VA Loan Updates

1) Fixed-rate mortgage
Fixed-rate mortgage are those with interest rates that remain the same until the life of the loan ends. For consumers who are looking for a stable rate that will not experience interest rate fluctuations, this home mortgage financing is a great deal.A favorite among first time homebuyers and retirees, it can help in organizing and budgeting finances while protecting consumers from increase of interest rates. This kind of financing for home mortgage is best for consumers who plan to stay in their homes for more than 5 to 7 years.

2) Adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM)
Adjustable-rate mortgage, or simply ARM, is a kind of financing for home mortgage wherein the borrower and lender agrees on a certain interest rate that will periodically change. Interest rates will rise or fall, usually with regards to a specific index.

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WASHINGTON - Most military men and women apply for education benefits that provide tuition assistance, but they generally only use about half the money the military allots them. That’s just less money the military has to pay out.

However, an idea for an alternative way to spend some of that cash on education has been floating around Capitol Hill for nearly a decade. And President Bush might have given it new life Monday night in his State of the Union address.

“Our military families also sacrifice for America,” Bush said. “They endure sleepless nights and the daily struggle of providing for children while a loved one is serving far from home. So I ask you to join me in … allowing our troops to transfer their unused education benefits to their spouses or children.”

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For college students looking for a Democratic presidential candidate who would significantly lighten their tuition bills, there’s good and bad news. The good news: one exists. The bad news: he dropped out of the race.

John Edwards, the populist former senator, peppered his early campaign with policy proposals to help students deal with the ballooning cost of higher education. These weren’t everyday abstract commitments to “America’s future” or “our children.” His most dramatic idea was to pay the first year of tuition, fees and books at a public college - all of it - for 2 million students who work part-time and fulfill several other requirements.

But there’s more good news. Edwards may have been steamrolled in the early primaries, but his ideas weren’t. He pushed rivals Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton to the left, and they now share his zeal for making college accessible for everyone.

So is Clinton or Obama better for students? That’s not a simple question.

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After serving in the Navy in World War II, Marylander Charles Schelberg was able to attend Washington College in Chestertown, Md., thanks to the GI Bill. It covered all his costs.

Schelberg, who hailed from a working-class family of Chesapeake Bay watermen, was the first in his family to attend college and earned an economics degree that led to a successful career in community banking.

There were millions of Charles Schelbergs after World War II, and the individual success of each one fed the cumulative success of a nation that shrugged off the economic malaise of the Great Depression and stoked the economic engines of the world’s most vibrant economy.

When today’s military veterans return home from their nightmarish tours of combat duty in Iraq and Afghanistan, many nurture dreams of earning a college degree, just as many of their grandparents did after serving in World War II.

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INTERVIEW. In his office, Paul Rieckhoff has a photo of his old Army platoon from just days before it was deployed to Iraq in the spring of 2003.

“My unit is probably a good test case,” said Rieckhoff, who now runs the advocacy organization Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. He was the platoon’s commander. “Thankfully all 38 came home alive. A couple of them are back over there.”

He singled out the determined faces. “This guy - Donaldson - is there for a third time,” Rieckhoff said. “This guy became an officer. About a quarter of my guys got divorced. Some are in college. One committed suicide a couple of months after he got back. That’s part of what drove me to start this group.”

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ANOTHER VIEW OF EDUCATIONAL CRISIS, AND A FIX

THE GRIM NEWS of the city’s high dropout rate (45 percent) and low numbers of people with college degrees (18 percent) is even grimmer considering we’re seeing a similar troubling trend in the military.

The National Priorities Project, a research group that analyzes federal data, found that only 71 percent of Army recruits had earned regular high-school diplomas, about 20 percentage points away from its target of 90 percent.

This has far-reaching implications on the battlefields and the homefront, but there is one silver lining: Congress can use it to spur positive action by adapting a 21st-century version of the G.I. Bill.

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In his 2008 State of the Union address, President Bush is expected to focus heavily on the state of the sluggish economy and how to stimulate it, now and beyond. But as Washington wrangles over how best to do this, our leaders have largely overlooked a proven strategy for growth that promises more than immediate relief: a new GI Bill.

When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt signed the original GI Bill in 1944, he ensured that eight million World War II veterans would be able to afford an education. The GI Bill gave many of our nation’s leaders their start, including Presidents Gerald Ford, George H.W. Bush, and former Senators Bob Dole, George McGovern, and Pat Moynihan, to name just a few. Additionally, the GI Bill educated 14 Nobel Prize winners and two dozen Pulitzer Prize winners, including authors Joseph Heller, Norman Mailer, and Frank McCourt.

Aside from furthering the education of many veterans, the GI Bill reinvented America after a half-decade of war, and helped to prevent a looming economic crisis. The government’s investment in the GI Bill resulted in higher national productivity, consumer spending, and tax revenue. More impressively, every dollar spent on educational benefits for the Greatest Generation added seven dollars to the national economy.

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Buying a home now may be an option for more Ohio veterans. A temporary exemption allows veterans who may have owned a home in the past three years to qualify under the Ohio Housing Finance Agency’s (OHFA) First-Time Homebuyer Program.

Traditionally, borrowers qualify for the program by: being a first-time homebuyer, not owning their principle residence for at least three years, or purchasing a home in a targeted area.

“We are proud to offer this extended flexibility and the opportunity for homeownership to veterans who have served our country,” said Doug Garver, Executive Director for the Agency. “This exception allows us to further our mission of opening the doors to an affordable place to call home for even more Ohioans.”

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Grand Rapids - With the problems in the housing market around the country, foreclosures are on the rise. That includes some homes financed with loans through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. But, one activist organization doesn’t think the VA is properly managing those properties.

The Department of Veterans Affairs guarantees some home loans for veterans and members of the military. But if a veteran’s home is foreclosed, the VA is left with the house.

The VA contracts with a private company to manage and sell those houses. A report by the non-partisan Government Accountability Office, or GAO, is critical of how the company manages the properties.

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A retired soldier who encountered a paperwork foul-up when he tried to get his GI Bill benefits has learned he will receive those benefits - without having to produce an obscure document from 21 years ago.

“We have resolved the issue,” said Department of Veterans Affairs spokesman Steve Westerfeld, noting that the Defense Manpower Data Center has confirmed that retired Army Sgt. 1st Class Jim Kimmel is eligible for Montgomery GI Bill benefits.

When VA officials told him last November that it would be late February or March before the problem would be resolved, Kimmell said, he realized he couldn’t afford to go to school “just hoping they’ll get it ironed out some day.” By the time the problem was resolved, it was too late for him to start the latest semester.

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