He is a freelancer-ish in the film industry, so even when I tried to get the HELOC, I had to give them numerous W-2s and W-9s. 

I have reached out on social media to numerous brokers and it has gone well.

 I have a few places I'm looking at and want to put an offer, I'm just nervous about how much to offer, I know the market is hot but I'm trying to how do you calculate how much to offer in this hot market. my realtor told me last week about a house bidding war that was sold 120k over asking prices, which makes me anxious to give any offer. 

There are numerous services out there online you can use. 

 It'll be tougher to pull off a quad using a VA loan in a competitive bidding situation, so I'd recommend looking for ways to avoid a bidding war against cash offers (prospect for off-market deals, offer on properties with high DOM, that recently fell out of contract, recently expired, etc... situations where you'll be less likely to have competition and the seller will be more motivated to make a sale).

I recommend working with your agent to see what additional language you can write into the offer to show that you're a serious and capable buyer that won't try to nickel and dime them through the process.Also, although there are tons of bidding wars out there, sometimes you can find a diamond in the rough.

Is the neighborhood a war zone?

They are having bidding wars in Anne Arundel county . 

House market prices here are rising up , there is a bidding war for home purchasing , and houses are getting sold in 1 day .

I have had to make numerous title claims (going through one right now) and having that policy has saved me a good amount of $.