I am not sure how much this has been discussed, but recently the VA passed a new bill that essentially had two impacts on the VA Home Loan Benefit. First, the funding fee amounts were increased slightly. That being said - if you have service connected disability (or a couple of other qualifiers) you have the funding fee waived entirely.

But - more relevant to this post - the ability to purchase multi-unit and use your VA to house hack just got a whole lot easier. The Loan Limit was essentially completely removed for veterans and military members with full entitlement. In other words, if you don't have your VA loan tied up in a property, and you are otherwise eligible, you can buy a property with zero down payment with basically no loan amount limitation set by the VA.

In the past, the county loan limit set the amount that you could borrow without requiring a down payment. You could buy a property that exceeded the loan limit, but you had to put a down payment equal to 25% of the overage to close. Now, you can go zero down as high as you are able to qualify for (and obviously you want to be careful and be smart about how you borrow).

So - you can buy a fourplex for a million dollars, with ZERO down payment, and can use rental income from the other three units (the ones you don't occupy) to qualify at a rate of 75% of the market rents. Even if vacant at the time of purchase.

If you have a portion of your VA tied up already, you revert back to the original calculation where you look at remaining eligibility and are required to do a 25% down payment on any overage. But, this change I think really changes the game for veterans acquiring multi-unit property and using their VA Home Loan Benefit to house hack, and get a great start to their portfolio! Thoughts?

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VA House Hacking Just Got a Lot Easier...

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