[00:00:00] Josh Lewis: That’s it we’re live. You ready? Josh? vetted VA live episode, number three, we hopefully almost know what we’re doing now. If you missed either the first two episodes and you’re interested week one, we went through a thorough discussion of the loan estimate and we had two awesome experts on I had the joy of having my, Facebook page open. So it was actually talking, to me in my corner. I’m going to, I love it when that happens, says nobody. Yeah. So we we did, we had the first one, I’m gonna put the link up here. The first one we talked about, Ellie’s the loner. Hitting those and what that looked like, and I’m gonna make sure to link those in the chat right here.

[00:00:55] And then the second one, we talked about five tips for getting your home loan, offer your VA loan offer a purchase, offer accepted. So yeah very, good discussion. So just to get you guys caught back up on the format, what we do is every week we get two, sometimes three of the vetted professionals in here to go through it.

[00:01:15] And I don’t know what my problem is. Nathan here, I’m actually going to log off and log back on. It keeps giving me feedback and I’ve got, I’m going to bring shut off here. That’s great. Bring Erica. You go ahead and finish with the intro and I’ll circle back here. Give me about two minutes. There’s nothing like a live show.

[00:01:34] If you don’t have something happen once in a while. So

[00:01:37] Jason Turner: there is

[00:01:40] Josh Lewis: so here’s, what we’re going to do. And this is how we normally rock and roll these things. What I’m going to do is we’re going to start off with some introductions. So we’re going to go around the horn and we’re going to wait for Josh to come back to moderate this battle Royale, if you will.

[00:01:54] And we’re going to have a great debate on the appraisal and inspection issue. And let’s be honest, it’s not a debate. They’re both important, but why are they important? Really? Which one’s more important. It’s really what we’re getting down to. So I’m Nathan Nottingham with vet VA. I operate as the like operations person partner with Christopher Griffith with this group and helping to grow and, structure.

[00:02:15] But the more important people are, the ones that you see on the screen with me. Gabe veal, Jason Turner, and Eric Herman, starting with Ms. Gay veal. Why don’t you introduce yourself where you’re from, what you’ve done, who you.

[00:02:29] Gay Veale: Yeah, thank you so much, Nathan. I appreciate it. First I’m super excited to be here and I’m really honored to be a part of vetted VA.

[00:02:37] My name is Gabriel. I’m a loan officer at epic lending. I’ve been with vetted VA just shy of a year or maybe right around a year now. And to be perfectly honest, I haven’t been a loan officer for much longer than that. I’m a 30 year air force veteran, so I definitely speak speak veteran and yeah that’s my quick backstory, just real excited to talk about the difference between appraisals and inspections today as Nathan alluded, they’re both incredibly important and look forward to diving into that with everyone.

[00:03:13] Thanks.

[00:03:14] Josh Lewis: Awesome. No, we’re glad to have you here, Jason. You are in buoy, Maryland. This is your second Maryland or here on the show. Why don’t you give us a little bit of your background and how you ended up at vetted VA and here. Yeah,

[00:03:27] Jason Turner: sure. So it started in the mortgage business in 2012 as a, just a regular loan officer worked my way up through the ranks as a processor and worked for a loan officer and then went solo.

[00:03:38] And then in 2020, I started my mortgage brokerage, navigated mortgage brokers, and and then loving it I’m obviously super grateful to be here with that. A VA it’s taught me a lot and I’ve learned a lot. I love sharing all our experiences that we all have and and sharing the knowledge that we have to all become better professionals.

[00:03:57] That’s my story in a nutshell. I just, I’m happy to be here tonight.

[00:04:01] Josh Lewis: Awesome. We look forward to the discussion now, our real estate professional of the group, Eric Herman from top flight veterans Realty in San Diego, California, a big market for VA loans and VA buyers and realtors.

[00:04:14] How about you? Tell us a little about your background, Eric.

[00:04:16] Eric Herman: Alright. Thank you for the great introduction. I appreciate that, Josh. First of all, can you all hear me perfectly? Awesome. Awesome. As Josh said, I am a veteran realtor and I do service the San Diego market. We do also service some other parts of Southern California that just the Southern parts of Riverside county and orange county as well.

[00:04:39] I’ve been in real estate for about five years now and I’m an air force veteran myself. I served for six years before I got out and jumped into real estate ended up just fallen into it. And then I’ve also been in veteran VA for what about a year and a half? Almost two years

[00:04:55] Josh Lewis: now. Awesome.

[00:04:56] So we have the the air force show today with two air force veterans. Why don’t we just jump right into it? And from the end, there’s really not any better place to start. So let’s jump in with what is a home inspection and Eric that’s really the, realtor’s domain more than us on the loan side.

[00:05:15] What is a home inspection and why is it important to you?

[00:05:20] Eric Herman: So home inspection first and foremost is the buyer’s responsibility. So I just want everybody to know that ahead of time. It’s not like the appraisal, right? It’s not required by any loan whatsoever. It is highly recommended though. Anytime that you purchase a home, that you get a home inspection done, and that includes new builds, that includes already built homes.

[00:05:40] That includes mobile homes whatever type of home you’re, purchasing. It’s, highly recommended to get a home inspection. And what a home inspector is. Is there somebody who has typically taken a test to be able to do home inspections, to begin with and what they need to know is all of the codes that go into building a house.

[00:06:01] And the first thing that they’re going to go in and do, they’re going to check out and make sure everything is up to code. And if it’s not up to code, is it grandfathered in to when the house was actually built? If it’s not up to code or let’s say there’s a health and safety issue, that’s something that they’re going to point out to, the purchaser, the buyer the realtor, everybody all in one.

[00:06:24] Now it’s really important that the buyer go to the home inspection as well as the realtor so that they know exactly what’s going on in the home. A lot of times what happens is that a home inspector gets sent out to a home to do the home inspection themselves. And then they report back to everybody with a huge laundry list of items that most of the time look extremely scary.

[00:06:48] Sometimes it can be a hundred to 120 pages. And they may just be all tiny little things. Let’s say they’re, writing that there’s some Nixon, the walls, or there’s slight variation in the flooring from the installers that installed the flooring incorrectly or something like there’s minor things that they’re going to point out nine times out of 10.

[00:07:12] You need to pay attention to the major things that are going on with the house. So the major things are going to be the, roof, the HVAC system, the foundation of the home. There’s, multiple things that you want to pay attention to, but those are probably the biggest things that you need to, keep a swivel on as well as the plumbing.

[00:07:35] When you’re getting a home inspection, it’s important to, to get not only a standard home inspection, but if the home inspector calls out health and safety issues for let’s say the roof or the HVAC system or the plumbing, like I mentioned, previous. It’s important to get an actual professional in one of those fields, out to the home to do their own inspection on top of the home inspection.

