite interesting. Let me call Liz, let me let me see what she has to say about that. There’s nothing in the VA handbook that says that that would not work. The other thing is we up here. I don’t know. If you have a lot of private water where you guys are from? Like a well, yeah, well. So dug wells are a huge thing in our area. And that’s what you know, some agents have told us I’ll have dug well, well, it won’t work because of the dug well.
Katy 21:40
Yes. Okay. Interesting. So most misconceptions then are based on the actual construction or type or things involved in the house. Okay, this is very interesting. Yeah.
Alissa 21:51
Is it just say it has a well, so it has a private well as the water source, you just have to get do you have to get a certificate or anything for that? Yeah, basically. So
Speaker 2 21:59
first of all, dug wells are a problem. So I just like to get that on the record. Neither Well, shared wells, all that kind of stuff. They’re fine. Um, in regards to water, private water sources, all you need on a VA loan is a water test. And they don’t necessarily specify which water test either in the handbook, you know, just that a water test has to be done. What I normally recommend is the one for the the five primary EPA pollutants, you know, lead nitrates, nitrites, E. coli and coliform because who wants that in their water?
Alissa 22:32
I’d probably want that no matter what loan I had. Right, exactly.
Speaker 2 22:36
But you know that that’s that’s pretty much it for a well, as long as it’s common for the area, and doesn’t affect marketability of the property. That’s the big thing that VA is looking out for. They want to make sure that the veterans not buying a house that they’re going to have problems offloading later.
Katy 22:52
I like that philosophy. That’s my personal philosophy with buyers. Yes, I want everyone to be able to resell it later.
Unknown Speaker 23:01
Stick out and sanitary. Yep. Okay,
Katy 23:04
safe, sound and sanitary. This is important. I feel like that should be the standard for all right, safe, sound and sanitary you’re going to live in and it should be those things. So tell me about this handbook that you keep referring to who has access to the handbook? How long is it? Like, do you get trained in it like, Well, tell me more about the handbook.
Speaker 2 23:22
Okay, so do I get trained in it as a lender? No, believe it or not, you know, lenders, they don’t we have to take a safe exam, if you’re a broker, or continuing education, but a lot of that education that goes into becoming a loan officer isn’t necessarily on how to do a particular loan or on particular loan guidelines. A lot of it is more on government regulations. And knowing those sorts of regulations, Reg D, Reg, Z ECOA, fakra, all that kind of stuff. The type of education that you can get as a loan officer, you can choose to educate yourself on a specific mortgage mortgage type, right? You know, that’s what I’ve done. I’ve chosen with my business to gear myself more towards knowing the 26 Dash seven, in and out every, every person, everybody has access to it. If you have access to the internet, you can literally just Google va 26 Dash seven, and that’s going to pull up the handbook and it’s Believe it or not, it’s one of the easier handbooks in my opinion to read. VA loans are really fun because the guidelines are written pretty vague. Reason for that as a service members life is pretty vague between PCs saying and getting, you know, separating from service. You know, there’s a lot of things that happen in a service member’s life. That doesn’t necessarily happen to civilians like me. So the handbook is written with that in mind, but anybody can look that up if you’re looking for have specific questions about property eligibility, or property standards, chapter 12 of the VA 26 Dash seven is going to tell you in a beautifully win written way that actually makes sense. You know, what is acceptable and what isn’t And that chapter covers everything from mobile homes to lava flow areas to houses that are on post and Piers. You know, and wells wells.
Katy 25:12
Right. This is very interesting. So while we’re on House things like the actual components and what’s approved, let’s talk a little bit about our friend, the VA appraiser. And I don’t know if you ladies are aware, Alissa’s dad, who has been on the show is a VA appraiser approved appraiser, he does a bajillion. I mean, is that his majority of his business, it is
Alissa 25:34
a lot of his business. And the other funny thing is my grandpa was one of the first VA appraisers and we don’t know for sure if he was like, the first in Louisiana, but his VA appraisers license number was one. So it might have been like, back when this was really becoming a thing. He was one of the first appraisers that was on the VA, he read the handbook, he read the handbook, my dad has the handbook.
Katy 26:03
Right? So tell us though, what are what are the appraisal challenges you see? Do all appraisers who do this seem to have good education on it? Is it just like anything else? Some appraisers are good, some are bad at this, like, Tell me about it?
Speaker 2 26:18
Yeah, well, I’ll say I guess, as a lender, you know, first of all, this is why it’s important to work with a lender who really knows VA, because any lender can do a VA loan, you know what I mean? But not every single lender knows VA loans really, really well. And it’s important because sometimes even appraisers get a little bit confused between FHA and VA standards, because FHA and VA, they’re cousins. But man, they couldn’t be further, you know, that they’re like the cousins that sit on opposite ends of the table at Thanksgiving. Okay? And sometimes sometimes appraisers make mistakes, you know, they’re humans, just like everybody else. But sometimes appraisers do make mistakes. And it’s important for your lender to know how to override the appraiser, or be able to push back and say, hey, you know, that’s an FHA guidelines that this is VA remember? Wow,
Katy 27:07
you would need to know them. So Sam, have you had that? That happened to you where you had to be like, no, no, that’s not the actual rule?
