Eligibility – WeVett

How Do Dependents Impact the VA Loan?

matt — Thu, 26 Jun 2025 17:21:09 +0000

“I had another kid—how’s it going to impact my VA loan?”

My name’s Evan Kaufman, a VA loan originator, here to help explain.

So—kids, or let’s just say adding dependents—can those really affect my VA loan qualifications?

Yes, they can, and we’re going to talk about two major reasons or areas where it impacts you.

1. Residual Income (The Less Positive Impact)

First, we’re going to talk about residual income, which is a key part of qualifying for a VA loan.
Then second, we’ll talk about a more positive angle that can actually improve your qualification.

So let’s start with residual income.

You’ve probably heard the term debt-to-income ratio (DTI). It drives a lot of decision-making in mortgages. That’s where we take your total monthly debts, divide them by your total monthly income, and get a percentage. That ratio determines your general borrowing ability.

Now, with VA loans, there’s an extra component that’s unique compared to all other loan types:
It’s called residual income.

Yes, DTI still matters. However, the VA really focuses on this concept of residual income to make sure a veteran still has enough breathing space to comfortably afford the home.

That’s why, in other videos, I’ve said that you can sometimes have a higher DTI ratio with a VA loan than with other loan types—because they’re looking more at residual income than just DTI.

Residual income isn’t a simple calculation. It factors in:

Your taxes
The square footage of your home
Your region of the country
And—your family size

So yes, the number of dependents you have can affect your qualification for a VA loan.

Again, this isn’t necessarily a negative, but it does decrease your borrowability slightly. We’ll get to the positive side in a moment.

How Does It Work?

There’s a chart the VA publishes each year showing the minimum required residual income for different regions of the country—broken out into zones like the Southeast, Southwest, etc.—and by household size.

For example, if you’re a family of two, there’s a certain minimum monthly amount of income you need to have left over (after debts, taxes, etc.) to qualify.
If you’re a family of four, that number goes up.

So effectively, the VA is saying:

“This is the minimum amount of money we need to see you retain after all expenses to ensure financial stability.”

The more kids you have, the higher that required number goes.

Now—don’t worry—this doesn’t mean “Don’t have a kid” before applying for a VA loan.
It’s not a massive increase, and we’re definitely not trying to implement population control here!

(I love kids, by the way—I’ve got four of them!)
We just want to make sure you’re aware that if your loan officer is asking for clarification on dependents, it’s because it impacts your VA loan qualification.

And if you undermark the number of dependents—or you skip that field thinking, “Ah, it doesn’t really matter,”—you could be in for a surprise later.
It could even jeopardize your loan if the information has to be corrected mid-process.

So always make sure the number of dependents is accurate, because that directly affects the residual income calculation for your VA loan.

2. VA Disability Compensation (The Positive Impact)

Now, here’s the positive side:

For veterans who have VA disability income, adding a child can increase that income.

If you’re receiving VA disability compensation and you have another child, you can apply to add that dependent to your claim.

Doing this will result in additional monthly income—and that can make a meaningful difference in your loan qualification.

We’ve seen folks going through the home search process have a child and then update their VA disability claim. They get an extra $60 to $90 a month, sometimes more.

That additional income could translate to thousands of dollars in extra borrowing power over the life of the loan.

So if you receive VA disability compensation, don’t forget to file that update for every new child. Work with the VA to make sure it’s added.

Summary

So there you have it—the two ways kids (or dependents) can impact your VA loan qualification:

Residual income requirements go up slightly with each dependent, which can reduce your borrowing ability.
VA disability income can go up with each dependent, which may improve your borrowing ability.

My name is Evan Kaufman, your VA loan originator.
Take care.

VA Mandatory Occupancy: The Only Thing You Need to Know

matt — Thu, 20 Jun 2024 14:17:12 +0000

Transcript

For active military, the only thing you need to know about the mandatory occupancy period with the VA loan is very simple and short.