[00:08:01] So I

[00:08:01] Josh Lewis: think what you said there was really important. A lot of people think, Hey, it’s an inspection. And then I find everything out and then that’s the end of it. But that inspector is a general inspector. So you’re talking about, they may see things and go that doesn’t quite look right, but we need a specialist to come through and look at us.

[00:08:19] Why don’t you tell us maybe an example of something that you’ve had where, we had to call out a roof inspector or a plumbing inspector to go a little deeper into it and explain what that looks like for a veteran?

[00:08:30] Eric Herman: Yeah, of course. Just recently I had a better and actually purchase a home that had some issues going on with the roof that we know.

[00:08:38] When we were looking at the house, like the roof was a little bit wavy. We noticed that some of the tiles weren’t sitting correctly on the roof and it had solar on there as well. And so we were somewhat concerned with that. And so we told the, home inspector to go up on the roof and check it out and see what he thought about it.

[00:08:55] His recommendation was to get a roofer out there to give us a more in depth view of, what exactly we would need to do. Now. They told us that there was only a couple of years left on the roof and that it was going to need to be replaced scary. You need a brand new roof on this house that you thought you were good to go on.

[00:09:15] And, all of a sudden you’re, freaking out. It’s not a scary thing, right? If you do get this home inspection done and you do get a roof inspection, you’re going to want to get a roof quote, to tell you how much it’s going to cost to replace the roof. And we got a roof quote and they told us it was going to be approximately, I think it was like $18,000 to redo.

[00:09:38] And so we’ve took that information back to the sellers of the home. And we said, Hey I know you guys have only been in the home for three years. So we know that obviously that may not have been enough time for you guys to replace the entire roof. Would you guys be willing to meet us halfway and pay for half of what a brand new roof would cost?

[00:09:59] And so we got the sellers to give $9,500 towards a brand new roof. So now the owner or the buyer of this house can then either go and get a roof tune up to get a couple more years out of their roof, which is usually about thousand dollars or a couple of hundred dollars depending on where you’re located or they could stack that money away.

[00:10:24] And when they close on the home, they can go and purchase a brand new roof and have 25 to 30 years left on that roof.

[00:10:32] Josh Lewis: And that’s an important piece about this. All of us that are doing loans are on the real estate side and anyone that’s in the market have probably heard sellers are demanding that we take properties as is we have no contingencies and we’ll get into kind of what those inspection contingencies and appraisal contingencies look like.

[00:10:49] But how common is it that you’re able to negotiate? Things like that? Everyone’s hearing that sellers have all the leverage from what I see, and I’m sure Gaye and Jason are seeing the same thing. Most people are fairly reasonable and they do follow the golden rule. They want to be treated. They want to treat people the way they would like to be treated.

[00:11:07] So that’s not really all that uncommon. Although you might think that, it is how much are you seeing things like that, where sellers being pretty reasonable when there’s something that does need to be addressed, that they’re willing to at least meet you. So

[00:11:22] Eric Herman: I think it’s pretty often actually, to be honest especially in the market that we’re going into right now, where it’s slowing down a little bit, now we still have multiple offers on pretty much every house.

[00:11:32] And they’re still getting bid up over asking price, but we’re not getting 15 to 20 to 50 offers on some houses now. So they don’t have the cream of the crop to pick from most of the time. And so they have to be a little bit more cautious about what they’re doing and in which offers they’re selecting in terms of what happens to the buyers, right?

[00:11:56] So these buyers now have not, a little bit more of an upper hand, but they have a little bit more to go on in terms of what they can ask for these days. So I think it’s probably about, I don’t know, 75% of the time, we’re still able to get something out of them. Maybe it’s a thousand bucks or 2000 bucks or something, or maybe we just get them to repair the items that are.

[00:12:20] Sometimes they don’t need a brand new roof sometimes it’s just some electrical outlets that aren’t working in the house or the, maybe the, toilet is loose and falling off. Like small items where you can get like a handyman or a professional out there for a couple of hundred to a thousand dollars and get that stuff fixed.

[00:12:42] Jason Turner: Yeah. I’ve got a couple of other contractors right now. They’re getting 11 and five for a carpet replacement because the carpet was in very poor condition. So it’s one of those situations where they didn’t negotiate it at the contract when, it was ratified, but it was negotiated afterwards, planned out when all of a sudden,

[00:13:01] Eric Herman: yeah, that’s a great point too.

[00:13:03] So a lot of times these houses are in, in disarray and the people know that going into a contract and they tell their realtor upfront, maybe Hey we don’t want to replace the carpets. We don’t want to replace the roof. But if they do ask for. We’re willing to pay for some of it.

[00:13:23] Josh Lewis: So you’ve done a really good job of explaining what the inspection is, what it involves, where it can go deeper. What happens when issues come up? How about at the very beginning, a lot of the questions that I get from buyers they just want to know okay. I know I’m supposed to have an inspection.

[00:13:38] Where do I get an inspector? Who, pays for it? When is it paid for, why don’t you talk us through the mechanics of, picking an inspector, making the appointment, getting them paid, what all that front end back and forth looks like. Th those

[00:13:51] Vetted VA Live – Episode 3- appraisal vs inspection: are

[00:13:51] Eric Herman: great questions. When, you’re picking an at home inspector, it’s important to find somebody that obviously knows what they’re doing.

[00:14:00] So what you can do is you could ask your realtor if perhaps they know a couple of home inspectors that they’ve worked with in the past, or that they could potentially recommend. It, or you can go to the internet and Google a couple of home inspectors in the local area, and then go back to your realtor and ask them if they’ve ever worked with any of those people.

[00:14:19] Because remember you want to make sure you’re working with somebody that a is going to get the job done, right? B is going to be able to show up on time and give you a proficient list of items that are actually on with the house. And then lastly, somebody who’s not going to charge you an arm and a leg to do the home inspections.

[00:14:38] Josh Lewis: What, is a typical cost? And I know this varies by regions of the country by property type size of the property, but what’s a range of prices that a buyer could expect to pay for a home inspection.

[00:14:49] Eric Herman: Yeah, like you said, it really does depend on the area. I’ve seen them as low as, $250 all the way up to like a thousand dollars for a home inspection.

[00:14:58] And that, that just depends on the inspector and what their preferred. Cause some home inspectors will do the general home inspection. And then they’ll also do a sewer scope inspection where they’ll have a special camera that they can stick down the sewer lines to make sure that there’s no roots or cloggage or anything like that going on with the house, which would cost you thousands of dollars when you purchase it.

[00:15:23] Sometimes those ad-ons are worth it because you’re probably going to get those from an outside vendor anyway. But it really just depends. Gaye and Jason, have you guys seen a home inspection costs out in your areas? It’s

[00:15:38] Jason Turner: about six 50 here. Did you know it? Actually, I seen it depending on the size of the house obviously the more to expect, excuse me, then it can cost more if it’s a smaller house, those less than inspect.

