Active duty military personnel and most retired or former military personnel are eligible to benefit from a Veterans Administration Guaranteed Home Loan (VA loan).

The VA loan is a loan that permits the eligible home buyer to buy with no down payment and permits the seller to pay all of the home buyer's closing costs.

This loan is very popular in areas where the real estate market is considered a "buyer's market". If there are numerous homes on the market, sellers will be willing to make significant contributions to the VA buyer's closing costs, often all of the closing costs. However, in a seller's market, when there are few properties offered for sale and competition for the homes available, sellers are not willing to contribution their money to pay much if anything toward the VA buyer's closing costs.

Further, VA appraisal guidelines are much more rigid than the conventional loan appraisal guidelines.For the above and other reasons, the Maryland and Northern Virginia real estate markets are not what we would call "VA loan friendly". So, Homefinders.com can refer our home buyers to lenders who have very good 100% "no down payment" loans.