My name is Evan Kaufman, your VA originator. I’ll give you the short solution and then a bonus on top of that.

The one thing you really need to know for the VA mandatory period is 60 days.

Meaning that if you’re closing on a home with a VA loan, you need to intend on occupying that home within a 60-day period after closing.

However, the bonus is that you can also have your spouse or family members occupy the home.

Sometimes we’ll get asked from folks, especially coming back from overseas, coming back to the US, “Hey Evan, I’m not going to be there in time to meet that occupancy. I heard I have to get into the home right away.”

Well, hey Johnny, Susan, whatnot – are you sure it’s just going to be you? Or is your husband or wife, someone coming back, coming in to live in the home sooner than that?

See, that can technically qualify.

There’s a couple of other good exceptions too.

Feel free to reach out; I’m able to help walk those through with you.

But the basics are, remember 60 days, and then on top of that, that there are some exclusions.

That means you can help buy that home with a VA loan earlier than you usually can expect, especially if you’re active duty.

VA Loan Eligibility Explained

matt — Tue, 12 Mar 2024 18:05:58 +0000

Transcript

VA Homeownership Eligibility: Am I eligible?

That really depends on if you’ve served or not.

Have you been in the military?

If you’ve been in the military, then there is a good chance that you might be eligible for a VA loan.

Now, don’t get eligibility confused with qualifying for a VA loan – two very different things. We have a separate video on that.

But the deal is, qualification is more, “Hey, do I qualify for the loan? Like, do I have the income and everything else for it?”

Eligibility is really based around, “Am I eligible to use a VA loan?”

And then the next step would be to qualify, because will the VA say, “Hey, yes, I, Evan, Johnny, Sally, Sue, am eligible to use this VA loan?”

How does that really work?

Well, the key is everything revolves around one major document that’s called the Certificate of Eligibility. That’s why it even has eligibility in the name of the document. And this is the document issued by the Department of Veteran Affairs (the VA) that says so-and-so is indeed eligible to use the VA loan.

Now, if you pull that Certificate of Eligibility yourself, or you try to go get it, sometimes it doesn’t show up. So, you’ve got to end up requesting it and putting in some additional information.

Now, here’s the thing with the Certificate of Eligibility – you might hear it referred to (and I’ll refer to it here going forward) as a CoE.

The deal with the CoE is that you’ve got to request it from the VA and sometimes give them a little bit of additional information. And you, as a buyer, don’t have to do that by yourself.

Sometimes we’re working with buyers who are dealing with lenders that tell them they’ve got to go get it.

You don’t have to when you’re working with a lender, let’s say such as ourselves, that we deal with VA loans all day long.

If you’re working with us, we can pull that Certificate of Eligibility directly from the VA for you at no cost and do it very quickly.

But if you’re going to pull it yourself, it’s perfectly fine.

Just know that if you don’t have that CoE created yet, that they might ask you for some additional information – your name, Social Security, date of birth, all that good stuff.

And then, most likely, they’re going to see your DD214 or some type of proof of your service in the military. If you’re active duty, they might be needing some letter from a commander that you need to get everything set up and ready to go.

Now, usually the VA is pretty quick on responding with that, and if you’re not hearing anything for a week or two, know that’s a problem.

They’re typically getting back within three days with an official document. And if you call, man, they’ve really elevated their phone service game. So, if you call your VA regional center, I will say over the last couple of years, I’ve just seen their customer service skyrocket. I think, honestly, it might be because we spent billions of dollars on trying to improve the whole VA healthcare system and everything, but ironically enough, now the customer service is probably some of the best I’ve dealt with when dealing with loan concerns. Now, I shouldn’t say it’s just gold, gold standard, but overall, very good. I’ve only had one or two negative experiences calling into the VA specific to the VA Certificate of Eligibility.

So, the whole deal for eligibility is you need to have that Certificate of Eligibility.