[00:15:49] So the less time and

[00:15:51] Eric Herman: yeah. So I would say, go ahead. Go ahead.

[00:15:54] Gay Veale: Gamble. No, I was just going to say same, here. It, really just depends on the size of the home and what type of inspection they’re getting done. But I think just a general home inspection as around the 500 by 50 range.

[00:16:10] And Colorado Springs, which I didn’t say where I was from, by the way. Sorry.

[00:16:14] Josh Lewis: And in the context of a big purchase low end purchases in this country are 200,000 high-end as well, over a million. It’s a pretty damn big investment. So darn big investment. I’m going to put some money in the jar and apologize.

[00:16:33] My apologies. I correct myself. But it’s it’s a big chunk of money that they’re spending and that’s $500 in the context of this is not an insignificant amount of money, but it’s a pretty big amount of peace of mind. Even if the seller, like you’re saying, but most times sellers are reasonable, even if they’re not reasonable.

[00:16:51] And they say, we’re not paying anything we want. We want out of here. Just you knowing and knowing what you’re walking into is a huge thing. So it’s, an expense. A lot of times I get the question, I’m sure you guys are getting the same way as well. We’re really, we’re tight on money. We don’t want to do that.

[00:17:08] So going into that way and a couple of questions here that are good ones on this. The, most recent one that popped up here, a user saying, is it important to check if the home inspector is licensed and how are these guys license? I’m sure it varies by state, but it is an industry where it’s important that you have someone that knows what they’re talking about.

[00:17:29] What do you do in that instance to make sure they’re properly licensed?

[00:17:33] Eric Herman: So they don’t actually have to be licensed. They, basically they, pass a test and they I think I don’t think they need to like an actual license. They just pass a test and they have to be certified to be able to do these home inspections.

[00:17:49] And obviously I think they have a reoccurring tests that they have to do in reoccurring certifications to make sure that they’re staying up to date with the codes that are in place, but they don’t actually need to be licensed and bonded like a normal. Vendor would say like a plumber or a a painter or something like that,

[00:18:11] Josh Lewis: but it is important.

[00:18:13] And so you had already walked through get, a recommendation, check them out online, see what certifications they have, see if they’re bonded. There’s, multiple things that you can do from, that end to make sure that you’re dealing with a reputable professional. And if you don’t have anyone, your realtor can, always help you with a list of reputable folks.

[00:18:35] Another really good question here is are, and you, hinted at this, but are there various levels of inspections? There’s just the basic, Hey, go out and just do the inspection. And then you talked about some different ad-ons that, that the companies will offer. If you’re willing to pay a little bit more or some just actually include in their service.

[00:18:52] Eric Herman: So I would tell everybody just to bank on at least like a thousand dollars worth of, inspections just, to be on the high side, cause you never want to go into purchasing a home. And now all of a sudden you’re stuck and you don’t have enough money to be able to finish some of the most important things in the transaction.

[00:19:11] The home inspected is literally like the biggest piece. I feel like of purchasing the home because once you’re done with that, then you move on to the next portion of it, which is obviously the loan, but you have to make sure that the house isn’t going to fall down the second you move in.

[00:19:28] To add onto that, I know we said we were going to talk about the inspections later, but make sure you’re not waving your, inspection, home inspections, your inspection contingency is. If you do waive anything, maybe waive the physical portion of it so that you still have. Somewhat of a contingency in place to be able to back out.

[00:19:48] If you do find something that’s going to cost you 50 to a hundred thousand dollars, once you move in,

[00:19:54] Josh Lewis: we actually had someone asked that question here, how can buyers make sure their contract allows for inspection contingencies? So for, each of you we’re all, it’s funny, no matter who I talk to, where they are in the country, they all say you don’t understand my market’s crazy.

[00:20:09] And yet anyone you talk to no, it’s crazy everywhere. We’re all dealing with the same stuff. So are you guys seeing pressure from sellers to waive inspection contingency? I think we all agree. It’s a terrible idea, but you, had just hinted at a way to work around it, of not having the inspection contingency, but still protecting yourself with an inspection.

[00:20:31] So w what, are you guys seeing in terms of your buyers doing and, how are you guys thinking. I’ve

[00:20:39] Jason Turner: seen burka go again if you want to go.

[00:20:41] Gay Veale: Yeah, sure. So one thing that I’ve seen buyers do is work with their realtors to offer some sort of middle ground where they say, Hey, we want to do an inspection.

[00:20:53] But if it’s it, the fixes that are required are less than a thousand dollars or something like that, then they’ll waive that, that still gives them an out for really big ticket items. But for smaller things it gives that seller a little bit of comfort to know that, Hey, something small is not going to hold up the purchase.

[00:21:12] That’s just one example I’ve seen.

[00:21:15] Jason Turner: I’ve seen buyers wave the wave, the contingency, but also keep the right to inspect, basically saying they’re going to inspect that they’re going to do it, but it’s not a contingency in the contract. So they still have the peace of mind. They just don’t have the out in the contract.

[00:21:29] And then one thing I also want to bring up is a lot of folks are offering to pay for any kind of seller. I mean any appraisal required repairs up to a certain dollar amount. So they’ll pay $2,000 or $5,000, whatever the case may be for anything that may be listed on the appraisal. That may be required to get repaired prior to closing.

[00:21:49] So that’s one thing I’ve seen buyers do in order to get the contracts accepted because sellers may not want to pay that.

[00:21:55] Josh Lewis: And that’s something that’s a little, bit unique to VA and the minimum property requirements. So w we’re about ready to jump into the appraisal stuff, but let’s, keep that and go a little bit deeper when we start talking about how VA varies from, other types Erica, are you seeing that.

[00:22:12] Not, uncommon for someone to say you’re getting it as is. And we would like you to waive the inspection contingency, but the buyer saying, I need this, even if it’s just for informational purposes I say, I’ll take it as is it still gives you the peace of mind of not having to worry that there’s a 10 or 20.

[00:22:30] You got a $9,000 roof. That’s, a big, thing there that you at least want to know you’re walking into.

[00:22:37] Eric Herman: So last year I had a client that was looking at purchasing a property in downtown San Diego, which was built in 1930. And the foundation on the property was a race foundation and was completely cracking all the way around.

[00:22:53] So would have cost him about 40, $50,000 to completely redo that foundation and had that buyer dropped their home inspection contingency. They wouldn’t have been able to back out because of that fact. And they would have been stuck purchasing that process. And having to deal with that down the road. Now, maybe they don’t have to deal with it right away.

[00:23:12] But they’re eventually going to have to deal with it, especially if they want to sell the property again, because we found it as an issue. And now that means that when they sell the property, they have to tell the next people that are purchasing it about that foundation. That’s that needs to be replaced if they try to sell it without fixing it.