Speaker 1 27:13
Yes. Actually, for instance, there’s a property listed right now for sale. Somewhere in New Hampshire, from I don’t recall, I’m licensed in both states. So they created this list of all of these items that would not pass for government loan products, meaning FHA and VA and USDA. And I sent it to Liz because I had to have a little bit of a laugh. Supposedly, an appraiser created this list and appraisal was never done on the property. But it was created with guidance for this agent to know why this would not work for these products. And, you know, some of them were just super silly, you know, one of them was missing siding, that’s obviously not a safe component to have on a house, you want excited, you don’t want it to get wet. We deal with a lot of moisture here, not necessarily termites, we just deal with a lot of different various weathers. So you know, that’s something that we can do, you know, a repair after the fact or we can convert them to a VA rehab loan. And, you know, they can hire a contractor after the fact. And they can fix that, as well as other items or request
Speaker 2 28:25
a waiver, depending on the nature of that piece of siding that’s missing. Is it just cosmetic or is it imperative to the to the structural soundness of a property?
Katy 28:33
And, and
Alissa 28:35
Gladding been right that he could make a list to say all government loans like wouldn’t it be like of this list, some of these are VA disqualification. Some of them are FHA,
Speaker 1 28:45
right? It shouldn’t have been allowed. And I definitely push back when I see agents saying things like this, like, you know, not trying to be negative or like add fuel to the fire. I always come from a standpoint of trying to teach other agents, you know, that’s not the correct way. And I’ve had agents really, actually love that. And then I’ve got the other side of oh, I’ve been in the business for 20 years, I have done been doing this forever. I know the best way. And I always just try to like put them back to lists, Liz is you know, she’s able to teach agents in New Hampshire about this and they can get CPE credits. So I always just say, you know, maybe you should chat with Liz and you know, get a different perspective on this and not just hear back from me some young agent who’s new to this. Okay,
Katy 29:38
well, this perfect while we’re on agents who have pushed back a lot of listing agents when you wanted to submit your VA buyer, you know, offer or just immediately shut down or they’re gonna tell their sellers you’re getting three offers. They’re all the same ones VA don’t do that one. How do you handle that? Like, how do you handle that objection? Is there something that we can do to help so import our, you know, veteran buyers who want to use that loan and still be competitive.
Speaker 1 30:04
So I actually use your email templates. I’ve been using them since day one, and perfect D offer email template that I use. When I’m putting in like the purchase price. I always say using a whatever loan product in VA loan in the next line down. I add please remember that Tidewater is an option using a VA loan where we can compete against the appraisal and multiple times. So some agents have really loved that. Other agents basically were like, you know, that’s kind of rude for you to put. But the thing is that email and everything that I’m putting there goes to the seller and if the seller doesn’t know what Tidewater is, guess what they’re gonna Google it.
Alissa 30:54
Can you tell us about Tidewater?
Speaker 2 30:56
Yeah. So Tidewater. So another kind of cool feature about the VA loan is that you have one, but you have two opportunities in the House and in the event that the house doesn’t appraise. Right? So the first thing that happens when a house is not appraising, the appraiser goes out to the property, can’t find the value goes back home sitting there on the MLS can’t find the value of the house. What the appraiser does is say Oh, and then what they do is they notify the lender right away. And from that moment the clock starts ticking, the lender has 48 hours to respond to the Tidewater initiative. It’s called Tidewater, not because of the rising ocean levels, but it’s because of the Tidewater area in Virginia where this particular protocol was. What’s the word tested?
Katy 31:40
Okay,
Speaker 2 31:41
yeah, it was in the Tidewater area of Virginia. So that’s the name Tidewater. So basically what we do, then, what a lender does is I reach out to the real estate agent because I don’t have access to the MLS like a like a real estate agent does. But what we have to do is we have to provide three comparable sales that support the sale price, you know, I’ll say, Sam, the appraiser called Tidewater, can you help me out? We need comps to support such and such sale price. And what Sam’s gonna do, and she can sometimes this is, you know, it’s not necessarily whose job is it right? It doesn’t specifically say in the in the handbook whose job it is it just the three cops need to be provided, I find that real estate agents are the best ones equipped for this, because I don’t write CMAs all day like you guys do. But what happens is we get that back, we send it off to the appraiser and then the appraiser will then at that point issue value. Sometimes Sometimes there’s a sale that’s happened, that maybe the appraiser isn’t aware of, you know that a real estate agent knows up so we can get that over to the appraiser as more relevant data. Sometimes the appraiser doesn’t realize what type of house it is or things like that. But anyways, we get the Tidewater done, say, Tidewater doesn’t come in and value, we then at that point have a second avenue of recourse which we can come the appraiser right out of the picture, and take the report and escalate it straight to the Department of Veterans Affairs and say, Hey, we’re contesting this value, the veteran writes an email or a letter just says, Hey, I’m the veteran, I would like to do a reconsider a value for this property located at such and such such at this this price. And then what we do as the lenders, we submit that to the VA, for reconsider a value in which we can the VA can actually override the appraiser and give additional value, if they feel that the appraiser has not given value substantially to certain things. How
Alissa 33:28
long of a process is that? To hear back from the VA on overriding the appraisal, it can be
Speaker 2 33:33
anywhere from three to seven days. It depends on current times at the VA, but I’ve had them come back. And as little as three days I’ve had them come back and as long as seven.