And here’s the basics of it: did you serve at least 90 days of active duty military service?

That’s the basics today.

Some of the old-time folks might be looking back and thinking, “Hey, there’s all these different calculations you’ve got to make – was it wartime, or not wartime?”

Right now, 90 days of active duty military service is the basics of it.

If you’re Guard or Reserves, we’ve got some other good videos on that.

The basics, again, are 90 days of consecutive active-duty service. Or if you’re in the Guard, that can even go with Title 32 orders. So, not just Title 10 where it’s all federal, but even if it is a Guard-level Title 32 order, that can count as well now, and that’s a new one.

So just note, 90 days of active-duty service.

If you don’t have that, like you’re Guard, Reserves, six years is known as the general standard – essentially six good years at 50 plus points for reserve service, and just six years in general for the Guard side, and you’re typically going to be fine. But if you’ve got the 90 days of active duty, you’re in good shape.

So, the deal is you put in for that Certificate of Eligibility, and the VA is going to issue that CoE. That CoE is what you give to your lender, and we’re going to make sure it’s clean.

If you’ve already had past VA loans, that’s going to be explained on there.

If you’re exempt from the VA funding fee, like you have VA disability compensation, that’s going to be on there.

If you have VA disability compensation, they’ll confirm the award amount.

The document gives us a lot of good information. It’s typically just one page and has a lot of little info on it, a little grid like for an Excel spreadsheet on it, and we understand how to read that well.

The key is that gives us a lot of powerful information to make sure we know you are eligible for the VA loan. And then we also, as a lender, will take that and use it in your qualification for the loan as well.

Now, the changeover from eligibility to qualification is simply this: eligibility just means yes, Johnny is eligible to use a VA loan, does not mean he can get it and that it will work, but he is eligible to try to use the VA loan.

Now we qualify you to make sure that you can use that VA loan with the income, the scenario, the price point that you’re wanting, everything.

We qualify you to make sure that can be done.

So then all of a sudden, we’re using that CoE as well to check for the income, the exemption – of maybe that VA funding fee if you have outstanding VA loans – to check the county loan limits and if it’s going to impact you.

We have another good video on that if you look at county loan limits and how to account for VA loan limits as a whole. We use that sheet to check everything for you.

So, eligibility, think the main thing that comes out of this is Certificate of Eligibility from the VA. Ask your lender about it.

If you’re working with a lender that doesn’t understand that or is telling you to go get it, please reach out. My name’s Evan Kaufman. I’m your VA loan originator. I hope this helps to give you some good information to go out there and win a home with the VA.

VA Loan Qualification vs Eligibility

matt — Thu, 07 Mar 2024 15:45:03 +0000

Transcript

If you’re eligible for the VA loan guarantee, wonderful.

Now we need to qualify you for how much you can go get.

This is where if you’ve heard debt-to-income ratio, that is where you take your total monthly debts and divide it by your monthly income. You need to make sure that those ratios are in really good shape. So, that’s what we really mean by qualifying for a loan.

Now, we have some other good videos that help break down and explain how that qualification part works and how that works specifically if you’re utilizing a VA home loan guarantee.

But know that the difference between eligibility and qualification, the eligibility is just yes or no, can I get that VA loan guarantee, and qualification really means do I have the income and ability to go get the loan, period.

What is a VA Certificate of Eligibility?

matt — Wed, 06 Mar 2024 20:57:44 +0000

Transcript

What is a VA Certificate of Eligibility, sometimes referred to as a COE? My name is Evan Kaufman, your VA loan originator here to help explain.

The VA Certificate of Eligibility, or COE, is the document that helps lenders know that you are approved or eligible to utilize a VA loan.

And there’s a difference between eligibility and qualification.

Qualification means you make enough money to get a VA loan, and eligibility means that you are able to utilize the VA loan.

The Certificate of Eligibility is literally that.

