FAQ

A military service man or woman who would like to be a homebuyer need only qualify for a mortgage loan. Unlike most gifts, ours is a true gift that never needs to be repaid by you, the builder, or the seller. Also there is no administrative fee whatsoever charged for using our gift program. You will work with our approved Realtors©and mortgage lenders that are trained to help you in either of our programs.

It’s really that simple!

No, your gift does not come from the builder or seller. Your gift is donated by patriotic companies and individuals that want to show their appreciation to our military.

Yes. The maximum amount of the purchase price for a home is the price level set by Veteran’s Administration (VA) for the area in which you are purchasing a home.

Eventually Yes. Now- Maybe. All the various programs have waiting periods after any of these major setbacks. They can vary from one year to four years or even more. Here’s a breakdown of all the various loan types and how they address these situations. Regardless of the situation though, it is important that you start to rebuild credit after a major incident. A good start is with secured credit cards. Make sure that the one you are looking at has low fees and reports to all three credit bureaus. Keep your balance below 30% of the limit to maximize your FICO score

They certainly do! In fact, even better, because they are non-taxable income, many lenders will “gross up” your BAH and BAS (count it at a higher taxable equivalent), which increases your buying power. Other line items on your LES are considered on a case-by-case basis; both on the pay side, and the allotment side.

For active duty military, BAH and BAS certainly are considered part of your income; even better actually, as explained above. However, once you separate, and are receiving BAH as part of your GI Bill benefits, lenders consider that to be a temporary education benefit and therefore will not count it as income. It will however help a loan application that is “on the bubble” by virtue of being a positive compensating factor.

In most cases, but not all, your out of pocket costs are usually limited to the earnest money that you pay when you submit your offer to purchase real estate and your inspection fees for that property. Our plan is to keep your out of pocket expenses to a minimum. Our agent will negotiate concessions from the seller to help pay a portion of your closing costs and the grant from MHAF will help take care of the rest. Our gift program helps you with all of the other closing costs associated with purchasing your dream home, and ours is a true gift that never needs to be repaid.

Should the transaction not close for any reason, which would be very unusual; all gift funds must be returned to MHAF for use by other military home buyers.