Alissa 33:42
And what does the letter need to say? What is the veteran saying to the VA basically that
Speaker 2 33:48
they disagree with the sale? The basically they’re they’re contesting the appraised value that the appraiser has come up with and they want the VA to reconsider for a value of such and such.
Alissa 33:58
Do they does the veteran also provide the data from the realtor like did they have to submit the facts like we did to the appraiser
Speaker 2 34:07
and the lenders yet what the lender should do? The lender should take this letter, they should take the comps. And then they should take the appraisal report and then send it to their appraisal management department or however their company is structured, which then would go and submit it directly to the regional loan center for reconsider a value.
Alissa 34:23
I’ve never experienced that.
Katy 34:26
No mean, you know, that’s well,
Unknown Speaker 34:28
I’m expecting that
Katy 34:29
brings me to another question on the timing though. So I know a lot of times too. I think the complaint is that like, oh, well, this is a VA loan. They have such a long time period to get that appraisal done. Like Tell me about that. Is it really?
Alissa 34:43
Is it different? Do
Katy 34:44
they actually take longer? I mean, what’s it’s different, right.
Speaker 2 34:48
So last year, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs, VA loans took two days longer than conventional loans to close two days. I mean, this is not a lot. No, but I would also like to mention that VA loans closed at a higher success rate than conventional loans did last year. By almost 10%. Wow. Yes. So, you know, sometimes the juice is worth the squeeze is what
Katy 35:11
kind of what I’m saying? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But
Speaker 2 35:15
um, but no, I mean, the with the VA two, what’s kind of cool is you can actually Google it yourself as well. If you don’t, if you want to, for your specific market that you’re in, you can actually Google VA mandated appraisal turn times in New Hampshire and Vermont, it’s 10 business days, that the VA says that you have to get the report back and submitted. So 10 days, so usually, it’s
Speaker 1 35:38
a lot quicker, honestly. I mean, we I had an appraisal on one in Vermont, that it came back in two days from her visiting the site. And I’m going through Tidewater with it right now. And you know, we also just submitted the reconsideration of value. So we’re waiting on that. And it did delay closing for another week. But the thing is, we’d rather have this happen than the deal fall apart and start from square one.
Alissa 36:02
Yeah, I’d much rather do a week long extension than have to start over. Was it a big appraisal gap? Nope.
Speaker 1 36:09
So And honestly, it is at the price point we were listed at, but there’s concessions, so they have to take that Federation. So I have was able to find comps in this particular one. The problem was the appraiser actually used comps older than 12 months, because we live in a very rural area. So hard to find a car it is and you know some of these properties. I live in a town that is 10 minutes from the border of Vermont. So you know, when we’re comping things, it’s not always super easy, because maybe there’s not a lot of seals, or, you know, we’re expanding our search into Vermont or into New Hampshire. And that’s a situation where this one is, we’re expanding the search into New Hampshire because there are no comps in Vermont.
Alissa 37:00
You mentioned also earlier, the termites certificate. So we do in Louisiana, have termite struggles. So they are important here to have termite inspections, I always try to keep them out of my purchase agreements when I’m doing conventional loans and anything else that doesn’t absolutely require it, just so we can have it for ourselves. But the lender doesn’t need to get muddied in those waters. I have found the termite certificates were harder to get when it was a race pier and beam house, it was hard to get the termite company to check the box like all clear because they have to fill it with all these disclaimers about well, what we can see is clear. But you know, it’s a raised home so they could really be anywhere. And sometimes that could kill the deal when I couldn’t just get the termite guy to write that it was good. Like, I’m like, This is what I need. And he’s like, I can’t do it. Like what? Have y’all had issues there with termite certificates? They
Katy 38:01
don’t have a termite. But is it we’re still required for the VA loan because it’s required here, we have to have it for a VA loan and the seller has to pay for it. So that’s the other thing normally in our market, the buyer, is that not true? Because I would love to hear about Yeah, tell us about that. It’s
Unknown Speaker 38:15
not true. Oh my gosh,
Alissa 38:18
the seller does not have to pay for a termite certificate
Speaker 2 38:21
does not have to pay for a termite certificate. If if okay, if the if the veteran is not being charged a 1% origination fee. If the veteran is being charged a 1% origination fee, basically what that lender is doing is saying, you know, forget it, I’m just going to charge them 1% of that loan amount, which as you guys know, that could be $1,000, based off of $100,000 purchase price, or the lender could say I’m gonna charge $3,000 to originate this $300,000 loan that’s like, I don’t like that personally as a lender. But if they’re not being charged a 1% origination fee, the veteran can pay for their own pest inspection. It’s been in the VA handbook for years, they put out a new circular about it last year, because people are just are still getting confused about it. But the veteran absolutely can. And the way that you determine whether or not the veteran can pay for it is get a copy of that loan estimate. Look at page two. It’s the very first section, I believe it’s Section A, and I will say right there, it’ll say origination fee 1%.
