Will using a different type of loan effect my VA loan?

Question

I've always thought that I can use the VA loan and also use a different type of loan such as conventional for my rental properties that I'm not going to be living in because I already used a VA loan for my current primary property that I'm house hacking but I want more. A friend of mine told me that once I use a different type of loan, I won't be able to use the VA loan anymore, pretty much lose my benefits.

My question is that has anyone experienced or have knowledge about using the VA loan and then using a different type of loan but still be eligible to use the VA loan or would the other loan make me forfeit the VA benefits for getting a VA loan?

My question is that has anyone experienced or have knowledge about using the VA loan and then using a different type of loan but still be eligible to use the VA loan or would the other loan make me forfeit the VA benefits for getting a VA loan?

Chris Mason · Answer

That's not true. There's more to your friends story.

Back in 2010, Joe's knees started to hurt one day.

Joe went to doctor. Turns out Joe has brain cancer that caused his neurons to misfire, registering as knee pain. Joe gets cured, good for Joe.

10 years pass, it's 2020, Joe is now a colleague of yours at work.

You tell Joe that your knee hurts.

Joe, who knows virtually nothing about medicine except his own experience (which is real and lived, I'm not diminishing his experience), responds with: "Oh, man, that knee pain is probably from brain cancer, you should get that checked out, I'm telling you man, it happened to me." And now (if were something less obvious & silly than this clearly semi-joking example) you might be flipping out that you have brain cancer, when in reality you just tweaked your knee getting out of bed, and it'll sort itself out in a day or two provided you don't go running any marathons or do squats at the gym.

That's what happens with mortgages all the time. You don't always need 2 years on the job, rental income doesn't always need to be on 2 years of tax returns, you can use borrowed money for down payments if it's structured right, you can get a rate below 4% if your FICO is under 700, I could go on and on, the devil is in the details, not in the bullet point from Joe about how brain cancer is the sole source of knee pain in the United States (it was for Joe, it may, or may not be, for you).