Did you serve in the Military? Did your spouse serve in the Military? Thank you to our armed services who protect our country! I am grateful to each and every one of you who have served. In honor of Memorial Day, here is a special excerpt from the VA Loan chapter in my book, How To Get Approved for the Best Mortgage without sticking a Fork In Your Eye™. This is a piece of a 30 minute interview with Michael J. Frueh & Mark Connors.
Interview With Veterans
Benefits administration
Michael J. Frueh is the Director of Loan Guaranty Service,
Veterans Benefits Administration, U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Mark
Connors is Lender Liaison for loan policy and valuation loan guaranty services
at the Loan Guaranty Service of the Veterans Benefits Administration at the
U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Elysia: Hi, I’m Elysia Stobbe and I’m here at the
Department of Veterans Affairs today interviewing two of their top brass with
some great questions for VA homebuyers. If you could introduce yourselves
please.
Michael J. Frueh: Hi, I’m Mike Frueh. I’m the Director of the
VA Loan Program here in D.C.
Mark Connors: Hi, I’m Mark Connors. I’m the Lender Liaison in
D.C.
Elysia: Great! So, we put together a few questions we
thought would be helpful for either first time users of their VA Home Loan
benefits or anybody who’s actually used it before and maybe had questions and
had any kind of challenges. The idea is to make it smoother for the veteran as
they purchase a home. So, the first question I have is for Mark. What is
something that lenders forget to tell people that are looking for VA loans or
interested in using their VA loan benefits?
Mark Connors: Well, actually I don’t know that I would say
what they forget to tell the veteran, but rather what they forget to ask the
veteran and just a simple, have you served? Or are you a veteran? Or do you
know if you qualify for the VA home loan program? That is something that we
would encourage everybody in the industry to ask the veterans, have you served?
Do you know if you may be eligible for the home loan benefit? Because it
doesn’t do the veteran any good to find out after they have purchased a home
that they qualified for the home loan benefit.
Elysia: So, you think there’s probably a portion out there
that just by the loan origination process, and, when they’re doing the
application, that the lenders aren’t asking those questions?
Mark Connors: Absolutely, yes, and again we encourage lenders
or Realtors® that that’s the question that we would like to get across more
than anything.
Michael J. Frueh: I agree and there’re even veterans out
there that have used the benefit in the past that have bought a home before
that don’t know that they can use it again. So it’s not just a single-use
program. There’re probably a lot of real estate agents out there, and lenders,
that don’t know it’s available multiple times throughout a veteran’s life.
That’s something that we’ve been trying to overcome with education. Letting
people know that this is a comprehensive benefit that can help veterans at any stage
in their life. It’s not a first time home buying program; it’s an anytime you
want to buy a home buying program.
Elysia: Do either of you have any inspirational stories
about the VA and what it’s done to help Veterans?
Michael J. Frueh: I have one that I always think about. The
home loan benefit is actually three benefits. One, it helps veterans purchase a
home: purchase a home that’s geared for their success, so that they’re not
stretching too much to buy a home they can’t afford, they’re not putting too
much money down in down payment so they have money in reserves. Two, we have a
group of people that help veterans keep their homes if they have problems.
Three, we help severely wounded veterans adapt their homes, so they can
actually live independently in the home where they want to live, so they’re not
forced to live in home hospital care or nursing care.
The second benefit, retaining a home-- we have 150
people around the country that are there to help veterans when things happen.
One veteran in particular in Arizona got cancer and he couldn’t go to work, so
he couldn’t make his mortgage payment. He had a family. He talked to us, we
said we know what’s going on, we’ll talk to your mortgage bank, don’t worry
about your home, worry about getting well. So, we talked to his bank, the bank
said, don’t worry while he’s going through treatment, we’ll defer his payments
and we’ll work with him later to try to get caught up. He wrote a letter that I
still have today, that said of all the stuff he was worried about, his cancer
was the least of his worries. His biggest worry was that his wife and his
children wouldn’t have a home to live in because he was going through this
treatment. He said the amount of worry we took out of his life probably helped
him overcome the cancer. He was a success story, got better, went back to work,
reinstated his loan, and lived in his home. He said that the big worry we took
out of his life totally transformed his attitude at the time.
Elysia: That’s a great story.
Michael J. Frueh: It made me feel good.
Mark Connors: Mr. Frueh talked about three parts and the way
he likes to say it is easy to remember, so our mission is to help veterans
obtain, retain & adapt. Perhaps another inspirational story is the 20th
million loan.
Michael J. Frueh: We just hit our 21st million loan
yesterday. Two years ago this October we hit our 20th million loan. Our 20th
million loan didn’t go to a veteran or a service member; it went to a surviving
spouse. The surviving spouse is a woman named Beth Carpenter who lives in
Springfield, Virginia with her little boy. Her husband passed away while he was
in service. So, she’s going through all the grief that people go through for
losing a spouse and her son had just lost his father. Someone had told her
here’s a benefit you have as a surviving spouse. You can still use your
husband’s VA home loan benefit to buy a home without a down payment.
By telling her that, it was her Realtor® I think that
let her know, she actually looked for a home and found a home that she couldn’t
have bought otherwise that she was able to buy without a down payment. Our
Under Secretary, myself, and several other people went out to her house to
celebrate when she had moved in to say we’re very happy we’re able to help her
and her family get a house. But she was the 20th million, so there were 20
million others before her, including surviving spouses; and, again she wouldn’t
have known about it if someone didn’t bring it up, and say “Oh your husband
served, maybe you qualify for this benefit.” It’s even more reason to get the
word out to ask that question.
Elysia: It’s just like you were saying earlier, so not only
“have you served” but, “have you or your spouse served?”
For more VA Loan Guarantee information
see the following websites:
***Please keep in mind this is only an example for illustration purposes. These interest rates may not be available and/or you may not qualify for this loan type.
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