What Makes the Best VA Mortgage Lender, and Why PBT Bancorp Fits

What makes a VA lender the best one for you

A VA loan is one of the strongest home loan benefits a Veteran can use, but the lender you take it to changes everything about how that benefit actually plays out. The VA backs the loan, however the VA does not set your credit floor, your closing costs, or how fast you get to the table, so two lenders working the exact same VA program can hand you two very different deals. The best VA mortgage lender is the one that knows the program well enough to use every part of it for you, can work with your real credit profile instead of an inflated minimum, and does not bury your savings in fees on the way out the door.

At PBT Bancorp we have spent decades working with Veterans, active-duty service members, National Guard and Reserve members, and surviving spouses, and we have helped over 3,000 families find a home or refinance and save money. We are also an FDIC member bank and a wholesale broker with access to more than 35 wholesale lenders, so when we price your loan we are shopping it across that whole network rather than handing you one rate and hoping you take it.

Flexible credit is where VA lenders really differ

Something many Veterans do not realize is that the VA itself has no minimum credit score, so every score requirement you run into comes from the lender, not the government. Most lenders set their floor at 640 or higher, which quietly shuts out a lot of families who would qualify just fine under VA guidelines. We have lenders who accept credit scores as low as 500 on VA purchases and cash-out refinances, which means we can often help borrowers a bigger lender already turned away. Of course, the higher your score, the better your pricing will typically be, but a lower score does not automatically close the door the way it does almost everywhere else.

On the refinance side we go a step further with our No Score VA IRRRL program. There is no credit score required at all, the only requirement is that you have been no more than 1x 30 days late in the past 12 months. That program lets us close loans that most other lenders are simply not able to do.

Speed and closing costs separate the good from the rest

Many lenders take up to 30 days to close a VA loan, or longer, but at PBT Bancorp we are able to close in 2 to 3 weeks from start to finish, sometimes faster if your timeline requires it. When you are coordinating a move or trying to lock a rate, those extra weeks matter.

This may be a surprise for many Veterans, but oftentimes the larger the lender the higher the closing costs are. Big national lenders carry big overhead, and that overhead lands on your settlement statement. Because we shop your loan across more than 35 wholesale lenders, we work hard to find the best deal available rather than defaulting to one rate sheet, and that usually means lower closing costs for you.

Use the full VA benefit the way it was meant to work

The best VA lender also makes sure you keep every advantage the program was built to give you. With full entitlement there is no down payment for most eligible buyers, and there is never any private mortgage insurance (PMI) the way conventional and FHA loans require, so your monthly payment stays lower for the life of the loan. The VA also limits what lenders can charge you, and there is no prepayment penalty if you want to pay the loan down early or refinance later. A lender who understands all of this protects those benefits for you instead of treating your VA loan like any other mortgage.

We are licensed in all 50 states, so wherever your service has taken you, we can work with you. If you want to find out where you stand, give us a call at 800-697-4371 or complete our online pre-qualification form and we can usually tell you in about 15 minutes. Pick the lender who treats your benefit like they understand what it took to earn it.

Picking a VA lender, the questions that matter