VA honors Veterans United Home Loans' borrower as its official 24 millionth loan

June 11, 2019

The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs recognized Sergeant First Class William Kopf as its 24 millionth borrower as it celebrates 75 years of the VA home loan.

COLUMBIA, Mo. The U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs held its 75th VA Home Loan Celebration Wednesday in Washington D.C. and recognized Sergeant First Class William Kopf as its 24 millionth borrower. Kopf and his family closed on their new home in March in Northeastern Pennsylvania with Veterans United Home Loans, the nation's largest VA lender.

"To be recognized as the 24 millionth borrower among Veterans and service members is a tremendous honor," Kopf said. We like to think of buying a home as an adventure. This latest military move took us from Iowa to Northeastern Pennsylvania. We are fortunate that we had the team from Veterans United on the adventure with us. They know the VA loan inside and out.

The VA loan program has had record setting years in four of the last six years for VA loan volume. In FY2018, the VA guaranteed more than 610,000 home loans totaling more than $161 billion.

"This program has experienced exponential growth since the recession as more and more Veterans are turning to their home loan benefit," said Chris Birk, director of education at Veterans United Home Loans. Prior to the housing crash, VA represented about 2 percent of the market, now it represents nearly 12 percent.

Despite the VA loan's signature benefit of zero down, it has had the lowest foreclosure rate of any loan product for most of the past 12 years. Since 2009, through the collective efforts of VA staff and private-sector loan servicers, more than 851,000 loans have been saved from foreclosure. Over the time period these efforts have saved the U.S. taxpayer nearly $25.7 billion in claim costs.

The loan programs original mission remains at the heart of that growth, said Jeffrey F. London, Director of the Loan Guaranty Service. We've worked for 75 years to make sure this earned benefit provides Veterans opportunities they may not have otherwise had available.