Using a VA loan for the purchase of a home

A home can be anything you wish. You can live in a traditional style house, tiny house, manufactured house, recreational vehicle or even a boat. Since there are so many places to live, military members often ask if they can use their VA loan to purchase their desired home — no matter what kind of home they choose.

What Can I Use the VA Loan On?

This is a common question many people ask because not everyone wants a traditional style house. Or they may already own a traditional house and want to use their VA loan for something else, such as a recreational vehicle (RV) or boat.

So can you use a VA loan to buy a boat or RV? The answer is no. While people can live in them, the VA does not consider them as houses. Only property that has a permanent foundation can be financed with a VA loan.

What About Tiny and Manufactured Houses?

This one can get complicated because both of these types of houses can have permanent foundations, but most of them do not. When shopping for a tiny or manufactured house, it’s important to know that there must be a permanent foundation with it. In other words, it cannot be movable, as most of them are intended to be.

The other rules for manufactured houses include:

• It must be classified and taxed as real property.
• It has to conform to VA MPRs.
• It conforms to applicable building codes and zoning requirements.

What Else You Need to Know

VA loans can only be used on one property at a time. For instance, if you have a house as your primary residence and want to purchase a beach house, you can’t use a VA loan for it as well. You will likely need to use a conventional loan.

It is possible to refinance the primary residence and use a conventional loan for it, so it frees up the VA loan, however. The consideration would be how much money you will spend on refinancing the primary residence vs. how much you will need to pay for the down payment on the beach house.

Now you know what you can and cannot use the VA loan on, so go out there and find yourself your perfect home.