[00:23:32] Josh Lewis: So that, example actually leads us into another really good question here. Ben Miller asks, when should your buyer get something repaired versus just asking for a credit to, to repair the whatever issue pops up.

[00:23:45] Eric Herman: So I guess I’ll, take that question. When should a buyer get something repaired versus getting the seller credit?

[00:23:53] It just really depends a lot of the times. You can get the credit and you can repair a lot of the items outside of escrow. If it’s an appraisal item Jason was talking about, then you could potentially have to fix that while you’re in escrow and you may not have the option to be able to fix it outside of escrow.

[00:24:14] But I think it’s important to, typically take that money and, pick who you want to work with once you close escrow, because if you don’t pick who you want to work with, and that means the seller gets to pick who they’re going to get to fix that item, and it could be a handyman, or it could just be Billy, Bob, Joe, that they know down the street, that’s licensed and bonded, but does garbage work and you don’t want that type of work to be done to your house before.

[00:24:41] Josh Lewis: And it’s not uncommon that you say you send over the list of repairs. Here’s the seven things we want done and they go, okay, it’s done. You go back to reinspect. You’re like, no, that’s not done. You did something there. I don’t know what it was, but you, did something. But that was great. I think we’ve got a pretty good handle on inspections.

[00:24:58] We had some really good questions. Gaye and Jason why don’t we switch over? We started with what is a home inspection let’s start with what is an appraisal and how does it differ from the home inspection? Cause there are some elements in terms of, those minimum property requirements where the appraiser is doing a mini inspection on the property, but why don’t you walk the viewer through the differences between the two?

[00:25:20] Okay. You want to start with that?

[00:25:23] Gay Veale: Sure. I would say first and foremost the, probably the most common thing that I hear about appraisals, that’s not correct is that it’s an inspection and that’s not correct. It is not an inspection it’s appraisal. There are two separate things, which is why we’re having this conversation.

[00:25:42] So basically the appraisal is the process of and by the way the, process to become an appraiser is completely different than it is to be an inspector it’s very labor intensive. It takes a very long time for an individual to become an appraiser, but essentially it’s the process of determining the value of, the property.

[00:26:06] And, of course with a VA loan, there are a few additional things that are looked at to make sure that those minimum property requirements are met, that it’s safe, sanitary secure and But and, I think a lot of people get really scared, scared off by that. But to be perfectly honest, if you look at conventional loan requirements, a lot of times they’re very similar.

[00:26:32] And people like to make it seem like it’s something that’s, different and scary. And quite frankly, it’s just not. And honestly I want, I don’t know about you guys, but I want my home to be safe and secure and sanitary and sound and all of those things. And that, that really it, just down to the basic level is what an appraisal is.

[00:26:55] It’s just determining the value of the home. And that is what determines how much. Can be a lender will lend to you for alone in order to obtain the property.

[00:27:08] Josh Lewis: One of the things that’s unique about VA loans versus other types of loans that, that all of us do is how they’re ordered. Jason, why don’t you tell us a little, bit how that VA appraisal ordering process works and how your appraiser gets assigned to your property?

[00:27:23] Jason Turner: Yeah, so it’s ordered directly through the VA, which is different than going through an appraisal management company, like an FHA or conventional loan. So it’s ordered directly through the VA and they have their own approved VA appraisers. So we go to the VA website, we ordered through them directly, and then the appraisal appraiser gets assigned to the property.

[00:27:41] Oftentimes we don’t know who it is unless they reach out. But that’s generally how it works is it’s where directly through the VA, which is something unique to any other loan type, really. So that’s pretty much how it, how the process starts. And then from there we hopefully get a good value, but if not, we can talk about Tidewater and the ROV process.

[00:28:01] And that’s something that is very common in today’s market with values going.

[00:28:07] Josh Lewis: Yeah. Why, don’t we go through that? Let’s look at how it works. And again, VA is just, unique. So you’ve ordered the appraisal. You go on to the VA website. You put in the order day later, praiser gets assigned, reaches out schedules.

[00:28:21] The inspection, even the payment process is different. Every other type of loan we’re paying for that thing upfront this, you actually get the report and the VA’s confident that you want to continue doing VA loans, so you will pay the appraiser. But the process is just, it’s just backwards from everything.

[00:28:38] So on the normal process, that loan goes back to the lender. This gets delivered back to the VA, but what you were referencing is the appraiser goes out. We have a $500,000 sale price, and they’re not seeing it so on. Tell us how that works on a non VA appraisal and how that varies with a VA appraisal.

[00:28:58] Jason Turner: Yeah, on a non VA that the appraisal will just get delivered to the lender. And you’ll just have to deal with the value whatever that value is. It is now if the appraiser can’t find comps for the property, what they’ll do is issue a Tidewater and it, Tod water is basically when they say, Hey, we can’t find comps to support the value.

[00:29:16] Can you help us out? Essentially, they’ll reach out to the lender and say can you please provide us with data so we can look for it? We can’t find it. So in those cases, what happens is I’ll reach out to the buyer’s agent and the listing agent, get everybody on the same page, say, Hey, this is what I’m hearing from the appraiser.

[00:29:31] What can we do to help support this value? And in fact, I had the same circumstance a week ago where I got, I had a Tidewater and it was ratified at 500,000. I’m sorry. It was listed at 500,000 ratified at five feet. So 50,000 over list price Tidewater was issued. They provided comps and the value was delivered.

[00:29:50] So it was an amazing story. And the veteran didn’t have to come out of pocket with all that cash. So that’s one way that the VA loan is very unique because it wasn’t just delivered in here. You got to basically get stuck with the value. It’s safe, let’s work with what we can with the agents and, find good data to help support the value.

[00:30:11] In that regard it’s, a fantastic

[00:30:13] Josh Lewis: product. You, had already hinted at this, but let’s say in that instance that they had brought it back and said here we like your comps a little better than what we found. It’s five 30. What is the, veteran and their agent and loan officer? What are their options at that point?

[00:30:28] Do they have.

[00:30:30] Jason Turner: They do. Of course, after the notice of value is issue we, can do is request a reconsideration of value. So at that point, we’ll take the comps. I’ll go back to the agents again and say, Hey, let’s make sure we have the best counts. We have also get a statement from the veteran requesting a certain value that typically this is the sales price.

[00:30:48] So when we get that in writing, we take that to the VA. We say, Hey, we would like to request a reconsideration of value. Here’s the data that we have to support the value. Please make this consideration for us. And then typically it’s within five business days that we receive a response from the VA and I was successful on two of these last year.

[00:31:06] I only needed to do two, but I was successful on both of them, which was great. Of course. In those cases, again, it’s saving people money and saving a lot of stress. So you cannot do that with FHA. You cannot do it with VA jumbo, USDA, like no other loan will even consider that process. So it’s a tremendous asset to the veterans.

