VA Home Loan Update for Travis Air Force Base Personnel

Are you currently stationed at Travis Air Force Base? Do you plan to buy a home in Solano County, maybe in the Vacaville or Fairfield area? Do you need a mortgage loan to help finance your purchase?

If you answered yes to these questions, your educational journey begins here!

We created this special report for Travis Air Force Base personnel who are thinking of buying a home in Vacaville, Fairfield, or elsewhere in Solano County. It contains important updates on the VA loan program, along with an updated look at real estate market conditions across Solano County, California.

VA Loan Changes for Travis Air Force Base Personnel

There have been some important changes to the VA loan program in recent months, and they could anyone from Travis Air Force Base who is planning to buy a home in the area.

The first major change was the removal of VA loan limits for most borrowers who use this program. We covered this development in a separate blog post (“New Rules for California VA Loans in 2020“), so let’s boil it down to the short version.

New legislation that took effect in January 2020 eliminated the previous size restrictions for VA loans. In the past, borrowers who wanted to use this program to buy a home with no down payment were limited to a certain loan amount. But those restrictions were eliminated for most borrowers, with the passage of the “Blue Water Navy Vietnam Veterans Act of 2019.”

Don’t let the “Navy” title fool you. This act applies to all military members who use a VA loan to buy a home, including Air Force personnel from Travis AFB or elsewhere.

If you’ve never used a VA loan before, or if you’ve used one but paid off the mortgage entirely when selling the home, there is no longer a government-imposed loan limit. This means it’s entirely up to the mortgage lender to determine how much you can borrow.

Note: If you have an active VA loan that you’re still paying back, or you’ve paid one off in full but still own the home, the old limits may still apply to you. There are other scenarios where they still apply as well. Ask us if you’re not sure.

But for most Air Force personnel who use the VA loan program to buy a home in 2020, there are no more government-imposed limits to worry about.

You can learn more about this new legislation on VA.gov.

A Great Program for a Pricey Real Estate Market

The change mentioned above is an important development, when you consider the relatively expensive nature of the Solano County real estate market. While home prices in Solano County are lower than places like San Francisco and San Jose, they’re still quite a bit higher than the national average.

As a result, Air Force home buyers often seek ways to reduce their up-front costs, when buying a home near Travis AFB. And that’s where the VA loan program comes into play. This long-running program enables Air Force personnel to buy a home with no money down — and without paying mortgage insurance.

The removal of VA loan limits (for most borrowers) is another positive step for a program that already offers many advantages to borrowers.

Mortgage Rates Hovering Near a Historic Low

Let’s move on to talk about mortgage rates. Lately, there has been nothing but good news for borrowers on this front. The average rate for a 30-year fixed mortgage loan has been hovering below 3% for the past few weeks. It was at 2.9% when this article was published, on September 30, 2020.

Numbers like these are hard to grasp when they’re out of context. To get a better sense of how low today’s rates really are, let’s look at the past three years.

The chart above shows the average rate for a 30-year fixed home loan (the most popular mortgage option) over the past three years or so. The right side of the chart ends at the week of September 24, 2020.

As you can see, rates are significantly lower today than they have been in years. In fact, that low point you see in early August (over on the right) represents the lowest average mortgage rate over the previous 50 years! It was a record setter, and rates are still hovering in that low range.

Here’s the bottom line to this. If you’re currently serving in the Air Force at Travis AFB — and you plan to use a VA loan to buy a home in or around Solano County — you couldn’t have chosen a better time. Rates are hovering near historic lows and VA loan limits have been removed for most borrowers.

Related: VA loan rate outlook for 2021

Solano County Home Prices Rising in 2020

You might think a global pandemic and a partial economic shutdown would send home prices south. That’s a logical assumption. In fact, we’ve seen quite the opposite over the past few months. House values in the area have shown surprising strength throughout the public-health crisis.

Home prices within Solano County, the broader Bay Area and statewide have continued to climb, despite the COVID-19 pandemic. This should ease the fears and concerns of anyone planning to buy a home in Solano County, including home buyers from Travis Air Force Base.

In fact, the Solano County real estate market is currently behaving as if COVID never happened. Properties are selling quickly due to strong demand from home buyers, and inventory remains well below the national average. It’s a competitive market, any way you look at it.

According to a September 2020 report from the California Association of Realtors, the median sale price for existing single-family homes in Solano County rose 12% from August 2019 to August 2020.

The current median house value in the county is around $500,000, as of late September 2020. A recent prediction from the housing market research team at Zillow suggested that home prices in Solano County would “rise 3.4% within the next year.”