Oregon Veteran Home Loan

The Oregon Department of Veterans' Affairs is a mortgage lender. Since 1945 it has lent roughly $10 billion to more than 340,000 veterans, and Oregon is one of only three states that runs a veteran home loan program of its own. Start by separating it from the federal benefit, because the names invite confusion and the terms are genuinely different. This is not the VA Home Loan Guaranty and is not affiliated with it. ODVA lends its own money as a conventional loan underwritten to Fannie Mae conforming guidelines. Establishing eligibility with ODVA is a separate process from establishing federal VA loan eligibility, and having one does not give you the other. The differences that decide which to use are concrete. ODVA lends up to 95 percent of value, so a down payment is expected, and private mortgage insurance is required above 80 percent loan-to-value. The federal VA loan can reach 100 percent with no mortgage insurance. Against that, ODVA offers a fixed rate available only to Oregon veterans, which is the reason to look at it at all. A veteran with a down payment saved may do better with ODVA; a veteran with little cash usually does better with the federal guaranty. Run both. What ODVA will finance: an owner-occupied primary single-family residence, up to the Fannie Mae limit, purchase only. There is no refinancing. Qualifying property types are site-built single family homes, condominiums, townhomes, and manufactured homes affixed to land and taxed as real estate. Terms are 15, 20, and 30 years. ODVA takes first lien position only. Two provisions are unusually generous. There is no income limit beyond demonstrating capacity to repay, and there is no recapture penalty and no prepayment penalty. Bond-funded state mortgage programs elsewhere often carry income caps and recapture on early sale; this one does not. Two are unusually restrictive, and both have caught people out. The property must be located in Oregon, though a veteran does not have to be an Oregon resident when applying, which makes this usable by someone moving to the state. And co-borrowers may only be the veteran's lawfully wed spouse, including same-gender marriages performed where legal, or an Oregon Registered Domestic Partner. A veteran who planned to buy with an unmarried partner, a sibling, or a parent cannot use this loan for that purchase. The lifetime cap is four loans, with only one open at a time. Occupancy has to occur within 60 days of closing. Eligibility is the ORS 408.225 service test rather than a disability rating. Establish it before house hunting by filing the Veterans' Home Loan Eligibility Form with discharge documentation, by secure upload, fax to 503-373-2393, or mail to 700 Summer St. NE, Salem. Reach the program at 800-633-6826 or 503-373-2373. ODVA publishes a current rate sheet. Because the rate is the whole point of the program, get the live figure rather than relying on any rate quoted in a guide.