It’s a certificate of your eligibility to utilize a VA loan.

In that document, it’s got a graph with a grid with some numbers all over it and words that don’t make a whole lot of sense. Now, you yourself can go out and pull that, and sometimes you might have a lender that’s asking you, ‘Hey, can you send me your VA Certificate of Eligibility?’

Well, if you’re working with folks who do a lot of VA loans – we do a lot of them, we know there’s a lot of other good lenders that do as well – we have portal access directly and can pull that certificate of eligibility for you. And at no charge.

If anyone’s trying to charge you to pull Certificate of Eligibility, run away.

That’s not something that should be a part of it at all. That’s something that can be pulled for free, especially for folks who get it.

Now, the deal is, a Certificate of Eligibility we’ll pull that and that shows us, hey, are you eligible to use it?

We are able to find out if you’re going to pay the VA funding fee. We have some other videos that talk what that is.

It’s a charge paid by the VA for the whole program. It tells us if you’re going to pay for that or not.

It’s going to show us if you have any other outstanding VA loans, other active VA loans, maybe if you own another home in another state that was under a VA loan. It’s going to show us on that.

It’s going to give us the numbers that we need to calculate your total entitlement, that’s essentially being able to say, hey, how much of a loan can I do up to 0% down?

If you have no active VA loans – cool thing is, no active VA loans out there, I mean, even if you owned one but then sold it and you have no active ones – there is no loan limit, so long as you qualify for the payments to do 0% down.

You can do a $1 million, $2 million, $3 million home, 0% down, if you have no active VA loans and you qualify for the loan and you have the money to make the payments. Pretty incredible.

But if you have an active VA loan, that COE gives us the information we need to calculate what your 0% down limits are for your next home as well.

On there, it tells us if it’s your first use, or what’s called subsequent use. Meaning every use after your first use of the VA loan, which impacts your VA funding fee.

And then it also tells us if you happen to be receiving VA disability compensation and then what that amount is, so we can factor that into your income correctly.

Pretty powerful document. Typically one page, sometimes two, and it gives us a lot of good information that we can use to help you not only know if we’re eligible for your VA loan, but we use it to also help qualify on the payment side.

So, that difference between eligibility and qualification, we got some good talks on that as well on YouTube here.

But the deal is – qualification is now the mortgage side – where we, as your lender, are looking at saying hey, do you have enough income? What do your debts look like? And are you going to qualify to make this payment?

COE tells if you’re eligible, gives us sometimes a little bit of information then too to help us make sure you qualify.

Very important document, VA Certificate of Eligibility. Make sure that it is reviewed at all costs before you start putting offers in on a home as well.

That’s something that we sometimes see – that I’ve seen as deal breakers in the past when I was a real estate agent, actively selling.

If a lender didn’t pull a COE, that could blow the whole deal up at the end.

Now, as a lender, we make sure that we pull that one every time when we’re going through your pre-approval process.

You want to make sure that you’re clear on your VA Certificate of Eligibility.

My name is Evan Kaufman. Hopefully, this helps explain exactly what the certificate eligibility is and go out there and win a home with the VA loan. Take care.

Can I Use the VA Loan if I am Active Duty?

matt — Wed, 27 Dec 2023 15:34:00 +0000

Transcript

Can I use the VA Loan if I am Active Duty?

Of course, you can.

We sometimes have folks a little confused when they’re active duty – “Hey, I’m not a veteran, can I use the VA loan?”

Because it’s technically administered by the Veterans Affairs, right?

So a lot of folks assume, “Oh, I gotta be a veteran to use it.”

No, you can use it while you’re active duty, most definitely.

Now, be aware there are some other requirements, of course, to use a VA loan if you’re active duty.

Like, we need 90 days of active duty service, when we’re at time of war, for example, and we get that from pulling your Certificate of Eligibility, otherwise known as Coe.

Now, we can pull that direct from the VA. We do enough business with the VA that we can pull that for you.