Alissa 39:20
So if the seller is being charged a 1% origination fee, then they cannot pay for the termite certificate correct. But if they are not being charged a 1% origination fee, they have the option to pay for the certificate themselves correct
Speaker 2 39:37
and pesticides, but it’s always required. It is as long so there is actually a map that’s available on the Department of Veterans Affairs down where you are, it’s not really going to matter up where we are. There’s a certain county grafting and co ops in Carroll County. I guess it’s too cold for termites there. But that’s the cut off if you’re originating alone in those counties. You don’t need the pest inspection but in Southern New Hampshire I Live, you do need one on every single where do you find that map? I
Alissa 40:03
just want to see it on the VA website.
Speaker 2 40:05
Um, so you should google VA term like an app.
Speaker 1 40:09
And it goes, it’s county specific. And
Alissa 40:12
I know this isn’t like VA specific, but is there certain lenders? Is it like the 1% origination fee? Is that most lenders, some lenders, local or big banks always charge it? Like, is there sort of a stigma to the 1%?
Speaker 2 40:32
I mean, I personally wouldn’t want to work with a lender who’s going to manipulate their origination fees, depending on how much the loan amount is, if I was, you know what I mean? Like, I would rather pay 950 bucks, you know, and know that I’m paying the same $950 as a conventional loan, you know, as a conventional loan for an origination fee. And then, you know, whatever other fees the lender has, rather than just being charged a flat 1%. Can you imagine if you’re buying a $700,000 house and being charged 1% origination? That is so incredibly unfair? No,
Katy 41:03
yeah, that makes sense. Okay, before we move on, yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Sam. That’s why it’s really
Speaker 1 41:07
important when you’re, you’re in this process. And it’s for any loan products, not just for VA, but it’s always so smart to try to use a local lender, because the local lender also has access to different programs such as where we are Vermont, New Hampshire housing, where, you know, if we are working with a lower price point pre approval, they may not have the funds to be able to pay their closing costs, where those programs would potentially help. So the other thing on that too, is they don’t these other like online, big box lenders, they don’t know the area, they don’t know the area? Well, they’re not, you know, able, you’re not able to call them you know, when there’s an emergency, you’re calling a call center, and the call center is connecting you with whoever was available, and you have to refresh their memory on what’s happening. Right.
Alissa 42:02
Wow. Okay,
Katy 42:03
my last appraisal question. FHA appraisal, stays with the house right for a certain amount of time, if it didn’t work out, the appraisal was low, then you know, sometimes you’ll find that buyer tries to strong arm the seller, like well, you’re gonna be stuck with this one anyway. Is it the same for a VA appraisal does it does not know. Like if, if a new VA buyer came out, like that deal falls through for whatever reason, and has gotten through appraisal already. If a new VA buyer comes the next day, you’re gonna get a whole new appraisal.
Speaker 2 42:33
Absolutely. That report on VA. That report stays with the veteran on that particular property. So say the deal falls apart and we’re in a slower market, right? We’re back in a market where it takes three months to sell a house, okay, say the first time around, that doesn’t work out for that veteran, maybe they need to come up with gift funds. Maybe they lost their job a week before closing and they come back a month later. Once the dust is settled and they want to buy that same house, they’re going to use that same appraisal from before. Now if this veteran walks away, for whatever reason, and a new veteran comes in to buy that house, the new veteran is going to get a new appraisal that better the appraisal sticks with the veteran on the property.
Katy 43:09
Got it. Okay.
Speaker 1 43:11
Yes, and when it comes to VA appraisals, too. I know we kind of touched on this but every appraiser is kind of different. You know, I’ve had an appraisal on an 1800 schoolhouse and had one with flying colors. There may have been a little bit of peeling paint, but they didn’t you know, say anything about it. But the next one I sold an old Sears Home that came in on a train years ago. And wow, yeah, it was it’s a beautiful house. They that appraiser nitpicked chipping paint on the lattice. So we had to go through and paint and I did that I went there with a three year old and we painted the day. Yeah, right. You know, it’s all up to the appraiser. Unfortunately, sometimes it’s it’s not always fair, but it is what it is.
Alissa 44:03
When it has to go back to underwriting for something. Every lender is every lender different in how long that takes or does everybody have to go back to like a VA underwriter that all the VA files go to?
Speaker 2 44:17
So in order to be a VA underwriter and I’m not an underwriter, you know, but I do know that there are certain standards and certain time requirements that an underwriter has to have in order to be able to underwrite VA loans. I believe it’s five maybe five years maybe seven don’t quote me like I said, I don’t know. I’ve never thought about claiming the underwriter underwriter you know ladder of success. You know, but there are there are it just it usually will go back to the same underwriter that’s been underwriting the file. Most lenders I can only speak to how my company works. But for me, I get one underwriter at the beginning, and that underwriter is going to ride all the way to me is going to ride all the way to the closing table with me. Okay,
Katy 44:58
yeah.
