Now that it's a given I'll be in Jax for at least four years, I'm looking at buying my first house. I've plumbed the threads on here for info on the VA loan from either NFCU or USAA, and am now more confused than when I started. Since a lot of them were either locked or written in an entirely different housing climate, I thought I'd make a new one to see what people's experiences have been with getting a mortgage, especially those in the past seven years.
Half the posts I found were talking about ARM's, and even a few on balloon payments. Nowadays, unless you're trying to flip the house or otherwise sell it within a few years of buying it, I can't imagine why you'd take an ARM over a fixed-rate mortgage. Rates are still very low for the time being, so I'm looking at a 15-year fixed. The APR (which is the "apples-to-apples" number for comparing loans) looks like this.
NFCU: 3.224%
USAA: 3.556%
But on top of that, USAA offers something called MoversAdvantage, which includes among other things a reward for buying (or selling) a home. I'm looking at the 200-250k range, so this reward would be $950. If anyone here has used the MoversAdvantage program, I'd be very interested to here your experiences with that.
I found a lot of mixed reviews on mortgages from NFCU and from USAA. The online reviews for the MoversAdvantage are very high, but I have to imagine that having physical locations makes this process a lot easier, and NFCU has a branch right outside the gate. So anyone with some sea stories on getting a mortgage from either company, especially recently, would be greatly appreciated.
Half the posts I found were talking about ARM's, and even a few on balloon payments. Nowadays, unless you're trying to flip the house or otherwise sell it within a few years of buying it, I can't imagine why you'd take an ARM over a fixed-rate mortgage. Rates are still very low for the time being, so I'm looking at a 15-year fixed. The APR (which is the "apples-to-apples" number for comparing loans) looks like this.
NFCU: 3.224%
USAA: 3.556%
But on top of that, USAA offers something called MoversAdvantage, which includes among other things a reward for buying (or selling) a home. I'm looking at the 200-250k range, so this reward would be $950. If anyone here has used the MoversAdvantage program, I'd be very interested to here your experiences with that.
I found a lot of mixed reviews on mortgages from NFCU and from USAA. The online reviews for the MoversAdvantage are very high, but I have to imagine that having physical locations makes this process a lot easier, and NFCU has a branch right outside the gate. So anyone with some sea stories on getting a mortgage from either company, especially recently, would be greatly appreciated.