Best VA Loans
Based on In-Depth Reviews

Best for the First-Time Homebuyer

With over twelve-thousand VA loans issued in 2018, around 8% of the entire VA loan market, Veterans United is the largest originator of VA loans in the United States. And there’s a good reason why they are the lender of choice for so many veterans and active servicemembers. With VA loans as the sole focus of their business, Veterans United concentrates on providing unparalleled customer service and guidance for the first-time home buyer.

The experience for Veteran United’s customers begins on their website, an outstanding resource for easy-to-understand explanations of how the VA loan program works, the terminology of mortgages, and solid advice for homeowners. Veterans United provides those looking to buy a home for the first-time the kind of concise and straightforward language that can educate anyone quickly and assist borrowers in avoiding unnecessary expenses and worry.

Veterans United offers exceptional online educational resources.
Screen shot of veteransunited.com, May 3, 2019.

Veterans United has over 2,400 employees, who are dedicated to helping borrowers from those initial questions about the loan process all the way through the closing of the sale and beyond. While the qualifications of eligibility for a VA loan are broad, there are still plenty of exceptions, based on when, where, and how long the military personnel served. Because of their familiarity with all aspects of the VA loan program, Veterans United are experts in not only determining eligibility for the applicants, but in helping its customers secure a loan with the lowest expenses and fees.

Exceptional Online Resources

Veterans United was started in 2002 with a handful of employees in Columbia, Missouri. To serve a veteran and servicemember community that lives throughout the country and serves overseas, Veterans United uses the accessibility of the internet to give its customers easy, round-the-clock access to its network of loan specialists. It also provides an educational resource that is second to none.

With instructional thoroughness that resembles a well-taught class, Veterans United’s website is a fine resource for getting ready for homeownership, learning about the VA Loan process, finding the right home, staying within one’s budget, and facing challenges as a homeowner.

Veterans United has several handy VA loan calculators.
Screen shot of veteransunited.com, May 3, 2019.

In addition to well-written articles and informative videos, Veterans United offers calculators that are specific to VA loans. There are multiple calculators to help applicants prepare and budget for their home purchase. These online tools offer borrowers the ability to calculate monthly loan payments, how much home they can afford, and the loan limit specific to the county where the home is located.

Expert Military-Focused Support 

As a business dedicated to serving the military community, Veterans United understands the ins and outs of the VA loan program. The company is ingrained with the military culture that their customers come from. With an advisory board made up of former military men and women, Veterans United is aware of the commitments, sacrifice, and demands of the armed forces and the options under the VA loan available to its veterans.

Knowing that servicemembers serving overseas maintain much different hours than in the United States, Veterans United maintains 24/7 customer support for its customers. In addition to making their representatives available round the clock via phone and email, Veterans United has 23 physical branch locations in 18 states, many of which are near active military installations.

Perhaps nothing speaks more highly of Veterans United’s commitment to excellent customer support than the tens of thousands of positive reviews the company receives every year. The overwhelmingly enthusiastic feedback – on several websites -- indicates that the company has a winning formula for assisting first-time homebuyers with the VA loan process and for helping VA loan refinance customers as well.

For applicants whose credit may still not be strong enough for VA loan, Veterans United offers their Lighthouse Program, a free, no-obligation credit repair service to assist service members and veterans to reduce their debt and improve their credit profile. The Lighthouse Program is yet another example of a company culture that goes the extra mile to assist military families.

Best for Customer Service

Rocket Mortgage is Quicken’s primary mobile portal to its mortgage services. It caters to customers who prefer to do business entirely online. But for those who prefer a more personal touch--to talk to a real human both when shopping for and servicing a loan--Quicken is the clear choice, with its focus on traditional customer service methods.

Quicken is the second largest mortgage originator in America by volume. That size translates into serious expertise. Quicken was the 4th largest lender of VA loans in the 4th quarter of 2018, issuing almost nine thousand loans totalling more than $2 billion. Given the high volume of VA loans issued by both Quicken and Rocket, either option brings with it superior knowledge of a complicated process. Quicken, though, will literally talk you through it every step of the way.

As the original website upon which both services were built, the Quicken site contains useful mortgage calculator tools and today’s interest rates. The Rocket site doesn’t include these features.

On March 30, 2020, the company addressed how the coronavirus pandemic might affect the mortgage process in some areas. It stated:

"Even though shelter-in-place orders are in effect in many areas of the country, the mortgage process can still continue. Appraisers, closing agents and other people who need to enter your home can still do so under the shelter-in-place order. In some cases, we even have alternative ways to complete these parts of the process that don’t require entering the home.

We’ve made a slight adjustment to our rate lock process to accommodate shelter-in-place orders. Under normal circumstances, you’d lock your rate before underwriting begins. In areas where shelter-in-place orders are in effect, we can’t offer long rate locks because everything is changing so rapidly. If you’re in one of these areas, you’ll simply lock your rate closer to closing day."