Alissa 45:00
This was can we get CPE for this? And
Katy 45:02
I know I still there’s more can you just mail us our certificate? We’ve learned a lot and so much my head is like swimming. My notes
Alissa 45:10
are not making there. So okay, what what
Katy 45:13
are are there some things that appraisers tend to frequently flag, or that you would expect to be flagged? kind of tell me about a house, I’m going to show a VA buyer homes, what do I need to be on the lookout for that is important that is in the book.
Speaker 2 45:27
So something that comes up where we are in our market, right? We have the oldest housing stock in the country up here in New England, you guys are probably close to second, you know, because we’re on the original 13th colony kind of sexual country. And so for us, a lot of our houses are old, and for that reason, a lot of them have the original cedar or wood wood siding that has to be repainted every like five to seven years. So for us peeling paint is something that does come up pretty often. A really easy remedy for that is to talk with the lender that the buyers working with whether they do a VA renovation program or if they’ll be willing to do an escrow hold back for paint. It’s a really great way you can come in right with your offer saying hey, I know your house has chipping paint, our buyers are ready to go for a VA renovation on this will close on time and the buyers will repaint the house after closing to satisfy the VA. Another thing that we get a lot is the GFI outlets in the kitchen and bathrooms. If it’s close to a water source, that’s a really easy fix on a weekend. It’s also an easy fix to sometimes for the veteran to do. The VA does allow a veteran to self certify repairs, and even sometimes do their own repairs. So we had a client couple months ago, there was no GFI outlets in the kitchen or the bathroom. The veteran part of his service was actually working on electricals. So you know we said to the VA, well, hey, he’s got experience doing electrician, you know, electricity, electrical work. Can you do the repairs himself? He did that we just got a copy of the receipt and the veteran took pictures of the different outlets. We didn’t have to send the appraiser back out the veteran self certified that the work was done. But those are usually the most common ones that I see. I don’t know about you, Sam.
Speaker 1 47:07
Yeah, that’s pretty much the ones that I have run into is the peeling paint and the GFCI handrails.
Alissa 47:12
I was gonna say I had a hand rail issue recently. But the thing
Speaker 1 47:16
is, I had a conventional loan, where I had to send my fiance who’s a handyman. And he installed a handrail because unfortunately, the seller was a doctor and he was in another part of the country, and he just couldn’t do it or find anyone, because we also have a shortage of any sort of contractor, electrician, plumber, so we’re able to do that. But that conventional loan gave me more issues, then the VA loan.
Alissa 47:44
Hmm, I didn’t even know we had a VA rehab loan that was on my
Katy 47:50
start area, they just breezed right over that. So tell us about that.
Speaker 2 47:54
Um, so yeah, so it’s it’s 100% financing renovation loan. If you’ve ever done a convention, if you’ve ever done a conventional renovation loan or FHA 203 K, very similar process, you know, we get the bids from the contractors, we calculate how much they need in reserves, structure the loan to include the acquisition costs cost plus the cost of the renovation. So say it’s going to cost 200 to buy it $20,000 To paint the house, we’re going to do the loan for 220 plus whatever reserves or finance costs associated with the renovation, and then we’re going to close the loan seller gets their check on the closing day that they’re supposed to. And then after closing after the keys are exchanged, then the work all gets done.
Alissa 48:34
Is it still kind of in the weeds with getting estimates? Like it has to be certain contractors and things have to be approved? Like it’s it’s still sort of a tedious lengthy process, right?
Speaker 2 48:44
I wouldn’t say any more than an other any type of other loan program. You know, generally they don’t want to see family members doing and if you’re like, oh, yeah, my Uncle Tom, he, like, you know, knows how to fix stuff. You know, generally that’s not somebody that we want to have on these types of projects. Not me personally. I mean, I trust your Uncle Tom, but you know, it’s the bank’s money at the end of the day. You know? It’s their writers, it’s their say, but you know, any type of financing is going to want to see, you know, insurance, they’re going to want to see, you know that the person has references and you know, they’re not just going to run off with the 30% initial disbursement.
Speaker 1 49:18
And they have to be well, I guess if it’s a new construction, they have to do be a VA approved contractor. So if you’re, you know, I sold a brand new construction condo in Southern New Hampshire, and it this man ended up selling to every veteran he could find. He did not fill it with anyone else. He absolutely loved the fact he was putting veterans in a home, but he had to become VA approved.
Alissa 49:43
But that’s really less question.
Katy 49:45
It’s four sheets. You’re really on your last question. No. So many questions.
