If you’ve served this country and you’re now looking to put down roots in Richmond, I want to be direct with you: the VA home loan benefit is one of the most powerful financial tools you’ve earned, and too many eligible veterans, service members, and surviving spouses in neighborhoods like Chesterfield, Church Hill, and Henrico never use it. Not because they don’t qualify, but because the eligibility rules sound more complicated than they actually are.
The Richmond metro area has a deep and proud connection to military service. Fort Gregg-Adams, just south of the city, anchors a significant active-duty and veteran population that stretches across Chesterfield County, Henrico, and into the city itself. I work with these buyers every week, and the most common thing I hear is some version of: “I wasn’t sure I qualified.” That hesitation costs people real money.
Here’s the honest truth: VA loan eligibility is more accessible than most people assume. The service-length thresholds are clearly defined, there’s no expiration date on the benefit once you’ve earned it, and the financial advantages — no down payment, no private mortgage insurance, competitive rates — make it one of the most compelling loan programs available in today’s Richmond market. And if you want to know where you stand right now, a no credit hit mortgage application through Richmond Mortgages can give you a preliminary picture of your VA eligibility in minutes, without touching your credit report.
This guide breaks down every piece of the eligibility puzzle in plain language, anchored to real Richmond neighborhoods and real numbers. Let’s get into it.
By Duane Buziak, NMLS #1110647 | Coast2Coast Mortgage LLC NMLS #376205 | Richmond Mortgages
Who the VA Actually Says Can Use This Benefit
The VA defines four qualifying categories for home loan eligibility, and understanding which one applies to you is the first step. Let’s walk through each one in plain language.
Active-Duty Service Members: If you’re currently serving, you generally need 90 consecutive days of active duty during wartime or 181 continuous days during peacetime. That’s it. You don’t need to have completed a full enlistment to qualify. According to the VA’s official eligibility page, the specific threshold depends on when you served and under what conditions.
Veterans: The same wartime and peacetime thresholds apply, along with an honorable discharge requirement. If you were discharged for a service-connected disability, you may still qualify even if you didn’t meet the full service-length requirement. This is an important carve-out that many veterans don’t know about.
National Guard and Reserve Members: This is the category with the most confusion, and understandably so. The rules updated significantly after August 1990. Under post-9/11 guidelines, Guard and Reserve members who completed 6 years of service, were honorably discharged, or who served 90 days of active duty under Title 32 orders (including COVID-19 activation) may qualify. If you’ve been activated and served in a federal status, there’s a good chance you’re eligible. The full breakdown is at VA.gov.
Surviving Spouses: This is the most underserved segment I encounter in Richmond, and I want to address it directly. If your spouse died in service or from a service-connected disability, you may be eligible to use the VA home loan benefit. Surviving spouses of service members who are missing in action or prisoners of war may also qualify. You do not need to remarry to lose eligibility in most cases — though remarrying before age 57 can affect it. If you’re a widow or widower in the Richmond area who has never explored this option, please reach out. This benefit was designed to support you.
Once you’ve confirmed your category, the next step is obtaining your Certificate of Eligibility (COE). This is the document that proves to a lender that you meet the VA’s service requirements. You can get it three ways: through the VA’s eBenefits portal at VA.gov, through your broker (we can often pull it directly through the VA’s automated system in minutes), or by mailing in your DD-214 with VA Form 26-1880.
Here’s why this matters practically for Richmond buyers: if you’re making an offer on a Church Hill rowhouse or a Fan District Victorian in a competitive multiple-offer situation, having your COE in hand before you start house-hunting signals to sellers and their agents that your VA financing is buttoned up. It’s the difference between a competitive offer and one that gets passed over because the listing agent has heard “VA loans take forever” one too many times. Getting your COE early, ideally before you’ve even picked a neighborhood, puts you in a much stronger position.
Credit Score, DTI, and the 500 FICO Floor That Changes Everything
Here’s something that surprises almost every veteran I talk to: the VA itself does not set a minimum credit score requirement. That’s not a typo. The Department of Veterans Affairs does not mandate a floor FICO score for its loan program. What you’re bumping into when a lender tells you that you need a 620 or 640 is a lender overlay — that lender’s internal risk policy, not a VA rule.
This distinction matters enormously. Most large online lenders and many retail banks layer on overlays that effectively shut out veterans with credit scores in the 500s, even though those veterans are fully eligible under VA guidelines. At Richmond Mortgages, we broker VA loans down to 500 FICO through Coast2Coast Mortgage LLC. If your credit has taken hits from a medical event, a period of unemployment, or the kind of financial turbulence that military life can sometimes bring, you may still have a path to homeownership through the VA program that another lender would have closed off.
This is also a key differentiator from CapCenter, which operates as a direct single-lender shop. Because CapCenter is captive to its own guidelines, it cannot offer the same credit flexibility that comes from a broker who shops across hundreds of lenders to find the right fit for your specific file.