[00:31:28] Josh Lewis: And the misconception was gonna say gay. The misconception among a lot of sellers is, oh, the VA appraisal is worse. And yet whenever we have this conversation among pros, it’s the best, most flexible process, the most likely to get to the actual value of any process. There is a guy I didn’t mean to cut you off.

[00:31:46] I just want to point that out.

[00:31:47] Gay Veale: Yeah, no, that’s absolutely correct. And really what I was going to ask is Jason so one thing that I didn’t realize when I first became a loan officer and learned a little bit about Tidewater versus reconsideration of value is it’s not the same people, that are looking at the Tidewater versus a reconsideration of value. Is that. Yeah, that’s

[00:32:11] Jason Turner: absolutely correct. So to the appraisal at the Tidewater stays, it’s just the appraiser. If they have a discrepancy or they don’t like the data, they’re just going to deliver the port with the concept they have, plus what was provided.

[00:32:24] If they don’t like it, then you just get, the report the way it is, but you have the extra layer with the reconsideration of value. Whereas it’s literally handed by the VA staff appraiser. They can look at it and make the consideration. So it’s, that extra layer to, to help out with the whole process.

[00:32:41] So

[00:32:42] Josh Lewis: Jason use gave us a great example and then said two for Tibet and two for two last year in, in either Tidewater or the reconsideration of value gay and Eric this, happens. We’re gonna mark it where values are getting pushed. We’re having issues with your VA loans. What experience with, VA financing, VA appraisals, what experience are you guys having and how does that compare to the, same appraisals on conventional or FHA transactions in your mind?

[00:33:09] Eric Herman: So I’m actually finding the conventional more often than not are the ones that are actually getting a praise for lower than, the purchase price, as opposed to VA. Whereas I, have had a handful of VA last year that did get appraised for lower upfront. Before they S they told us that they had Tidewater, they say, Hey, we’re not finding the value. We’re going to enact Tidewater. We went back to the drawing board, found comps that would justify the pricing, not only that, but we went back to the last three to six months and we pulled the data to support how much the market was increasing month over month to show them that look last month properties jumped 10%.

[00:33:57] So you’re looking, or when people, between the last three months, the prices jumped 10%, you’re looking at the last six months. And you’re looking at prices that are six months old now, where you know, properties were selling for 50 to a hundred thousand dollars less. We’ll look at the last three months where properties are now selling a lot closer to what this, purchase price.

[00:34:20] And all of a sudden they go, oh, okay. We found the value. We’re good.

[00:34:25] Vetted VA Live – Episode 3- appraisal vs inspection: Yeah.

[00:34:26] Josh Lewis: The cool thing is at the end of the day, much more so than FHA or conventional, what they want is a good outcome for the veteran. So if there’s a way to look they’re not going to just deviate from their guidelines and throw them out.

[00:34:40] But if there’s a way within the context of those guidelines, to see something in the veteran’s favor, without setting them up for a bad outcome, we see these, good results. I tell people the same thing all the time. If you, offered me the opportunity to have any type of appraisal in a transaction, the VA and, think about it’s exactly what you guys had just said.

[00:35:01] First, we get to go back to the. And not in a situation where we have to tell them their number is wrong. No appraisal. I got to go back to the apprentice to, Hey, you’re dumb, you’re wrong. Here’s why on, on a VA loan, the person, Hey, I’m not necessarily seeing that. The way you guys are, do you have more information?

[00:35:20] And that’s just a different way of handling it. We’re all collaborating on trying to share information to get to a number. And then if they say, no, I’m still not seeing it. We have another independent party that doesn’t have anything to do with that. That gets to say it was the appraiser, or is the veteran and the professionals in that transaction.

[00:35:38] I think we all agree that if FHA and conventional would adopt something, similarly, we would all be on board with that. It would make our lives.

[00:35:47] Jason Turner: Alexa set a great question. Alexis Brown and it’s how long do you appraise the state to come in? Is there a timeline or a deadline, which I think is a great question because a lot of folks don’t know this, that each region has a specific timeline for when the appraisal has to be delivered to the VA to, the lender, excuse me.

[00:36:03] And in my area it’s 10 business days. Typically if I get a contract I’m ordering that appraisal like the next day. And the chips will fall where they may for the home inspection, but I given those 10 business days, I want to have time for the Tidewater process and the ROV if needed.

[00:36:22] That’s a great question about.

[00:36:25] Josh Lewis: And that’s posted that the turn times are actually posted along with one, one of the questions that we had here is what does it cost the cool thing about an appraisal? You don’t have to worry what lender you’re going to. Every lender is ordering it through the VA and the VA by each region says what the cost is and posts that cost.

[00:36:42] And then they also post the turn times that they expect those appraisers to deliver them in. So we had a follow up question there, someone asks, okay, what if I do, what do I do if it doesn’t come in by the deadline? Really anyone want to have that situation recently? And how.

[00:36:59] Jason Turner: I have actually and I just reached out to the praises directly just to see what’s going on.

[00:37:04] If it’s a legitimate issue, COVID whatever the case may be, then I just try to communicate that if there’s real issues, then I contact the local regional loan center, the original loan center, just to say, Hey, this is what I’m seeing. Can we please do something to get this taken care of?

[00:37:22] Gay Veale: I’ve only had one area where that’s an issue and a it, and it’s a really bad issue, but it’s known. And everyone plans and prepares for it. In that particular area and we all just buckle down and keep an eye on things and make sure things are it’s moving up the line.

[00:37:42] You can check with the VA, say, Hey, where’s things at on getting assigned and just do your best to stay in touch with, every, all the parties that are involved. And keep everybody up to date. That’s, it’s a very unique location though. And it is, that’s

[00:37:58] Josh Lewis: what going to say is, there more, a more rural, further out area where there aren’t as many appraisals appraisers to

[00:38:03] Gay Veale: service?

[00:38:04] Yeah. Yeah. So it’s in the interior of Alaska actually is where we are having that issue. And there are very, long lead times. And if anybody’s watching from Alaska Stay strong it’s it, like I said, it’s just, it’s a known issue there. And I’m, thankful though, he that’d be a, I hope, hopefully we can talk about this, but we’re trying to help that out.

[00:38:31] With our organization to try to get more appraisers, to sign up in areas where we’re having problems with long-term times, the good news is there aren’t many of those areas out there. Some of those more rural areas definitely that’s an issue and we’re working hard and vetted VA to try to help overcome.

[00:38:52] Josh Lewis: No it’s, something that we’ll talk about more in the future, but there’s a couple of issues that Christopher and Nathan and leadership are working on that are really important in there. Wasn’t a big voice speaking on behalf of the veteran of saying here’s issues that are causing problems because FHA VA, even Fannie and Freddie they’re big government bureaucracies.

[00:39:15] And a lot of times they’re removed from what’s happening for buyers, sellers, realtors, loan officers on the ground level, and some of the stuff going on behind the scenes that that Christopher will talk about in the future when we have big successes do announce. It’s really cool. And I think all of us that are part of this, part of why we participate is to give some weight to that voice.