Alissa 49:50
It just brought up a new question. Can VAs do all condos or they still have to be like warrantied
Speaker 2 49:55
so we do have to apply for every single condo to be approved. You know, we got to make sure you can I can Google VA approved condos and then just go to the Department of Veterans Affairs and you can search super easy, the database is free for everybody. So that way you guys can see when your clients are looking. Now there is a waiver process. So say your client is trying to buy in a condo complex that was previously denied by the Department of Veterans Affairs say that it was for like a reason like something like legal like right of first refusal, or some sort of a limitation to you know, whether or not they could do short term rentals, something something legal, right? Not necessarily in relation to budgets or special assessments, the veteran can actually write to the Department of Veterans Affairs and ask for a waiver for them to allow them to buy that that condo, it’s a new process. It just came out within the last year. So a lot of people don’t know about it. And there’s not necessarily something out that’s officially written about how to do it just yet. But it is in effect. I have used it before. So you know, it is something that’s kind of cool to know. If did it work? Yeah. Yep. Because there was a right of first refusal in the paperwork for that particular condo association. And so were the Department of Veterans Affairs was like, yeah, no, it’s fine. We’ll just do a waiver for it. And
Katy 51:19
getting it they sound like they’re easy to work with as the Department of Veterans Affairs easy to work with.
Alissa 51:25
I’m skeptical have
Speaker 2 51:26
them on speed dial I call them all the time. Anytime I have a question or anytime Sam has a weird question. Because she has the weirdest questions. You know, we
Alissa 51:34
are out there in the field dealing with the weirdness that is real estate.
Katy 51:38
Tell me a weird question. I want to hear one.
Alissa 51:43
Oh, and now we put him on the spot. That’s
Speaker 1 51:45
okay. So up here we have a lot of classics roads, we have a lot of town unmaintained roads. So I was told that this property wouldn’t go VA because it didn’t have a road maintenance agreement with the other parties to other homes on the road. That’s actually not the case, you do not have to have anything written. The veteran can actually just, you know, sign off on it. You say, hey, you know, I’ll take care of it. Or, you know,
Speaker 2 52:13
I understand I understand I understand the rules, and I’m going to be plowed or maintained. Like that’s fine with me, that sort of a letter New Hampshire has
Alissa 52:20
as long as they know, they know, as long as they know. Yep. And as
Speaker 2 52:23
long as the state has, like a statute, I believe is the way that it’s written. So New Hampshire, we have a statute for that, that because we just have so many darn dirt roads here in New Hampshire and Vermont. You know, so that would be something to look into with your state. But again, it’s right in the 26 Dash seven under private roads.
Katy 52:39
It’s right there in the handbook. It’s right there in the box. Okay, just
Speaker 1 52:42
do the Find button on your computer and you can type in Okay, Doug, well, and it takes you right to it like, Hey, this is
Katy 52:51
wow, I really I I thought this was going to be more boring. I’m
Alissa 52:58
not gonna lie. I was like, Oh, good. We’re interviewing I am
Katy 53:00
really fascinated. Okay, but let’s talk about property type mobile home is okay. Like, is there any particular property type that is an issue?
Speaker 2 53:09
So VA fun fact about VA? Okay. It is the only loan program that will allow you to finance a mobile home that’s been moved once before. Oh, that allows that, isn’t that
Katy 53:22
crazy? Yeah, that’s very interesting. It
Speaker 2 53:25
does have to fit like, you know, those same kind of HUD standards, right, you know, has to have the HUD plate has to be built after 1976 has to be permanently affixed to the foundation. So they can’t roll it off in the middle of the night when we foreclose on it. God forbid someday. But you know, it has to meet those sorts of criteria. You know, but that is,
Speaker 1 53:44
yeah, their financial allowed. Yes. And I actually have a mobile home. I’m on the listing side, we accepted a VA loan because my seller is actually a disabled veteran that I sold that house to, and he really wanted to sell to a veteran. And it doesn’t have a slab under it is a dirt foundation. But it has tied down. So as long as it’s affixed to the ground, it is absolutely fine. Whoa,
Katy 54:07
okay, that’s interesting. Let
Speaker 2 54:08
me tell ya. That’s an FHA guideline, don’t FHA, my VA, please you don’t?
Katy 54:14
That’s what it sounds like. Like don’t get your so FHA is more difficult, honestly, from what I’m getting at this, right.
Speaker 2 54:20
Property wise, I would say yes, credit, qualifying, they’re probably about the same. FHA has their own caveats. I don’t, I don’t want to do with you, right. We’re
Katy 54:30
not that’s I want to tell you about, but Okay, tell me about the VA credit requirements, like what are like, what’s the debt to income? What’s the credit requirements give us like a kind of overview.