Now let’s talk about debt-to-income ratio, because the VA’s approach here is also more nuanced than most people realize. The VA uses a residual income test as its primary qualification measure, not just a raw DTI percentage. Residual income is the money left over each month after you’ve paid all major monthly obligations — housing, car payments, student loans, credit cards — and estimated living expenses. The VA sets minimum residual income thresholds by family size and geographic region, and Virginia falls under the South region table, per the VA Lender Handbook.
To make this concrete: imagine a veteran household in Henrico County with two adults and two children. If their gross monthly income is $7,500 and their proposed housing payment plus existing debts total $4,200, their DTI is 56%, which would disqualify them from most conventional loan programs. But if their after-tax take-home pay is $5,800 and their total monthly obligations (including the new mortgage) leave $1,400 in residual income, they may still clear the VA’s residual income threshold for a family of four in the South region. This is why veterans who’ve been turned down elsewhere sometimes find that the VA program is the one that actually works for their financial picture.
For buyers who want to understand their position before talking to a lender, Richmond Mortgages offers a soft pull mortgage prequalification using Vantage Score 4.0. This is what we call the NoTouch Credit Pull: you get a real picture of where your credit stands and a preliminary read on your VA eligibility without a hard inquiry hitting your report. No credit score impact, no commitment, just clarity. You can learn more at richmondmortgages.com/vantage-score-mortgage-richmond/. This is a mortgage pre approval without hard pull — and for buyers who are still building their credit or shopping around, it’s a genuinely useful starting point.
The Worked Dollar Example: Buying in Midlothian on a VA Loan
Let’s put real numbers to this. Say you’re a veteran purchasing a home in Midlothian, Chesterfield County, at a purchase price of $385,000. This is consistent with current price bands in that market, based on Virginia REALTORS research data at virginiarealtors.org/research. Here’s what your VA loan structure looks like at first use.
Down Payment: $0. VA loans require no down payment for eligible borrowers with full entitlement. You keep that cash in your pocket.
VA Funding Fee (First Use, 0% Down): The VA charges a funding fee to sustain the program. For a first-time VA loan user putting 0% down, the current fee is 2.15% of the loan amount, per the VA’s funding fee schedule. On a $385,000 loan, that’s $8,278. Critically, this fee can be financed directly into the loan — you don’t need to bring it to closing in cash. Your financed loan amount becomes approximately $393,278.
Private Mortgage Insurance (PMI): $0. VA loans do not require PMI, regardless of your down payment or loan-to-value ratio. This is one of the program’s most significant financial advantages.
Estimated Monthly Payment: At a representative rate in the current range for a 30-year VA loan, a $393,278 loan produces a principal and interest payment in the range of $2,500 to $2,700 per month (rate-dependent). Add Chesterfield County property taxes and homeowner’s insurance for a full PITI picture. Your broker can give you a precise payment once rates are locked.
Now compare that to the same $385,000 purchase with a conventional loan at 5% down:
Down Payment: $19,250 cash required at closing.
PMI: Because you’re below 20% equity, you’ll pay private mortgage insurance. PMI on a conventional loan typically runs between 0.5% and 1.5% of the loan amount annually. On a $365,750 loan balance, that’s roughly $152 to $457 per month added to your payment — until you reach 20% equity.
Total Cash to Close (Conventional): $19,250 down payment plus closing costs, versus $0 down on the VA loan with closing costs only (and ask about our no-out-of-pocket closing options).
The math is clear: for an eligible veteran, the VA loan typically wins on both upfront cash and monthly payment. The funding fee is real, but it’s financed, and it’s offset quickly by the absence of PMI.
One more point worth clarifying: the 2026 conforming loan limit for Chesterfield and Henrico counties is set by the FHFA. Writers and buyers should verify the current figure at fhfa.gov before publishing or applying. VA loans above the conforming limit — sometimes called jumbo VA loans — are still available with partial entitlement, meaning you don’t lose access to the VA program just because you’re buying above that threshold. This is a common misconception that causes eligible buyers to unnecessarily look at conventional jumbo products instead.
Also worth noting: if you have a service-connected disability rating of 10% or higher, the VA funding fee is waived entirely. On a $385,000 purchase, that’s $8,278 you never pay. If you have a disability rating and haven’t confirmed your waiver status, that conversation should happen before your loan closes.
Property Rules, Occupancy Standards, and What the VA Will Finance
The VA loan program has specific requirements about the properties it will finance, and understanding these upfront saves a lot of frustration — especially in Richmond’s older housing stock.
