With interest rates high, housing inventory low and Veterans Day just around the corner, Cheddar News took a look at how the current market is impacting those who served and continue to serve our country. Patton Gade, national director of military lending with UMortgage, explains how a VA loan works, its benefits and what's involved in the process of purchasing a home.

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<div class="block">With interest rates high, housing inventory low and Veterans Day just around the corner, Cheddar News took a look at how the current market is impacting those who served and continue to serve our country. Patton Gade, national director of military lending with UMortgage, explains how a VA loan works, its benefits and what&#39;s involved in the process of purchasing a home.</div>

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What You Need to Know About VA Loans

Our next segment is brought to you by you. Mortgage, one of the fastest growing mortgage companies in the country. Well, with interest rates, high housing inventory, low and Veterans Day just around the corner, we have a va loan expert Pat G with me to learn how the current market is impacting veterans, active military members and their families. Pat and welcome to the show. Thanks Kristen. What I tell you to be here, we're so happy to have you a timely and informative segment. So let's get started by just getting a sense of why mortgage rates are so high. Well, over the last couple of years, we know that Congress has spent an enormous amount of money that's led to high inflation. So prices are up, wages are up, home, prices are up and inventory is low. And so the fed has to get control of that inflation. And so therefore they're raising interest rates in order to kind of slow down the economy a little bit and get things back on track where it's going to be a reasonable amount of inflation. When is it a safe time to buy? Actually now is a great time. To buy because inventory is a little bit low. But the high interest rates are keeping people on the sideline. And so right now, you're facing a lot less competition. A couple of years ago, every single house, there would be 68, 1012, 15 offers on a house and it was driving house prices up right now. You don't have that problem. You're maybe one of the only people shopping for a house. So now is a great time to buy for a consumer and interest rates will fall when, who knows? But when they do fall, you'll be able to refinance and when rates fall and competition goes up, house prices are probably going to go up as well. So now is maybe a good time to get in. Ok. Very good to know what exactly is a VA loan and how does it work? So a va loan is very simply is the va is giving insurance to the bank and that's all it is, is 25% insurance on your loan amount. So for instance, if you were to buy a $400,000 house, the va is going to guarantee the 1st 100,000 of that house to the bank. So in other words, if you were to foreclose on your house as a veteran, the bank doesn't, isn't holding the bag for the whole thing. The va is actually going to come out of pocket for some of that money So it makes that loan a very safe or much safer loan for the bank to give. And that's, that's one of the reasons why it's so attractive and has such good terms. What would you say are the three main advantages of a va loan? Number one, there's no down payment for a service member. If, if this is their first house, you can literally go buy it with no down payment. You will have some closing costs. But the no down payment thing is big. It's a little bit more lenient when it comes to certain, uh, certain credit issues or things that may have happened to you in the past. So it's a little bit more lenient. And then the third thing I would say is that rates and fees are generally a little bit lower than a standard mortgage. Interesting how have va loans impacted veteran families? Well, I tell you what the va loan I've seen, you know, young families that maybe had gone through a foreclosure or gone through some credit issues. I mean, the economy is tough on some people right now, but I recently had one where the family had gone through a foreclosure a few years ago and they don't qualify for any other type of mortgage. But because the va has those expanded guidelines, it actually, they were actually able to get into a house right away. The other thing is is that I see a lot of young people you know, 21 22 23 olds who are able to get into a house with a va loan because they serve their country. And that's a great way to get to the American dream is home ownership and it's amazing to be able to use the va loan to do that. I know you recently moved your business to you mortgage. Why did you make the move from Loan Depot? You know what? So you mortgage has a, has a fantastic group of amazing originators all across the country and they're, they're in their communities, they're serving their communities and um just being a part of the, just the positive atmosphere. Um I'll tell you that that overall, we have a very flat structure, very flat for costs and, and you know, not a ton of management overhead and things like that. So we pass those savings down to the customer and in times when rates are high, that's really important. All right, Pat Gae. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate you. I really enjoyed this segment. Well, if you serve or have served our country or are just looking to buy a home Patton and his team can make your home buying process easier, cheaper and faster to find out more. Visit you mortgage dot com.