Speaker 2 54:41
That’d be fun. Okay, so, so there is no minimum credit score on a VA loan that’s set by a lender, so you could talk to a lender who maybe has a 660 as they’re cut off for a VA loan. Well, the veteran is going to be told they can’t buy a house and the Veterans gonna be like, I can’t buy a house and you’re like, Okay, well, you need to talk to somebody else because the VA does not have a minimum price. Credit Score requirement lenders do, okay, like for me, the lowest down is 580. But I know I have colleagues in other parts of the country that will go down to 555 20. Okay, there is no debt to income ratio cap on a VA loan either. That’s another thing that’s set by a lender to another lender overlay. They go by residual income if you want to get technical residual income is how much money is left in real dollars and cents after their paycheck taxes, Medicare house maintenance costs, child care costs, liabilities and the mortgage. So they do have
Alissa 55:37
she just knew that math. You just knew all those off the top she
Katy 55:40
knew all those off the top of her head. Yeah. She does these
Speaker 1 55:43
classes all the time. And honestly, people are just like you guys and how you’re reacting. They’re like, wow, what are you talking about? That’s so cool. Fun. Yeah,
Alissa 55:54
it is fine. I
Katy 55:55
mean, you know, but I will say let’s go high level, this is sad. It truly is sad that the industry is filled with agents and brokers and maybe even lenders who act like it’s difficult, who would would turn a VA buyer away from getting a VA loan or tell them they’re not competitive enough to get a house. I mean, you’re we should be taking more time to learn this and be able to serve those people who served their country in order to get into a home. It’s just
Alissa 56:22
well, just like we get frustrated with realtors acting unprofessionally, I’m sure Liz gets frustrated with lenders who say I do VA loans, and then they make a big mess of them. And it makes us think that they’re harder because this particular buyer got a VA loan from someone that actually doesn’t know the handbook and doesn’t know the product and do them enough to know the ins and outs of how to get through it smoothly. Quickly. Like you need a lender that specializes in this. Yeah,
Speaker 2 56:52
exactly. Or at least has done one or two in the past year. I mean, I mean, for me, it’s like, you know, it’s like a restaurant, right? You know what I mean? Like, you know, if you go to a restaurant just because they serve something doesn’t necessarily mean it’s gonna be like the best. Like, I don’t know if like no offense to like, you know, Applebee’s, but I don’t know if I would get like sushi at Applebee’s. Do you know what I definitely know, sizzling plates that are like, way better? You know?
Alissa 57:17
Yeah, yeah, don’t get the sushi. That’s funny. Oh,
Speaker 1 57:22
my goodness, my big goal out of doing all of this in my lifetime, is that it should almost be a requirement at your license renewal, that you have to take these classes on these loan products. So you’re not forgetting, not into this 20 years later. And, you know, dog dogging a, you know, a VA loan, because Oh, you heard something from someone 15 years ago?
Speaker 2 57:46
Yeah. And it’s like difficult because veteran status is not a protected class, right. But veteran status is the one thing that makes this program exclusive. And when you have an exclusive program out there in the marketplace, you’re going to have people that you know, don’t understand how it works. And then like you said, you know, you have one deal that goes south, because you worked with, you know, Joe Schmo who’s never written a VA loan in the past five years, mess up everything. And now everybody has a sour taste, because he didn’t know that the appraiser made a mistake. He didn’t know that this wasn’t required. He didn’t know you know that there was no debt to income ratio. He didn’t know to fight that, you know, you only need, you know, 12 months worth of overtime income with the right substantiating document he didn’t know how to like fight for the VA loan because he doesn’t do that. And then all of a sudden,
Alissa 58:33
he doesn’t have the VA on speed dial. Yeah, he
Katy 58:36
didn’t have the VA on speed dial.
Speaker 2 58:37
And it’s the same way for lenders though, too. You know, like, I feel like real estate agents should know, because at the end of the day, you guys are the gatekeepers to all offers. Right? You guys are the gatekeepers to homeowners. Yeah. But us as lenders, I feel like to originate a VA loan, like you should have to take some sort of specialized class because it is a special product. You know, this isn’t just something that you throw on the menu, like chicken tenders or mac and cheese like this is something that’s like super important, like sushi. Like, yeah, super,
Katy 59:03
super important. Like sushi. I have a question for Sam. And then we’re going to wrap up, I guess, because we could probably do this, we need to do this as long as Sam, do you win. Let’s say you’re representing the buyer and you present it to a listing agent and offer where maybe they’re a little like, I don’t know, I don’t really want to deal with a VA. I mean, do you pull up their heartstrings? Do you remind them that you’re helping a veteran like how do you how do you put that out there? I feel like it’s important probably to be like, hey, they served your country, you need to help them get into this house.
Speaker 1 59:34
I mean, if all other terms are the same, you know what I mean? Oh, yeah, absolutely. The big thing that I do when I submit the offer and everyone should do with every offer, call the listing agent, go over it with them, make sure they understand the loan product because even if it’s another loan products, they may not know it, they’ve may have never even done that. And for instance, I did have a another agent who has only done cash deals in the last 12 months because that is unfair. Feeling the market that we’re in, we are in a very fast paced market we’re in I mean, houses are only on the market for seven to 10 days, sorry. And so I always just let them know, you know, this is a VA loan, if you have any questions, I try to always have my buyers kind of work with Liz or I have a couple others that are still good at VA loans. So we’re not just you know, pinpointing lenses, the only person that can do them, and I fight for them, I fight for them tooth and nail, and I did have one, you know, the seller was a veteran, I explained it to the listing agent, she had never done a VA loan in her entire career. And he accepted it. And she is now calling lists all the time with questions because her son’s a veteran. She’s
Alissa 1:00:47
a believer,
Katy 1:00:48
I love that. And you’re right, though I’ve had sellers who were veterans that were happy to receive actually more excited to take an offer from a veteran. So there’s a whole group of people out there who want to support that, that little facet of the market.