Best Online and App Experience

Rocket Mortgage launched in 2016 as a fully-online mortgage experience. Rocket’s signature mobile app offers customers loan numbers at an early stage of the application process that come very close to those of the final loan package. Consumers benefit from having specific and near-accurate numbers when they’re shopping for a loan. However, no loan terms are ever settled until a final contract has been signed. Outside factors beyond anyone’s control can and will affect the interest rate and other aspects of the loan. Though its calculators offer more precise cost estimates than those offered by their competitors, Rocket Mortgage’s quote numbers should still not be treated as written in stone.

The central feature of the Rocket Mortgage experience is the ability to assemble a loan package entirely online, minimizing the need for human interaction. In fact, the response to the Rocket Mortgage website’s FAQ “Will I have to talk to anyone if I apply online?” is a reassuring statement implying that, in most cases, the process can be done entirely online. For those who desire a more human approach, there is an option to speak directly to a loan specialist at every step of the process. We like the flexibility this “choose your own adventure” approach to applying for a loan offers consumers.

Rocket Mortgage's app offers a incredibly streamlined mortgage application process.
Screen shot, May 7, 2019.

The application process as we tested it on the app is straightforward; asking bite-sized questions about your loan needs and goals, personal assets, credit score, and other pertinent loan information in nine short sections. If you have all the answers at hand, the process takes less than five minutes. Keep in mind that the more accurate you are with the information you input, the more precisely the final loan package will be tailored to your needs.

Though not centered specifically around VA loans, Rocket Mortgage provides useful and informative articles on this and other topics across both web portals. During the information-gathering phase of VA loan shopping, customers can expect to be passed back and forth between the Rocket and Quicken sites. Though the information presented is solid, this repeated redirecting can sometimes be annoying.

Customer sentiment about Rocket is mixed, as is typical for banks. Still, it’s worth noting that we found more positive comments than negative. Customers who’ve had bad experiences with a company are usually far more willing to leave feedback than those who’ve had good experiences. The positive comments tended to commend Rocket for an efficient process and good customer support. The negative remarks focused on confusion over loan terms (which is a common criticism in the industry, considering mortgages are complicated products) and complaints over an impersonal touch, which is not surprising due to the company’s large size.

On March 30, 2020, Rocket addressed how the coronavirus pandemic might affect the mortgage process in some areas. It stated:

"Even though shelter-in-place orders are in effect in many areas of the country, the mortgage process can still continue. Appraisers, closing agents and other people who need to enter your home can still do so under the shelter-in-place order. In some cases, we even have alternative ways to complete these parts of the process that don’t require entering the home.

We’ve made a slight adjustment to our rate lock process to accommodate shelter-in-place orders. Under normal circumstances, you’d lock your rate before underwriting begins. In areas where shelter-in-place orders are in effect, we can’t offer long rate locks because everything is changing so rapidly. If you’re in one of these areas, you’ll simply lock your rate closer to closing day."

Best For In-Person VA Loan Applications

While many people find it convenient to apply for a VA loan through an app or a website, others prefer the personal touch. For those borrowers, CrossCountry Mortgage offers a large, widespread network of licensed loan officers who work face-to-face with their clients throughout the VA loan application process.

In recommending a company for its in-person experience, we put a lot of weight on the number, geographic distribution, and qualifications of the loan officers who can help with a VA loan. Strictly local or regional banks may have great in-person customer service, but their limited reach makes them unavailable to most prospective borrowers. Also, since a full-service bank offers many services besides mortgage lending, it may not have the number or quality of mortgage experts that a company that specializes in home loans has.

CrossCountry Mortgage impressed us with the quality of its service, its reputation, and—as its name implies—its national reach. The company uses a franchise model of mortgage brokers which allows them to set up shop in storefront offices in from coast to coast. CrossCountry has loan officers licensed in all 50 states and had physical offices throughout the country as well. Most veterans and active servicemembers are within easy distance of one.

The Advantages of the Personal Touch in VA Loans

One well-known study claims that as little as 7% of human communication is word-based, with the remaining 93% coming from tone, inflection, and body language. The exact percentage is open to debate, but the basic idea is sound. It makes sense, then, that in communicating about something as important as a mortgage, many people prefer a face-to-face interaction to a series of web forms, emails, and phone calls.

As we’ve noted, VA loans involve a paperwork burden on the applicant and the lender. In addition to the lender’s own forms, the state-required forms, and the underwriter-required forms, VA loans require Veterans Administration forms. For most people, filling out this paperwork is something they’ll do only once or twice in their lives—so it’s very helpful to have an expert guiding them through the process. The internet is a wonderful thing, but there are still things that some people want to handle in person. VA loan applications are one of them.

All CrossCountry Mortgage loan officers are licensed in the state they reside in—and many hold licenses in other states as well. In the second quarter of FY 2019, the company originated 714 VA loans for an average amount of $290,064. This represents significant growth, both in terms of mortgages approved and average amount, over the figures from the same quarter two years ago when CrossCountry issued 420 VA loans at an average of $273,428. These numbers suggest that the company’s in-person approach works for a lot of people.

Consumer feedback about the firm supports the notion that the personal touch is effective and appreciated. It’s unusual for a financial services company to have positive customer reviews at all, but CrossCountry Mortgage has many from people who were pleased with the personal relationship they developed with a lending officer who personally guided them through every stage of the VA loan process.