The VA requires all financed properties to meet its Minimum Property Requirements (MPRs): the home must be safe, structurally sound, and sanitary. The full framework is outlined in the VA Lender Handbook, Chapter 12. In practical terms, this means the VA appraiser will flag issues like failing roofs, exposed wiring, evidence of active water intrusion, missing handrails on stairs, and similar conditions that affect habitability. These aren’t cosmetic concerns — they’re health and safety items.
This has real implications for buyers eyeing Church Hill rowhouses or Fan District Victorians, where the housing stock is beautiful but often comes with deferred maintenance. A peeling paint condition on a pre-1978 home triggers lead paint protocols. A roof with visibly failing shingles will require repair or replacement before the VA will approve the loan. This doesn’t mean you can’t buy an older home with a VA loan — many buyers do, successfully. It means you need to go in with eyes open, work with a knowledgeable broker who understands the appraisal process, and budget for the possibility that repairs may be required before closing.
On occupancy: VA loans are for primary residences only. The veteran must intend to occupy the property as their primary home within a reasonable time after closing, which the VA typically defines as 60 days. This is a firm requirement. If you’re a Richmond real estate investor looking to purchase a rental property or a short-term rental, the VA loan is not the right tool for that transaction. In those cases, a DSCR loan (debt-service coverage ratio loan, which qualifies based on the property’s rental income rather than your personal income) or a conventional investment property loan is the appropriate product. Richmond Mortgages offers both — another advantage of working with a broker who isn’t limited to a single product shelf.
A critical education point for buyers in fast-moving Richmond submarkets like Henrico and Chesterfield: the VA appraisal and a home inspection are not the same thing, and they are not interchangeable. The VA appraisal is a lender requirement that establishes the property’s value and confirms it meets MPRs. A home inspection is a buyer’s due diligence tool that examines the property’s systems and components in detail. In competitive offer situations, some buyers consider waiving the home inspection to make their offer more attractive. Even if you waive the inspection, the VA appraisal still happens — and it will still flag MPR issues. Waiving your inspection doesn’t eliminate the VA’s property review; it just means you lose the detailed report that would have told you about the HVAC system’s age or the state of the plumbing. In Richmond’s market, I strongly encourage VA buyers to keep their inspection contingency when possible.
RichmondMortgages.com vs. CapCenter: VA Loan Side-by-Side
One of the most common comparisons I hear from Richmond buyers is Richmond Mortgages versus CapCenter. CapCenter is a well-known local name, and their no-out-of-pocket closing cost model gets attention. Here’s a factual, side-by-side look at what each option actually offers.
Comparison: Richmond Mortgages vs. CapCenter
Minimum Credit Score: Richmond Mortgages — 500 FICO (VA loans) | CapCenter — Verify current requirements at capcenter.com; publicly operates as a direct lender with standard overlays
Down Payment (VA): Richmond Mortgages — $0 required | CapCenter — $0 required (VA eligible)
PMI Required: Richmond Mortgages — No (VA loans) | CapCenter — No (VA loans)
VA Loan Availability: Richmond Mortgages — Yes | CapCenter — Yes
DSCR / Non-QM Loans: Richmond Mortgages — Yes | CapCenter — Not publicly offered
Bank Statement HELOC: Richmond Mortgages — Yes | CapCenter — Not publicly offered
VA Funding Fee Financing: Richmond Mortgages — Yes | CapCenter — Yes (standard VA)
Soft-Pull Prequalification (NoTouch): Richmond Mortgages — Yes, Vantage Score 4.0 | CapCenter — Not publicly offered
Lender Model: Richmond Mortgages — Independent broker, shops hundreds of lenders | CapCenter — Direct single lender
Local Neighborhood Expertise: Richmond Mortgages — Church Hill, The Fan, Chesterfield, Henrico, Midlothian | CapCenter — Richmond area
Closing Timeline: Richmond Mortgages — Among the fastest in the market | CapCenter — Standard timeline
On the closing cost question: CapCenter’s model rolls closing costs into the loan rate rather than charging them upfront. This can make sense for some buyers. But “no closing costs” doesn’t mean free — it typically means a slightly higher interest rate over the life of the loan. A broker who shops hundreds of lenders can often find a lower total-cost structure, even when closing costs are included in the picture. The right answer depends on how long you plan to stay in the home, your rate sensitivity, and your cash position at closing. We can model both scenarios for you with no obligation and no credit impact.
The broker independence point is worth emphasizing: because Richmond Mortgages is not captive to a single lender’s guidelines, we can access VA programs down to 500 FICO, Non-QM products for self-employed buyers, DSCR loans for investors, and Bank Statement HELOCs — products that a single-lender shop simply cannot offer. That flexibility is especially valuable for Richmond’s diverse buyer population.
8 Questions Richmond Veterans Actually Ask About VA Loan Eligibility
Q1: Can I use my VA home loan benefit more than once?
