Every word of the film, for reading instead of watching.
Every V A loan carries one fee, and only one. It is called the funding fee, and before you decide how you feel about it, you should know what it buys. The V A loan has no down payment, and no monthly morgage insurance. The funding fee is what makes that possible.
Paid once, at closing, it feeds the guaranty fund, and each loan helps back the next one. So how much is yours? The table asks two questions. Have you used the benefit before?
And are you putting anything down? First use, nothing down: two point one five percent. On a four hundred thousand dollar loan, that is eight thousand six hundred dollars. Now watch the number move.
Put five percent down, and the fee drops to one point five. Ten percent, and it is one and a quarter. Using the benefit a second time with nothing down sits at the top of the table: three point three percent. Thirteen thousand two hundred dollars.
But the same down payment pulls it right back to one point five. The dial is in your hands. And it is one table for everyone. Active duty, Guard, or Reserve — the rate is the same.
You do not need this money in cash. The fee can roll into the loan. Four hundred thousand becomes four hundred eight thousand six hundred, and nothing more comes out of pocket at the door. One honest note: it rides with the loan, so it earns interest like the rest.
And now the part too many people never hear. If you receive V A disability compensation, the fee is waived. Not reduced. Gone.
Surviving spouses receiving dependency compensation are exempt. Purple Heart recipients on active duty are exempt. And if your claim was still pending on closing day, and is granted back to a date before it, you can ask the V A for that money back. One more number worth keeping.
If you ever streamline this loan to a lower rate, the V A's refinance fee is half of one percent. Getting in costs the most. Staying in the system is cheap. So.
One fee. Two dials. Sometimes zero. Eight thousand six hundred if you walk in with nothing.
Fifty seven hundred if you bring five percent. Zero if you have earned the waiver. Now you know your number before anyone quotes it to you.