[00:39:34] And just to, be a part of, what they’re doing something that comes up on, on VA, just as a question. And I think part of it is because of the potential. For the, streamline Earl refinances that do not require appraisals. Do you guys get this question? Hey do I have to have an appraisal in my last VA loan?

[00:39:54] I didn’t have to have an appraisal and sometimes buyers don’t understand the distinction between the two transactions and why they’re different when you want to talk about the difference of why the purchase is going to require that.

[00:40:09] Eric Herman: Jason.

[00:40:11] Gay Veale: Yeah. Basically at the end of the day it’s you have to set the value of the home. Number one, to make sure that the lender is lending an appropriate amount of money, but also back to what we mentioned earlier, those minimum property requirements are very important to the VA.

[00:40:30] And, really when you think about it, the da is just for trying to protect the veteran by doing that and on an Earl or an interest rate reduction, green finance loan you’re already in the home, you already have a VA loan. You’re just gaining some benefit by the refinance either.

[00:40:49] Typically reducing the payment, right? And so in those cases you don’t need an appraisal. There’s a bunch of things actually, you don’t need for that particular loan. But but yeah, you don’t need the appraisal on that one. What I have found what I’ve found very interesting. This, has happened a few times where maybe I have a borrower that is putting an offers and they’re competing and they’ll call me up and they’ll say, Hey, the listing agent is telling my agent that that the other, buyers who are also offering a VA are waving the appraisal.

[00:41:23] And I’m like, no, I’m not, I don’t think that’s what they’re doing. I don’t think that’s happening. But, you find there’s, a lot of misconceptions out there. A lot of maybe uneducated markets, maybe if it’s not huge military market, they just don’t know. And they’ll say things like that and think that it’s totally I don’t even know what’s happening, but I, find myself having to educate from time to time Eh agents sometimes that, listen, you can’t, it’s a purchase.

[00:41:54] If it’s a VA loan, you have a VA loan offer. Not just mine, but maybe another buyer is making that offer. The appraisal has to be done. Yeah

[00:42:05] Josh Lewis: The, appraisal has to be done and you have your VA escape clause in there, so they can say, they’re waving the value, but Jason, you wanna talk about what that escape clause is or, Eric, what is it, why is it there and how does it protect veterans in ways that maybe a conventional loan does it?

[00:42:23] So

[00:42:23] Eric Herman: I don’t mind talking about this from like a realtor standpoint because I encounter this literally on a daily basis. So there’s a lot of realtors out there that literally have no idea what a VA loan is or the stipulations that have to do with. So a lot of the times they’re used to submitting FHA or conventional offers where they can technically get FHA, you can’t really get rid of the appraisal, but conventional offers, you can get rid of the appraisal contingency in the contract and there’s no consequences for the buyer. There’s consequences, of course, if it appraises low, but you can literally get rid of it and not have any issues with that. Whereas with the VA and FHA loan, if you waive the VA appraisal, you have the FHA VA amendatory clause, otherwise known as the escape clause that protects the buyer over anything written in the contract.

[00:43:15] So let’s say you write into the contract that you’re willing to pay an appraisal gap of $50,000 from the purchase price and the appraised value. And let’s say it appraises 50,000. You still have that FHA amendatory clause, escape clause that protects the buyer that says, Hey, it didn’t appraise.

[00:43:37] And he can now back out of this contract,

[00:43:40] Josh Lewis: it doesn’t say they have to, it just says they can’t. And they can’t forfeit their right to back out when presented with an appraisal that doesn’t support the value that, that they’re going to pay.

[00:43:52] Eric Herman: Exactly. So I think realtors just need to know going, in on the list side and on the buy side that, yeah I you may get asked to drop your appraisal contingency.

[00:44:04] Sure. Drop it. It doesn’t mean anything. You have the FHA VA mandatory clause that backs it up and supersedes it and protects you in your.

[00:44:13] Josh Lewis: And I don’t know about you guys, but again, it goes back to wait. My market’s crazy. All of our markets are crazy. Everyone with any type of financing, sellers are asking to do this.

[00:44:25] Sometimes they, and sometimes their agents don’t know that you can’t do it. And so I see these, contracts, VA contracts, it’ll say we’re, waiving the appraisal contingency. Now we know it doesn’t mean anything other than it’s an honor system situation where if I’m a veteran, I know what, the market is like if somehow my appraisal doesn’t come in the seller, not so much today, but six months ago, 12 months ago, the market was hot enough.

[00:44:53] A seller could just go, Hey, it came in 40 low. I’ve got four other offers behind you. So it’s important to know the veteran can voluntarily pay more. But again, going back to, we have title. We have the RFE and we still have the ability to go back to the seller, even though it wasn’t contingent. If you’re 10 days away from closing, if you don’t ask the answer’s always no.

[00:45:14] So you can have no appraisal contingency, but you have that escape clause and you can always go back and say to the seller, Hey, it’s 20,000 low, will you take 20 less? Can we split the difference? And Eric, I don’t know what you’re seeing. I know San Diego has literally been one of the five hottest markets in the country for the last year or two, but I know it happens even for us here in Southern California.

[00:45:38] Eric Herman: Yeah, no, I’m seeing it pretty often. And then not only that, but let’s say it does appraise low. You have those options, like you just mentioned to be able to negotiate with the seller and either not lose the house by, making up the difference in the appraised value in the.

[00:45:57] Or having them negotiate between the two and meet in the middle. So let’s say it’s a $40,000 gap. The buyer can pay $20,000 over the sellers eating $20,000 as well. It’s all, it all comes down to what the buyer is comfortable with though.

[00:46:14] Josh Lewis: Absolutely. And I just always liked to tell people one of, one of my best friends and best realtors, he says, listen, everything is negotiable.

[00:46:23] The worst they can say is no, never don’t ask like a lot of times this market’s been so hot and so heavily in favor of subs we can’t ask you. Absolutely can’t ask. They can tell you no, but if you don’t ask the answer is absolutely no. And a lot of people haven’t caught onto that.

[00:46:39] We’ve got a good question here, and I’m hoping that gay and Jason, you guys deal with this a little more in your market because we don’t see it a lot here, but does anyone want to address how outbuildings and acreage come into play with, appraisals and how those things are impact impacting values and how the appraisers look at.

[00:47:00] Gay Veale: I’ll let you take that one, chase them.

[00:47:03] Jason Turner: That’s actually a tougher question. Cause I don’t have a lot of Anchorage here. I’m in suburbia, essentially. So the value is given essentially the value is given to the lane and the home. When you have a tremendous amount of land, the issue seems to be getting comps to support that.

[00:47:23] So when you have a large acres of land you, just have to find some of that similar would, would be my guesstimate on that. But like I said, I don’t see that a ton in my area.