Yes. VA loan eligibility does not expire and can be reused. Once you’ve paid off a prior VA loan or sold the home and restored your entitlement, full eligibility returns. You can also use remaining entitlement to purchase a second property in some circumstances. See VA.gov eligibility for full entitlement restoration details.
Q2: Does VA loan eligibility expire?
No. Once you’ve earned VA eligibility through qualifying service, it does not expire. There is no deadline by which you must use it. A veteran who served decades ago and never used the benefit can still apply today. Source: VA.gov.
Q3: Can I use a VA loan to buy a duplex in Richmond?
Yes, with conditions. VA loans can finance multi-unit properties (up to four units) if the veteran occupies one unit as their primary residence. Buying a duplex in Richmond and renting the second unit while living in the first is a VA-eligible strategy. The property must still meet VA MPRs and the occupancy requirement.
Q4: What happens to my VA entitlement if I still have a prior VA loan?
You may have remaining or partial entitlement available. If your prior VA loan balance is below the conforming loan limit, remaining entitlement may cover a second purchase. A broker can pull your COE and calculate your available entitlement in minutes. This is a situation where working with a knowledgeable local broker matters — the math is straightforward once you have the right data.
Q5: Does the VA loan work in Chesterfield County rural areas?
Yes. VA loans have no geographic restriction within the United States. Properties in rural Chesterfield County are eligible as long as they meet VA MPRs, have adequate access, and meet the occupancy requirement. There is no rural exclusion in the VA program, unlike some USDA programs.
Q6: Can a surviving spouse use the VA benefit to refinance?
Yes, in many cases. An eligible surviving spouse who purchased with a VA loan may be able to use the VA Interest Rate Reduction Refinance Loan (IRRRL) to refinance that existing VA loan. Eligibility rules apply — consult VA.gov’s IRRRL page and speak with a broker who can confirm your specific COE status.
Q7: What is the VA funding fee and can it be waived?
The VA funding fee is a one-time charge (2.15% for first use at 0% down as of the current VA schedule — verify at VA.gov) that helps sustain the program. It can be financed into the loan. It is waived entirely for veterans with a service-connected disability rating of 10% or higher, surviving spouses of veterans who died in service or from a service-connected disability, and certain other categories. Confirm your disability rating status before closing.
Q8: How do I start a mortgage pre approval without hard pull through Richmond Mortgages?
Simple: contact Richmond Mortgages and ask about the NoTouch Credit Pull. Using Vantage Score 4.0, we can assess your credit standing and give you a preliminary VA eligibility picture without triggering a hard inquiry on your credit report. This soft pull mortgage broker approach means no credit score impact while you’re exploring your options. Call 804-212-8663 or visit richmondmortgages.com to get started.
Your VA Benefit Was Earned — Use It Well
Whether you’re eyeing a Church Hill rowhouse with original hardwood floors, a Midlothian new build in Chesterfield County, or a Fan District Victorian with a front porch worth sitting on, your VA benefit was designed for exactly this moment. It doesn’t expire. It requires no down payment. It doesn’t charge you PMI. And through Richmond Mortgages, it’s accessible down to a 500 FICO score — a floor that most retail lenders won’t touch.
The confusion around VA loan eligibility costs eligible buyers real money every year. My goal with this guide is to clear that confusion and give you a straight path forward. If you’ve served, or if you’re the surviving spouse of someone who did, this benefit belongs to you. Let’s make sure you use it.
Get your personalized rate comparison today with no credit impact, and see exactly where you stand on VA eligibility in minutes. Or call me directly at 804-212-8663. I’m Duane Buziak, and I work with Richmond veterans, active-duty buyers, and surviving spouses across Church Hill, The Fan, Chesterfield, Henrico, and Midlothian every day.
We offer the fastest close times in the market, broker independence across hundreds of lenders, and a genuine commitment to finding the right loan for your specific situation — not the one that’s easiest for us to process.
Legal Disclaimer: This content is provided for informational purposes only and does not constitute a commitment to lend or a guarantee of loan approval. All loan products are subject to credit qualification, income verification, property appraisal, and lender approval. VA loan eligibility is determined by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Rates and terms are subject to change without notice. Richmond Mortgages is a registered trade name of Coast2Coast Mortgage LLC, NMLS #376205. Duane Buziak, NMLS #1110647. Licensed to conduct mortgage business in Virginia. This is not a government website and is not affiliated with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. For official VA loan information, visit va.gov.
About the Author: Duane Buziak, NMLS #1110647, is a mortgage broker with Coast2Coast Mortgage LLC (NMLS #376205) serving the Richmond, Virginia metro area from Church Hill to Chesterfield. Recognized as Best Mortgage Broker in Virginia 2025 and a Scotsman Guide Top Producer, Duane specializes in VA loans, Non-QM products, DSCR financing, and helping Richmond-area buyers navigate the mortgage process with clarity and speed. Reach him at 804-212-8663 or at richmondmortgages.com.