VA Loan for construction? Various ???

[Anonymous]

  We might be about 9 months premature as were tied into a lease until Jan next year. I also know how quickly that time will come.in

Fico score 8 middle score is 668. The mortgage lending score in the middle is 699. Wifeys scores are a little lower.

1 medical collection for about 1500 on mine. 1 collection on wifey's report for under 1300. Doesnt belong to her attempting to validate this debt after it was disputed then verified.

Approx 9k per month income. No savings. Good debt to income. We most likely will qualify for the VA max loan amt of 417k unless they've raised it.

Quicken Loans said no problem on the collection. 620 min score for wifey and 680 min for me. (3.675? interest).

Can I do a 100% VA loan to build a new home? If so what banks did you use? How would it work? If you cant post it here please pm me. Not likely from what little research I've done. We will probably have to go the traditional route with VA.

Time frame on when we should start the approval process? How long will a preapproval offer be good for in general?

What Banks  for VA loans, etc have a fairly stress free process to closing? Pm me if unable to reply here.

One problem is we are tied into a lease thru Jan next year. Any ideas to get around that if we start looking this month. Maybe one possible is to do a Purchase and lease back to seller until after our lease is up. Any other ideas?  Appreciate the help.

Thanks, M

SemperFiFund.org

[Imperfectfuture]

I am not a pro.

I would call some realtors in your area, choose a few. Ask that they be knowledgable with VA loans. They will give you a list of lenders.

[Anonymous]

Thanks. We have an appt this week. Thought I'd jump ahead a bit.

[mynameainttracy]

What do you mean by new construction? If you plan on building from scratch and doing a draw VA doesn't do that. If you are looking to build with a builder and they front the costs, yes VA does that. A builder may require an upfont deposit, ours required 5%. This money all went towards closing in the end. Lenders who do construction loans typically require about 20% down (at least the ones we spoke to did)  and then your loan can be rolled into a mortgage, like a VA, etc.

Are you a member of NFCU or USAA? As far as your interest rate, that is pretty good. We closed last April with a 3.375% but I think the rates have gone up a tad since then.

[Anonymous]

Yes we did find one builder that would do a 5% down to start. But paid off all debts a while back and sadly no $$ for a down. Yes a member of NF, but read a couple posts they were difficult to work with.  Rates appear to still be good if not dropping slightly.  Thanks

[mynameainttracy]

NFCU is hit or miss. I have seen people on here have great experiences. We didn't go with them because the LO we were working with seemed difficult. In hindsight we probably could have requested a different LO.

We went with our builder's preferred lender. We got a full underwritten approval on the front end because we had sketchy credit past and weren't going to give up 5% without knowing where we stood. One thing all lenders wanted to see from us was the money for closing in our accounts, no matter if the seller or builder was contributing.

[Anonymous]

 What kind of money should I expect to have to pay at closing? I'm 100% Military disabled so I should qualify for no va points, but what else will we have to pay at closing?

After preapproval and we locate a home to purchase who orders and pays the appraiser? Any other possible out of pocket fee's?  Thanks

[mnat]

This is mynameainttracy. I was logged in my other account when I replied.

You can expect to pay for your credit report (~$35) and the appraisal out of pocket (~$400). The lender orders the appraisal and you pay them. Being 100% disabled means you pay no origination fee but it may mean more savings, my husband is only at 50%.

Closing costs vary by area. I would have a loan officer prepare you a closing cost estimate based on a potential purchase price. NFCU did this for us without pulling our credit so we could see what we would need. They were also helpful in answering general questions when we first started the process.

Whether or not sellers will pay or contribute to your closing is also market dependant. Unfortunately for me, the market is so strong here that sellers don't pay closing costs but hopefully you can get that included to reduce your out of pocket expense. Closing costs are all over the place. In my case, very specific to where I live, in a high tax area,  a 350k house had closing costs of about $12k that we had to cover.

[Anonymous]

Dang 12k. Must've included the 1.5% VA fee. So much for zero down. We better start saving a couple bucks. SC may exempt me from property tax, but not sure about it yet. Thanks

[mynameainttracy]

Nope, our funding fee was waived. Like I said, our taxes are pretty high up north.