The Certificate of Eligibility: The Most Important Document in a VA Home Loan

I’m bringing back and revamping some of my older VA Friday videos — especially the ones from the first two years.

Why? Honestly, the content was great, but the video and sound quality… not so much. Think early 2000s low-budget movie vibes — and you deserve better. So, I’m upgrading everything.

Let’s start things off with a classic dad joke:

👉 How does a hamburger wear its hair?With a bun. 🍔 (Pew, pew, pew!)

Alright, now that we’ve lightened the mood, let’s dive into today’s important topic: The

Certificate of Eligibility (COE) — what it is, why it matters, and how to make sure you have it ready to go.

🎖️ What Is the Certificate of Eligibility (COE)?

The COE is your golden ticket to accessing your VA home loan benefits. It’s an official document from the VA that verifies you’re eligible for a VA loan.

Think of it like a diploma — it’s proof you’ve earned the right to use this incredible benefit. Without it, you simply can’t get a VA loan. It’s that black and white.

🛠️ When Should You Get Your COE?

The sooner, the better!

Your lender should pull this document before you even start house hunting.

Here’s the problem: I’ve seen countless deals almost fall apart because the original lender waited until the last minute to request the COE. In some cases, they even asked the buyer to get it themselves — a major red flag that they weren’t VA loan experts.

A VA-specialized lender should handle this upfront. Period.

🔥 How Do We Pull a COE?

It’s simpler than you think. All I need is:

• Your Social Security number

• Your year of birth

With that, I can log into the VA portal and pull the COE in seconds.

If the system doesn’t automatically generate one, I submit the necessary supporting documents — like a DD-214 or Reserve Point Statement — which usually takes about 5 business days to process.

✅ No guessing games.✅ No delays.✅ No “we’ll figure it out later” nonsense.

🔍 Real Estate Agents: What Should You Do With a COE?

If your client brings you a COE, you only need to do one thing:

👉 Verify their name matches their ID.

That’s it. The lender handles everything else.

And don’t stress about keeping it for records — COEs expire every 6 months and must be refreshed anyway.

💡 Pro Tip for Agents and Buyers

Before you start house hunting, ask your lender:

"Do you have the COE?"

This question is critical. If they don’t understand what you’re asking, run — they’re not VA loan experts.

A qualified VA lender will either:

1️⃣ Say yes — the COE is ready to go.2️⃣ Say no — but they’ve verified eligibility and submitted documents to the VA to generate it.

Anything else? 🚨 Red flag.

🎯 Why This Matters

I’ve seen buyers get pre-approved for $500K, only to find out later they only had $315K of VA loan entitlement left — because they were keeping their old VA loan on a house in Alaska while buying a new one in Washington.

They could technically afford the new house, but they didn’t have enough VA loan entitlement to go zero down — which was their original plan.

Situations like this happen when lenders skip the COE or don’t know how to read it correctly.

🔥 Don’t Let Call Center Lenders Ruin Your Deal

Many call center loan officers are salaried employees who don’t specialize in VA loans. They’re not financially or emotionally invested in your success — they’re focused on volume, not veterans.

Work with a VA loan expert.

If you don’t have one, I’d love to apply for the job.

Nuke out. 💥

Ready to learn more? Stay tuned — I’ll be dropping more revamped VA Fridays content soon!