Alissa 1:01:03
Absolutely.
Speaker 2 1:01:04
There are tons of resources for real estate agents to become, you know, military relocation professionals and, and a lot of different accreditation so that we real estate agents can learn, you know, an organization that I’m part of veteran mortgage advisor, we’re we were there’s a lot of us in the country, there’s only two of us in New Hampshire, but I’m sure that there’s some done where you are, that are out there teaching these sorts of classes. You know, there’s different accreditations that real estate agents can learn. I mean, even sometimes just looking at the the course manual for your real estate, your real estate board might have, you might find out that there’s somebody out there teaching VA classes. That’s the best thing that I can I can do and suggest would be you know, just just education is is the way we change the stigma. So that’s
Katy 1:01:47
good. I will say and I feel so proud about this right now in our hustle humbly community, we have a military referral spreadsheet. So we have a list of every like agents who are serving in areas that have a lot of veterans are like near a base or that are more military community. So we definitely want to keep supporting that that group and making sure that they can find each other. So if you’re not in the community, y’all should join if you are serving a military area, because we have a whole list of people where you can send them when they move around. Anything amazing. Alright, are there any other things that we didn’t hit that you feel like are super important for us to know? And for the listeners to know before we wrap up? I
Unknown Speaker 1:02:27
think I hit everything. I feel like I felt so much.
Alissa 1:02:31
Yeah, that was great. We
Katy 1:02:33
really got a lot, right. This is like a relisten though, because I’m gonna be like, Oh, I gotta listen again and again to catch it all. Okay, friends. Did you guys bring a toast? You’re both Welcome to each toasts. Someone This is our first time having two guests so to toast if we Yeah, so
Speaker 1 1:02:47
um, I, I’m toasting my mentor. So because I’ve only been in the business for two and a half years. I started with a small mom and pop and I just switched over to Keller Williams. And when I was here, there was an amazing woman Shannon Casey, she does incredible amount of business. But she always answers your call, no matter what time of night. It is. What no matter what’s happening, and I just I really have to shout out to her for everything that I have learned over the last two years.
Katy 1:03:21
That’s all. Okay. Well, cheers to Shannon and Liz, are you going to tell somebody?
Speaker 2 1:03:26
Yeah, I’d like to toast to my boss, Jason ZIL. He’s the other veteran mortgage advisor in the state of New Hampshire, I mentioned that there was two. The reason why the reason why he’s my boss is because I wanted to work for him. And he and I share the same mission. He’s an Army veteran, he actually served in Bosnia. And we both work really, really hard, we actually co teach RCE classes all over the state together. And he’s really been a huge motivator, a huge support structure for me writing my first curriculums for the New Hampshire Association of Realtors. And he’s really helped me kind of like realize my dream and, and really, really helped me get on this track to you know, being the VA authority here. That’s my goal.
Katy 1:04:13
Okay, good. Okay, so cheers to Jason and Shannon. Thank you so much, Liz. And Samantha, this was so good. So good. So important, though, like just like a higher calling type of important. So thank you so much for sharing with us and our listeners.
Speaker 1 1:04:29
Thank you for having us. I never expected you guys to respond quickly and be so excited. And
Alissa 1:04:35
your email came at the right time, because we were like, we could do it right now. And that would be for
Speaker 1 1:04:42
a purpose. I’m like, should we shoot our shot? And she’s like, Absolutely. Why not?
Katy 1:04:46
Why not so glad that you did especially because your listener and so you know what the show is about? Yeah, we’re just so glad and thankful for both of you. Thank you so much for sharing your knowledge. Y’all
Alissa 1:04:57
are smart, so smart.
Katy 1:04:59
Oh smart. Okay, we’re gonna wrap it up. If you’ll do me a little housekeeping favor and don’t turn off your computer until it says it’s done processing because it will take an extra couple of minutes after we stop. You can navigate away but just leave the computer open
Unknown Speaker 1:05:13
because Perfect. Well, thank you.
Alissa 1:05:14
Thank you.
Katy 1:05:15
Thank you. Have a wonderful day. Bye, guys. Bye friends.
Alissa 1:05:19
Thank you so much for tuning in to the hustle humbly podcast. If
Katy 1:05:23
you enjoy this episode, please go to rate this podcast.com/hustle humbly and leave us a review or drop a comment if you’re listening on Spotify. If you
Alissa 1:05:31
have an episode topic or someone you’d like to test on the show, please email us at team at hustle humbly podcast.com Find
Katy 1:05:38
us on social media at hustle humbly podcast. Don’t forget to find all the free resources at hustle humbly podcast.com/resources See you next week.
Alissa 1:05:48
This is the good lie
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