There are some requirements that you need to meet to use VA eligibility, and we can help you with that. But for active duty members, if you’ve generally been active duty for at least 90 days or longer, you’re generally in good shape. There are some nuances when you’re active duty that you gotta be aware of with a VA loan.

Number one is, “Hey, what’s the cost of using the VA loan while I’m active duty?”

When you work with veterans, folks who are out of the military, they oftentimes might have VA disability compensation, which allows us to get a waiver for one major fee with a VA loan, that’s the VA funding fee.

We have some other fees, but the VA funding fee is a fee charged directly from the VA.

Every lender has the same fees applied down to the borrower, and essentially, it’s to be able to use a VA loan – to have that more competitive interest rate, to be able to put less money down all the way to 0% down if you choose and not get private mortgage insurance or penalized with a monthly payment, and lastly, the ability to streamline refinances – which are just incredible to have those benefits the VA does, of VA funding fee to those using it who don’t have VA disability compensation.

Now, pretty much all of our active duty members that we work for – because that’s our prime demographic – do not have VA disability compensation or aren’t necessarily married to someone who might have VA disability compensation to work to get that waiver.

So what is that VA funding fee that you gotta be aware of when you’re active duty?

If you’re using the VA loan for your first time and you’re putting 0% down, that funding fee is 2.15% as of today.

Now, if you put just 5% down, they cut that fee back to 1.5%.

5% to 10% down pulls it to 1.25%, pretty powerful.

Now, when you go to use your VA loan for your future uses, they bump that funding fee up to 3.3% if you’re putting 0% down.

And if you’re still going to put 5% down, they pull it back to 1.5% again.

So, we’re actually big fans of later uses with the VA loan, getting where you can put some money down because that actually saves you a lot on that VA funding fee.

Now, the VA funding fee is generally rolled right into the loan. So, it’s technically not a fee that you’re paying upfront to the VA.

You’re paying that through the mortgage, it’s rolled into the cost. So we have another video on VA closing costs, it’s one of the major closing costs that is rolled into the loan if it applies to you. But know that that generally has to apply if you’re active duty.

Now, as well, when you’re active duty, you want to know, working with the VA loan, “Hey, how can I qualify with it?”

Because sometimes you’re PCSing from overseas, right?

Or you’re PCSing across states and moving from all different kinds of areas. How does that apply with the VA loan?

Well, great thing with a VA loan is it’s very flexible for members.

It’s very flexible on credit scores.

So, if you happen to have some dings or nicks from all the transitions, I understand that. Well, if that happened, then you are generally still going to be able to get a shot at getting a VA loan, or I should say it’s more flexible than other loan types, which is a big plus as well.

The VA loan takes in consideration your future destination. So, your Basic Allowance for Housing (BAH) is going to change, right, when you’re moving to your next location. VA loans understand, “Hey, we’re going to use that future income.” Other loan types generally will as well, but VA loan, we’re very flexible with being able to purchase that next home.

We even are allowed to essentially close on that home 60 days before you get there for, either yourself as long as yourself, or say your spouse, or someone in your family is moving into that home. It’s a flexible loan that works well for active duty military families.

So yes, you certainly can use it, and in fact, that’s our specialty.

So, I’m Evan Kaufman, VA loan originator. I work specifically with folks, mainly active duty, that are utilizing the VA loan – or conventional loan if they’ve used up all their VA loan entitlement, which again we touch on in some other videos.

Most of the time, the VA loan is generally going to be the best option, but there are some scenarios where the VA loan can get edged out by other loan types. But just know that unless you’re going to be bringing a lot of money down, have a super high credit score, and are subject to that funding fee, generally the VA loan is still your best bet to use when purchasing a new home.

So again, if you’re active duty, go ahead, take a look at using the VA loan. I hope to have the chance to work for you on it. If not, still hope this helped you go out there and win a home with the VA loan. Take care.