All Forum Posts by: Jason Bohling

@Kevin Kim I opened a HELOC recently on my primary residence and I asked them specifically about this, and the guy looked at me like I was weird and said they don't care about that. He even said when the 10-year draw period is over there should be no problem renewing it if I want.

@Barbie Melendez how states come to the appraised value varies widely all across the country. In Idaho where I’m at for example, the state requires that homes be assessed at 100% of market value, however it’s always lagging what you would actually pay for the home on the open market. My home for example has an assessed value of $340,000 but if I were to sell it, it would most likely appraise and sell at $440,000.

@Mike Allen I’m glad I could help.

The form is VA Form 26-1880, Request for a Certificate of Eligibility. In box 11a instructions it says specifically "Item 11A. One-Time Restoration. If you have paid off your VA loan, but still own the home purchased with that loan, you may apply for a one-time only restoration of your entitlement in order to purchase another home that will be your primary residence. Once you have used your one-time restoration, you must sell all homes before any other entitlement can be restored."

The refinance into the conventional loan would be a ‘pay-off' of the VA loan for these purposes.

@Jim K. Huh…I always thought my grandma made up that saying. If I had a dollar for every time she told me, “the sweetest taste in the world are the tears of the vanquished” I’d be loaded.

@Corbin Dallas A strategy that a couple of old-timers that I was stationed with in the Air Force used was that they would buy a home with their VA home loan allowing them to get in with 0% down, and typically, regardless of branch, you're at a duty station for at least 2 years. When their time is up at the duty station, they would sell it thereby allowing the VA loan to be reinstated, and then roll the proceeds into a new home at their next duty station. Since 2 years typically has passed since they bought the home, there's no taxes owed on that, and it's almost like a 1031 exchange, but with more time to identify the The next property. They would continue doing this until they reached the time that they wanted to retire. They would then sell that home, and roll all the equity they had been banking over the years into a small cash flowing multi-family property such as a small apartment complex. they would then be able to reap the cash flow and still have their VA home loan available to allow them to buy a personal residence with zero down.



@Mike Allen as far as what you said about refinancing it and not resetting your eligibility, that's not entirely correct. You are allowed to purchase a home with a VA home loan, and you can refinance it out into a different type of a mortgage such as a conventional mortgage. You can have your VA eligibility we reinstated as a one time thing, so it's just as it says, you can do it once.

I actually just did this. We purchased our home outside of Boise with a VA home loan and 0% down back in September, 2019. Because of the insane appreciation in this market, We have way more than 20% equity in the house. We refinanced it about a month and a half ago into a conventional 30 year mortgage with the same interest rate. There's a form, I can't remember what the VA form number is, but you fill out this form and submit it to the VA and they can do a one time reinstatement.

I have a post on a different thread here on the forums where I go over how the VA entitlement works. However if your plan is to use your VA home loan in each market to buy a home, rent it out, and then use your VA home loan again in a different market and repeat the process, unfortunately it won't work that well as you will quickly run out of entitlement. We did what we did, because we're not gonna stay here forever, and the next time that we use the VA home loan it will be for a primary residence that we intend to keep and not turn into a rental.

If you got any questions, let me know.





@Elizabeth Southall when I got mine I literally just told them I wanted to have it available in case I needed it down the road. I talked to 10 different banks/credit unions and none of them took issue with that (many said I was smart for doing it). I didn’t elaborate but I was honest and no muss, no fuss.

@Corina Farrar I live in Meridian, ID (suburb of Boise) and grew up out here. I don’t know much about the rental market in Ontario, other than it’s a small town, not very diverse economy, people growing up in Ontario can’t wait to leave kind of place. It’s about 45 minutes-1 hour from Boise depending on traffic. Oregon property taxes but a healthy drive from Caldwell, ID (the closest town). There’s not many people that go back and forth…to be honest the main reason (I’m actually serious about this) that people from Boise go to Ontario is to buy weed because it’s legal there and Idaho has STIFF laws against it. If you invest in Ontario your best bet is to open a dispensary because of the MASSIVE amounts of weed Idahoans buy there!

@Karl-Marx Delphonse check with your county or local housing authority to see if they have any first-time homebuyer assistance programs. In some places it may be a home loan with very flexible terms, in other places they have grants that can cover the down payment and/or closing costs; it varies so I couldn’t tell you what your options might be. Also, you’re going to find that the most favorable terms and assistance will be for primary residences (meaning you intend to live in it, and do, at least to start out with) not investment properties (meaning a property you will not be living in at any time). You can also ask an agent in your area. A good one should know about any options and refer you to some lenders who can help you out. Let me know if you have any questions.

@Melissa Bovee if you want, PM me and I can give you the name of a good inspection company. I’ve used them 3 times and the owner of the company is an investor in the area himself and and does property management.