For veterans and military families

I served in the Navy and I have used a VA loan myself. I know what a Certificate of Eligibility is because I pulled mine. So when we talk about this, I am not reading a benefit off a chart.

What the VA loan actually gives you

The VA does not lend you the money. A private lender does, and the VA guarantees part of it so the lender can offer terms nothing else matches.

• Zero down with full entitlement. On a $275,000 Riverdale home, a conventional buyer might bring $55,000 to the table and an FHA buyer around $9,625. You can bring nothing toward the down payment. You still owe closing costs and you still want cash in reserve, but that line reads zero.
• No mortgage insurance. Not lower, none. On most low-down loans, mortgage insurance is a monthly charge that protects the lender and buys you nothing. The VA loan has none at all, which is real money back in your payment every month for the life of the loan.
• One funding fee, paid once. Between 1.25 and 3.3 percent of the loan depending on your down payment and whether you have used the benefit before. On a $275,000 loan at 2.15 percent that is roughly $5,900, and most buyers roll it into the loan rather than pay it at closing.

And the line that matters most around here: a VA disability rating of 10 percent or higher waives that funding fee entirely. If there is a rating in your household, ask about the waiver by name, because nobody volunteers it.

The stacking trap most veterans never hear about

Georgia has a program called Peach Select VA that cuts your rate by roughly a quarter to a half point. On a $250,000 loan, a quarter point is about $13,000 of interest across the life of the loan. Worth having.

Here is the catch. Peach Select cannot stack with the Georgia Dream second mortgage. You pick one: the standard VA rate plus Georgia Dream money in your hand at closing, or the reduced Peach Select rate and no state second. Cash now against cost later, and the right answer depends entirely on how long you plan to stay.

Peach Select does still pair with the Clayton County veteran tier, which runs up to $10,000 forgiven over ten years. That combination is the one most people miss.

If your orders say Fort Gillem

Fort Gillem closed as a full installation in 2011 under BRAC. What remains, and what your orders actually mean, is the Gillem Enclave: roughly 250 to 259 acres retained by the Army out of the original 1,427-acre footprint, administered as a satellite of Fort Eisenhower. It is a real installation. It is just not the full base some older relocation guides still describe.

Active there today: Atlanta MEPS, the Army CID Crime Lab (the Defense Forensic Science Center, the primary DoD crime lab), 3rd Medical Command with its subordinate units, and the 221st Military Intelligence Battalion of the Georgia Army National Guard, among others.

Practically, that means Forest Park and Riverdale put you minutes from the gate, and Hartsfield-Jackson is about five miles out. If you are PCSing in on a compressed timeline, that geography is the whole ballgame, and it is worth mapping before you start looking at houses.

The exemption almost nobody files

If you are rated 100 percent permanent and total, 100 percent by individual unemployability, or hold a qualifying statutory loss-of-use award, Georgia's disabled veteran homestead exemption takes up to $121,812 off your assessed value every year. On a typical Riverdale home that can cut the county bill from around $2,700 a year to close to nothing. That $121,812 is the ceiling for tax year 2025 and it is indexed annually, so check the current figure before you file.

File with the Clayton County Tax Commissioner by April 1, and bring your rating letter, your DD-214, the deed and proof of residence. A surviving spouse keeps it as long as they have not remarried.

One warning specific to Clayton

The VA appraisal is not a home inspection. It protects the lender's position, not your roof. There is a lot of flipped inventory moving through this county, and on a flipped house the cheapest way to lose money is finding the wiring or the HVAC after you already own it. Never skip a licensed inspector. I will not let you.

Read further

• The VA home loan in Georgia — entitlement, the COE, and how it stacks.
• Peach Select VA — the reduced rate, and the choice it forces.
• VA versus FHA on Clayton numbers — including where FHA still wins.
• The funding fee, explained — what you pay and when you do not.
• PCS to Fort Gillem — the full relocation guide.
• The disabled veteran exemption — who qualifies and how to file.

Not sure which of these apply to you? The two-minute program matcher asks about service, rating and household and gives you the shortlist on screen.

I am a REALTOR with Epique Realty, not a lender. Your lender confirms entitlement, rate and funding fee against your actual file. What I bring is the local half, and the fact that I have sat on your side of this table.