Cindy Abraham, A Team Florida, Keller Williams Realty Professionals

Our Veterans – NOT to be Dishonored

There are several different types of loans.  The most common are conventional, FHA and VA.  The simplest definition of a conventional loan is “a loan that is not underwritten by a government agency.”  An FHA loan is “a federal assistance mortgage loan in the United States insured by the Federal Housing Administration.”  A VA loan is “a mortgage loan in the United States guaranteed by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs (VA).”  Another difference between conventional and an FHA or VA loans is a much lower down payment requirement for the latter.  Although almost anyone can apply to qualify for a conventional or FHA loan, the only way one can qualify for a VA loan is if the applicant is a veteran of our U.S. military forces; someone who served our country.

Recently I discovered a sad fact.  It seems that because the VA loans are structured so that some fees and costs are not paid to the realtors and title companies handling the property purchase, buyers with VA loans can be – and have been - passed over in favor of buyers with loans that do cover all the fees and costs.  And this is absolutely disgraceful..

I personally worked with a Veteran who was looking to buy a house here in Hollywood.  We must have put offers in on at least seven homes and never could get the offer accepted even if we offered full price or even more than full price.  Finally, we found yet another foreclosure and placed a full price offer on the property.  The bank required that my buyer be pre-qualified by their lender; which is a fairly common practice in order to ensure that the buyer’s claim of the pre-qualification amount is valid.  When the bank rep called my buyer and found out he was a veteran, she told him that she and her husband were also having problems buying a home for the above reasons and, with her help, my buyer was successful in purchasing the home.

I was outraged and went to my broker to find out if this was indeed a common practice.  He called in some of his associates in the mortgage industry and sadly they confirmed my suspicions.  In fact, one of them told me (off the record of course) that he was so disgusted by a similar occurrence that he told the buyer to knock on the homeowner’s door and ask if it was the homeowner or the listing agent who was responsible for the blatant discrimination!   I can see mortgage and real estate brokers wincing as they read this.  Confronting a seller in that manner is probably not something they would recommend, but I totally understood why someone would suggest such a radical move.

I am here to tell you that this practice, if it is truly as widespread as I think it is – MUST STOP!!!   What does it take to get a VA loan?  SERVICE TO OUR COUNTRY!  May we all have a Happy Independence Day on July 5^th – and be thankful to those who are responsible for why we are able to celebrate.