[00:47:34] Josh Lewis: So yeah we, don’t hear it Southern California either. And of course my compadre here in San Diego is going to have something that he saw.

[00:47:44] Eric Herman: I, don’t personally deal with outbuildings. I have dealt with acreage and it does come into play. Typically outbuildings are really gonna come into play unless their habitat. If it’s a habitable, outbuilding, like an ADU or something along those lines, you may get some additional costs associated with those acres.

[00:48:05] Let’s say it’s a one acre property compared to a 10 acre property. Of course, they’re going to give a ton more in value to the 10 acre property. It just really comes down to the VA, the appraiser and what their opinion is based on those costs as well. Cause it’s all opinion based.

[00:48:24] Gay Veale: And just for everybody on the stream here, ADU is accessory dwelling unit. Thank

[00:48:31] Eric Herman: you. Yes. Yes. House granny flat, whatever you want to call it.

[00:48:36] Gay Veale: Yes. But to your point, it has to be livable, essentially, not like a shed or something like.

[00:48:45] Eric Herman: They are renting out sheds in San Diego for 1300 bucks a month.

[00:48:48] So you never know

[00:48:50] Gay Veale: crazy. All right. Continue your houses.

[00:48:53] Josh Lewis: Okay. Container has it, or just people constantly calling. So the new thing with the millennials, they want to do the house hacking. So I’m going to buy it. I’m going to rent every room in the house out, and then I’m going to live here, rent free.

[00:49:05] So they just have a, the younger buyers have a little different expectation than us older folks. So we’ve, really covered a lot of ground in terms of the inspection and the appraisal, how they differ, why each one is important and how you need to protect yourself in terms of contingencies what you can waive, what you can’t waive any parting thoughts unless some additional questions, pop up, any parting thoughts that you guys had, anything you wanted to share, words of wisdom with the potential VA buyer going through this process and what they need to know about inspections.

[00:49:39] Jason Turner: Yeah. I’d like to bring up a couple of things, actually. So the, most common things that I see on VA appraisals for requirements in order to meet the, VA standards is peeling, paint and handrails. Those are the two most common things. I don’t know why. Obviously it’s a health and safety thing, right?

[00:49:57] So you’ve got to have hand rails and peeling paint. So when you’re looking at a property, please look for those two things, look at steps, and then look at anything on our front porch, on a back railing, anything at all that looks like that. Please, check for that. And if there is there, say, Hey, I’m willing to repair this up to a cost of, let’s say a couple thousand bucks, whatever the case may be just to make the seller feel good.

[00:50:19] So they’ll accept the loan. Basically it gives the buyer a fighting chance. So if you’re looking at properties, please put them in your contract. I know it’s an extra cost, but it’s going to help get the property under contract after all. That’s what every buyer wants these days. Unfortunately we have to pay a little bit more to get what we want, but that’s, the cost of playing the game, unfortunately, in this market, but that’s.

[00:50:41] The one thing I want to bring up. If buyers are willing to pay a little bit more and give sellers peace of mind, they’re going to be more likely to get contracts and that’s what I’ve seen work. And then a side note to that is don’t be afraid to put in a backup offer because I’ve seen in my market, I think where 35% of contracts are falling out of escrow, meaning that backup offer could be selected for the next man up essentially.

[00:51:07] So don’t be afraid to put in a backup offer because I’ve seen Pretty often lately. W when people’s financing are falling through because of whatever appraisal gap issues or who knows what that backup offer could really make a difference. So please consider that

[00:51:25] Josh Lewis: Jason, you may regret bringing up the chipping paint because on last week’s call, we have both a realtor and the loan officer say that they have gone out and repaired chipping repainted to make sure that the deal closes.

[00:51:39] So you may be doing that on one of your future is where the bar has been set. So I love that you

[00:51:45] Jason Turner: said that in this very house that I am in right now, when I bought it in 2012, I bought it with an FHA loan, peeling paint galore. I had to pay, this was a foreclosure. So the, of course the bank was like, no we’re not fixing anything.

[00:52:02] So I literally came to the house with my dad and all the railing we should, we spend some money on it, but we did it ourselves. It was quality product. Like we had that peace of mind. So we literally did it called the agents, or we were like, Hey, send the inspector back out or the appraiser rather.

[00:52:18] And let’s, get this thing done. It’s pretty, pretty interesting. Now

[00:52:24] Josh Lewis: you’ve dug the hole deeper because now all of your clients know repairing the chipping pain. So now they know who to call it. Jason, I don’t have another nickel. So I need you to come out and fix all of the chipping paint in my house so we can get closed and I can get into my house and you get paid.

[00:52:44] Eric Herman: He said he went out and did it himself as the buyer, right? What, does he expect his clients to do now? He just showed them what they can do.

[00:52:55] Josh Lewis: He has video of him and his dad doing a, see, this is how I do it. Here’s the how to,

[00:53:02] Gay Veale: oh, I’m sorry. Go ahead. Oh,

[00:53:04] Eric Herman: I’m just going to say I have something to add to inspections. So I know we didn’t touch on this at all, but in most areas don’t have termites, but in California, termites are a huge problem. And pretty much every house that you visit is going to have some dry rot or some termite damage.

[00:53:19] And with the VA loan, the home has to be free of termites. You have to get what’s called section one termite clearance to stop any current termites that are in the property at the moment and get rid of any dry rot on the. So in California, it’s not the case in every state, but in California, the VA buyer can actually pay for the termite inspection as well as section one termite clearance, as long as it’s correct me, if I’m wrong, less than the 1% rule for the VA.

[00:53:55] Josh Lewis: They can pay for it. But unlike other loans, they can’t waive it with a conventional loan. You just don’t ask for it. No one mentioned no one cares and we move on unless it’s so bad that the appraiser calls it out. So it is unique to the VA loan. And one of the things that you pointed out, I really only know California, but it does it various by the regional loan centers handle it differently of what they allow.

[00:54:17] Because the woods drawing pests are different, parts of the country and what’s, okay. And what’s not,

[00:54:22] Gay Veale: yeah. Some locations don’t require them at all. Some is if they just depends and then some are absolutely mandatory. It just depends on the area. And there’s a map for that too.

[00:54:34] So the VA does a pretty good job of pointing out. What, especially when there’s mandatory requirements or like they’re set fees or things like we talked about the appraisal timelines or the appraisal costs there’s also a map for the termite inspection requirements as well.

[00:54:50] Jason Turner: And the buyer. Sorry to interrupt. Yes, no, it’s

[00:54:54] Gay Veale: okay. No, absolutely.

[00:54:56] Jason Turner: I actually had another lender call me today because he was flabbergasted that he heard that and I’m like, yes, that is true. As long as the total lender fees, the only seed 1%, the buyer can pay for the termite, which is a huge misconception.

