Can you rent a VA Property?

Most people can’t afford 2 mortgages, especially with the higher costs now than they likely had for the same type of home. So the option always is to sell it, rent it, or do a bridge loan. If your new loan is VA, you are in much better shape than Conventional or FHA, what a difference! On a conventional loan, typically you can only rent your property and get 75% of the lease for offsetting the payment. So to make things easy, you have to rent it for $1,000 to offset a $750 payment with a conventional loan. This doesn’t add to your income, it just eliminates the debt assuming you can get that much more rent than your payment! On a VA loan, you can get 100% of the RENT (note, not lease) towards the payment! So in the same scenario above, you would need just $750 rent to offset the $750 payment. On a conventional loan, you would need a signed lease, and either average rents calculated by an appraiser, or 2 months of rent received. Just think of how hard that is, you have to rent your home BEFORE you buy the next one, promising to move in time for your renters to move in, and collecting rent or relying on the appraiser’s calculations to justify the rent you will earn! On a VA loan, none of those is required, it can be received, but all that is needed the anticipated rent along with evidence that the property will not be difficult to rent. It could include Zillow rent estimate or Rent O Meter rent estimate or a broker price opinion (which I am sure your buyer’s agent would be happy to provide you). Check out VA 26-7 Chapter 4, page 16 if you would like more information. Work with a top 100 VA lender! It makes a difference. Think of all the banks, credit unions, brokers, and independent mortgage banks out there and to reach the top 100, we know what we are doing and can help those left behind by others, let’s get started here…