[00:55:08] I feel like in, at least in my local real estate market that people just don’t know. They’ve always assumed that the veteran can’t pay for it, but they can. It’s certainly something that.

[00:55:19] Gay Veale: One thing I was going to get away from the inspection real quick. Cause I know we’re running short on time.

[00:55:24] Jason talked about the two really common items that he sees come up on appraisals. Another thing that I see come up on appraisals is where the appraiser will note that erode may appear to be a private road and those require maintenance agreements in most cases. And I’ve had that happen several times in different areas of the United States where there’ll be a road and sometimes the appraiser can’t tell right.

[00:55:53] Hey, that looks like it might be a private road. I can’t determine from looking at a map. And so they may ask for a road maintenance agreement and those can be difficult to find sometimes, but just get your title company your title agents involved and have them dig deep.

[00:56:11] They may not find it on the first tribe, have them dig deep. I’ve had two different loans in the recent past that needed road maintenance agreements. And we couldn’t find them at first. And then in the 11th hour, they found something from like 1972.

[00:56:26] Jason Turner: So I actually had a friend of mine had to create one because there wasn’t one.

[00:56:30] So he had to get every, owner that lived on that road to sign the agreement, which was not an easy task, as you can probably imagine.

[00:56:41] Gay Veale: And just real quick I’m, a really big proponent of given the why behind that. Again, the VA is always looking to protect the veteran. And so the reason why they do that or require that is to ensure the veteran does not have disproportionate responsibility for maintaining a private road.

[00:57:00] Josh Lewis: So we’re trying, as we’re trying to wrap up, there’s actually a good question that came in here. Are there, let me know, just jumps out of my way. Are there certain inspections other than the termite that the VA loan requires? We started by saying the inspection is not required, although we all highly recommend that you do it.

[00:57:16] And there was a depending on where you are the, termite inspection in section one clearance is required. Are there any other types of inspections in, you guys, parts of the country that the VA requires

[00:57:28] Eric Herman: radon is required in some areas.

[00:57:32] Gay Veale: Yeah, water. Some water testing has to be done water

[00:57:35] Jason Turner: testing.

[00:57:35] If it’s not on city-based water. Yeah. Water quality tests to make sure it’s it meets EPA standards, the science free of Eco-Line bacteria, et cetera. Basically make sure you won’t get sick. That kind of thing. We see. On, on the country those parts. Yeah. So

[00:57:53] Josh Lewis: either, either by, in the city, on public utilities or know that there may be some additional things there.

[00:57:58] Cause again, as Gaye said, it’s just the VA wanting to make sure you’re not getting into a situation with additional expenses, headaches, hassles for you from, that end. So it looks like we’ve gone through most of the questions you guys have done a great job with this. Again, so now in, in three weeks of doing this, we’ve had eight different experts on two realtors and six lenders.

[00:58:19] We’ve covered a bunch of topics. And, probably the biggest thing is you guys see the numbers here, gaze of Eva for Jason VVA five, Eric VVA, for what that means everyone who moderates in this group and is answering your questions and approving posts has gone through. Extensive testing that, everyone is muttered under their breath and said bad things about, but it’s what it means is they’ve gone all the way through and demonstrated not just a knowledge of the guidelines, but an ability to research the tough ones when they get there.

[00:58:54] Now that gets you to the VVA three VVA four and VVA five. Additional time, energy, commitment involvement here in helping veterans. So you, get to see a video, a live demonstration of them sharing their knowledge, but this is who is moderating you guys post questions every day. When you put a question into the group, it goes through one of these moderators, make sure we’re understanding exactly what you’re asking and kicking off that conversation before the whole community steps in.

[00:59:22] So if you want to have live questions answered, we’ll have three experts here every Tuesday at five o’clock Pacific eight, o’clock Eastern. You can figure out the states in between there. So you can show up and answer your questions. We’re going to cover topics like this, and basically Nathan’s picking these topics from the group.

[00:59:41] What’s being talked about, what’s being asked about what are the common questions that you guys have in the buying and refinancing process and how do we answer that? Appreciate you tuning in, appreciate the three of you for showing up and sharing all of your knowledge and expertise. Any parting thoughts before we sign off?

[00:59:59] Jason Turner: Keep the face stay strong. This market is brutal for buyers. You have to be patient and think of it as a long-term process. If you’re trying to PCs soon and you have a date in mind, please give yourself a buffer to try to manage expectations during that time. So if you’re going to PCs in three months or six months, don’t be afraid to start extra early, to get a feel for the market for where you’re moving to and especially get with a real estate agent who knows that market really well.

[01:00:28] So they can help guide you and explain like what exactly is going on because not everybody is in this group and they see all the stories and everything, but just please keep the faith, stay strong and be diligent. If you’re interested in buying a house and please take every tip that we can give you.

[01:00:45] That’s the best advice.

[01:00:47] Eric Herman: Yeah, it was a hundred percent correct there. Make sure that your, realtor and your lender do fully understand the VA loan. And we’re not saying you have to choose somebody over here, a better VA, right? We’re not forcing anybody to choose us, but if you do choose a realtor, make sure you vet them and make sure that they do actually understand the type of loan product that you want to use so that you’re not going into this and twiddling your thumbs, trying to ask us all the questions and failing because your realtor or your lender doesn’t understand that.

[01:01:19] Gay Veale: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was going to say, Eric and just to add on to that make sure that your realtor and your loan officer not only are well-versed in the VA product, but can also explain it to someone else. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve called the listing agent to educate them on something about the VA loan that either they were mistaken on or did just didn’t know.

[01:01:45] And, I’m not trying to say anything bad about it. It’s a unique product. It can be perceived as very complicated. And if you’re not experienced in that there’s, just folks out there that, that don’t know it don’t understand it, but make sure that you’re not only your realtor and your, or your agent and your role and officer understand the product themselves, but have a good enough understanding that they can explain it to others as well.

[01:02:12] Jason Turner: Yeah. A good team is absolutely critical in this market.

[01:02:16] Josh Lewis: Yeah, both, both well-versed realtor and lender in the VA program. If anyone’s trying to talk you out of using your VA benefit, it might be a good idea to at least get a second opinion or find someone else to at least bounce that off of before.

[01:02:31] As Eric said, the vetted pros are not the only people, especially San Diego. We have a lot of loan officers that are not here in this group. Realtors are not in this group, every area where there’s a lot of veterans, there are people that are well-versed in it, but there are also a lot of people that aren’t.

[01:02:46] So hopefully you found someone, if you haven’t we have a group of pros here that would love to help you answer your questions, go out to the map, check out a pro in your area, otherwise show up in the group and we’re going to answer your questions, get you what you need to know. So thanks for joining us.

[01:03:00] Hopefully we’ll see you again next Tuesday.

[01:03:03] Eric Herman: Thanks everyone. Thank you everyone. Appreciate you, Jason and gay.